Strategies to Improve Employee Relations

For the organization to perform better it is important that the employees are comfortable with each other, share a good rapport and work in close coordination towards a common objective. People feel responsible and motivated to do good work and enjoy their work rather than taking it as a burden.

It is important that the management promotes healthy employee relations at workplace to extract the best out of each individual. Competition is essential but it should not promote negativity or any kind of enmity among the employees.

Let us go through some steps and strategies for a healthy employee relationship in the organization.

• Involve your team members: They should feel important and indispensable for the organization. An individual must be assigned responsibilities according to their interests and responsibilities. Don’t impose work on them. Let them willingly accept challenges. They must enjoy whatever they do otherwise they would end up fighting with their superiors and fellow workers.

• Encourage individuals to share their work with each other: This way people tend to talk with each other more, discuss things among themselves and thus the comfort level increases. Let them work together and take decisions on their own. A team leader should intervene only in extreme cases of conflicts and severe misunderstandings.

• Assign them targets and ask all your team members to contribute equally and achieve the target within the desired time frame. Motivate them to work in groups. This way employees have no other choice than to trust their fellow workers and take each other’s help as well. An employee must have the liberty to express his ideas and all of them should sit together to decide on something which would be beneficial to all.

• One should try his level best that all the employees must have their lunch together at the same time. Half an hour to fourty five minutes must be dedicated to lunch and one should not discuss work during lunch time. There are other topics as well. Discuss movies, sports, shopping or any other thing under the sun. There will be no harm if the employees go out together once in a while for get togethers, picnics or shopping. Ask them to bring their family members as well.

• Encourage effective communication among the team members. It has been observed that poor communication leads to confusions and misunderstandings. The communication has to be precise and relevant. One should not play with words and be very specific about his expectations from his fellow workers as well as the organization. If you are not very happy with your colleague’s proposal, don’t keep things to yourself. Voice your opinion and do express your displeasure. It will definitely prevent a conflict among employees later and improve the relations among them. Be straightforward. Don’t pretend things just to please your boss. If you find anything unacceptable, discuss with your superior but in a polite way.

• Written modes of communication must be promoted among the employees for better transparency. Verbal communication is not as reliable as written communication. The agendas, minutes of the meeting, important issues must be circulated among all through emails. Make sure that all the related employees are in the loop. Don’t communicate individually with any of the employees as the other one might feel neglected and left out.

• Morning meeting is another effective way to improve the relation among the employees. Let everyone come together on a common platform and discuss whatever issues they have. The meetings must not be too formal. Allow the team members to bring their cups of coffee. Start your day with a positive mind. Greet everyone with a warm smile. Exchange greetings and compliments. If any of your team member is not in a pleasant mood, do take the initiative and ask what is wrong with him. Try your level best to provide him a solution.

• Organize birthday parties, Christmas parties, New Year parties etc. at the workplace. These small initiatives actually go a long way in strengthening the bond among the employees. Ask all of them to decorate the office, their work stations and make all the necessary arrangements themselves. You will actually be surprised to find out that everyone would be ready with some thing or the other. Employees would actually take the initiative and organize things on their own. Let them enjoy with each other and have fun.

  Praise the individual if he has done something exceptionally well. Reward him suitably. The names of the top performers must be displayed on the notice boards for others to draw inspiration from them. Encourage everyone to perform well to live up to the expectations of the superiors as well as the management.

A healthy relation among employees promotes a positive ambience at the work place and employees feel happy and satisfied at work. They look forward to going to office daily and also work hard to realize their team’s as well as organization’s goals.