Four ways to Disconnect with your employees

Four ways to Disconnect with your employees...

Good employee relations is marketing. To me HR, especially the employee relations aspect of it, has always has a marketing component to it. Human Resources should take lessons from Marketing. Marketing tries to alter consumer behavior and we in HR try to alter employee behavior. There are numerous lessons that can be applied to dealing with your employee populations. It is not just to your older workers but to all the generations you have in your workforce.

Lesson #1- Don’t disrespect their heroes

We each have our “heroes” that we look up to, listen to, follow, read or whatever. If we find that someone is “bad-mouthing” our heroes generally we take a dim view of that individual. Bad-mouthing a talk show host, or a TV show, or a politician, or a singer or whatever will start to build a barrier between you and the employee. You don’t have to like their “hero”, after all you are entitled to yours, but at the same time you don’t need to demean who they like. Everyone tries to relate qualities of their Heroes in you as a leader and when you start disrespecting theirs, eventually you are disrespecting yourself.

Lesson #2- Don’t assume you know their beliefs

Having misleading notion in assuming you know someone’s beliefs based upon the generational/cultural/gender category you believe they belong to. disagreeing with their predetermined beliefs can prove fatal for the team efficacy. Even twin brothers apart in age, considered to be in the same “generation” have vastly different beliefs in a number of areas. If they happened to work for the same company their employer would be making a major mistake in assuming they had similar wants, desires and beliefs. in marketing, it is important to understand your target audience beliefs and perceptions through continuous interaction and going out there, similarly to understand your employees belief, go out there and start interacting

Lesson #3- Don’t bother to learn something about their frame of reference

In marketing you need to have some idea of the frame of reference of your target market. It is just as important for HR to understand the various culture reference points for the employee groups they have under their roof. It will help to make communication easier and give you points on which you can craft a message to employees. Touch points or points of reference for each generation in your workforce should be studied and understood by HR.

Lesson #4- I don’t get No Respect

Respect is a basic human condition that many people feel should be given until proven otherwise. Others feel it should not be given until earned. I am in the former school. I was reared to respect people, their feelings and their property until they proved to me they were not worthy of it. If you took the time and effort to hire someone to work for you then you should afford them the respect they deserve. If you feel they don’t deserve it then don’t hire them. Respect is a condition that all good HR people should be aware of on a consistent basis. If you are not then you are asking for trouble. People don’t always use the word “respect.” They use words like harassment, discrimination, or bullying to express a lack of respect exhibited toward them and those words are expensive in time, effort and money.

So heed these four lessons from marketing rudiments and start seeing the employee group as a customer group and figure out how you can avoid disconnecting with them and ultimately driving them away. 

Author Bio:

Paras Khatri

Paras, born & brought up in city of dreams. A human Resource pro and a believer that having an active presence on social media will not only align you with professionals across industry & domain experts but also a platform to share your thoughts with them, which influenced me to become a blogger. A traveler, who wants to explore world, meet people and walk over no mans land. You can follow him on twitter  @paraskhatri .