It’s only human to let your work frustrate you. We make mistakes, we learn from them, but some mistakes can be costly if you don’t know how to maneuver around the mistake or remedy it. Mistakes are a part of human nature, but in the long run mistakes can not only cost you your job, but it can also cost you your business. This is why is pays to know what you’re doing at all times. Individuals graduate from Business School, but often times they do not fit the criteria for Human Resources Management, but rather they know how to run a business, do the books, drive sales and so forth. This ensues the problem: how effective are you with communicating with and retaining your staff?

This week we sat down with an employee in the service industry in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. Let’s call the employee Clarissa. As a long-time employee in the service industry, Clarissa worked in her respective field for roughly ten years. She’s seen employees come and go at her establishment almost as if the entrance had been a revolving door for employees. Many times starting out she would scratch her head with regards to why her workplace had been going through so many staff, but later learned why and where the issues had been occurring. The following is an in-depth look at Clarissa’s situation:

“People do not leave their jobs, they leave their management,” says Clarissa. In her experience she explains that the employees in her workplace are more so a number to the establishment and that you’re easily replaced if you do not ‘gel’ with the status quo of the management. She continues that there had always been an issue with the communication between staff and management where the management didn’t quite take the employees concerns seriously. This played hand-in-hand with the issue that the management had been overworked and couldn’t pertain to their regular duties as a manager would. The daunting stress on management had trickled down to the employees in the workplace making it a toxic place to work to earn an income that was greatly needed by many, especially those who worked to provide a stable income for their families.

“Throughout the years it’s been difficult, though I had to make ends meet,” she says. “In the course of my ten years in the workplace it’s become a large issue for not only myself, but others that management would hire their friends based upon their relationship compared to their qualifications. This would severely limit workplace capabilities where staff would go untrained, or staff wouldn’t listen to the other employees or trainers because they didn’t feel they had to tend to anyone else’s needs besides their friend who’s the manager.”

The situation described above is a heartache for people like Clarissa because after working for an establishment for so long, she looked forward to getting a raise or at least a bump up to a higher position or job title in her field, but it never happened. Time-after-time, position-after-position, Clarissa watched her employees (who happened to be the friends of the manager) get promoted quickly to higher paying positions than her. This left her frustrated, but also left her feeling hopeless in the job she’s learned to love and call home for the last ten years. Many would beg the question why Clarissa would stay at the establishment, but having so much experience in her particular job field there wasn’t any other place to go that she could work in the same field. Clarrisa says “I had bills to pay and a family to provide for while doing the only thing I felt confident in doing.”

“We’re supposed to get a review after a year of working at our establishment, but not one of the staff has ever received one to my knowledge. I say this because I’ve never received one when promised, and none of the other employees have received one when it came up in conversation.” When review time comes, the manager is supposed to sit down with the employee in their office where they are supposed to communicate with the employee about their strengths and weaknesses since their time of being hired. “Depending on how the staff member has conducted their self during that time, it is in their contract that they are to get a raise in their pay, but sadly this has never happened except for the friends of the management,” she reveals. This is particularly true because in the contract it states that the employee is to get a pay raise with every ‘promotion.’

Sometimes Clarissa has to conduct 16 hours of work in her regular 8 hour shift. Since starting her position, she’s noticed a change in this type of activity. What started out to be her dream job turned into a nightmare where throughout the years the establishment seemed to have fell to hard times like many other businesses where the economy started to falter. “In one case my general manager told me that I wasn’t considered for a bump in job status because they preferred to hire workers outside of the country to come in to be a manager at the establishment because it was going to save them in the end.” She couldn’t blame the employer for wishing to do this because of the hard times in the economy, though she felt stuck for a lack of future, not to mention she felt for the other employees in her home area, especially those who were indigenous like herself. For Clarissa it’s important for First Nations people to be recognized and hired in the workplace when going through a hiring process.

It’s not so much about racism in the workplace, she says, but it was more so about the economy once again. She often wondered what her workplace would be like if her establishment had specific perimeters in place for hiring and retaining staff. Interestingly enough, over the course of the last decade there had been no Human Resources measures in place where the manager or owner of the establishment had done the bulk of their work their self, though they were not trained in the Human Resources field.

Clarissa says that she only wished that people would listen to her grievances in the past. After working for a place so long she couldn’t help but want to stay as she didn’t want to throw away the last ten years of her life and start fresh. Many employees in many workplaces may have felt this way at some point in time. She continued to say that a simple Human Resources manager would have remedied the issue quite some time ago, though management felt they couldn’t afford the investment. Oddly enough, the establishment spent multitudes of money in training employees all to see the establishment lose employees quite often. This would be her reasoning for feeling like most employees there had been disposable like a package of plastic plates that could be used a few times, then discarded once they got dirty enough.

If you feel pressure in your workplace as an establishment owner or operator, then your business would surly benefit from hiring a Human Resources Manager. Here at BlueSky Business Consulting, we provide the following services that would have helped to remedy much of the issues listed above. It’s important that we help to remedy any foreseeable issues from the start and even have parameters in place in case any unforeseeable issues may arise in the future. When you’re not prepared for the worst, things can get bad in a hurry and that usually results in loss of staff, revenue and sales which all add to the overall quality and credibility of a business or workplace.

Here are our suggestions:

HUMAN RESOURCES

At BlueSky Business Consulting we provide strategic Human Resources support and advice to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) to help align the company’s operational and Human Resources goals and policies. This will help ensure there is a maximum return on investment and increase efficiency and profitability. We will assess your current HR structure and capacity, provide you with recommendation for the future, identify the gaps and then help develop HR strategies which will align and support your company’s strategic policies and procedures. We will focus our attention on policy development, employment relationship, performance management, training, reward and recognition, recruitment and employee relations. BlueSky Business Consulting is experienced and can provide our clients with the following services:

• Performance Management
• Strategic HR Planning
• HR Policies & Procedures
• Recruitment & Retention Strategies
• Rewards & Recognition Program
• Change Management
• Training & Development
• Compensation & Benefits
• Employment Legislation
• Workplace Investigations

CRISIS MANAGEMENT

With significant experience in emergency response, including fatal air plane crashes, we have the crisis management skills for all sorts of situations. We are calm, cool, collected, and methodical in our thinking to help make decisions on behalf of your company.

Whether you need advice for a crisis or dealing with labor disputes, BlueSky Business Consulting has the experience and skill set necessary to make sure your company makes the best possible decision during those challenging times.

Our founder’s public relations experience combined with proven leadership with the 9/11 crisis and military operational security training exercises at the Goose Bay Airport are necessary attributes BlueSky Business Consulting will provide to your company for any crisis of any size.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

At BlueSky Business Consulting we provide strategic Human Resources support and advice to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) to help align the company’s operational and Human Resources goals and policies. This will help ensure there is a maximum return on investment and increase efficiency and profitability.

LABOUR RELATIONS

We will assess your current HR structure and capacity, provide you with recommendation for the future, identify the gaps and then help develop HR strategies which will align and support your company’s strategic policies and procedures. We will focus our attention on policy development, employment relationship, performance management, training, reward and recognition, recruitment and employee relations.