Dear Readers,

Thank you all for your interest in my book, One Foot Out the Door, and for visiting my website. This is an open forum for ideas, thoughts, questions and I hope we create a really interesting and worthwhile dialogue with lots of participants.

I would like to address a few common questions about the fundamental pillars of One Foot Out the Door. Following are a number of FAQs:

1. Why should managers and executives pay attention to non-engaged employees and the Psychological Recession?

How people feel determines to a very large extent what people do. Too many people are being affected by the Psychological Recession, the depressed and anxious sense that the president is no good and the future will be worse and nobody cares that you’re hanging in a cold wind. To a large extent these feelings are based on employees feeling they are no longer stakeholders in the companies they work for, while anxiety and stress dominate the workplace.

Cutting costs in the form of salaries, benefits, pensions, vacations, sick days, etc. is an extremely dangerous long-term strategy because when companies stop caring about their employees, employees stop caring about their companies and profits decline because customers as well as employees leave or cease caring.  Fear and apprehension are contagious, and can spread throughout an organization like wildfire. The American Management Association conducted a survey of companies that had reduced payroll, and reported that only 45 percent of those companies had profited from those actions within a year, and one third reported a decline in employee morale.

 The true cost of a disengaged employee is huge. According to the Gallop Organization, “the lower productivity of disengaged workers costs the U.S. economy about %300 billion a year.” That money is coming from your companies when your employees are de-motivated.

 2. What can managers do to make effective and positive change?

 As the Gallup Organization says, people stay in an organization but leave their boss. Managers can improve their relationships with subordinates even without a change in the organization’s culture.  The key words are trust and respect.  Relationships between bosses and subordinates should involve reciprocal trust and respect akin to that between a teacher and an able student.  These relationships can be friendly, but not in the usual sense of the word.  Friends don’t judge each other, but a boss must make judgments about performance and abilities.  Trust is a huge asset, whereas mistrust is an enormous liability.  Trust requires genuine communication, and trust is created when people feel that someone’s word is his or her bond.  An effective manager needs to be true to their word, and ensure that communication between themselves and their subordinates is both comfortable and honest.

Managers can improve relationships with subordinates by engaging with people as individuals, in regards basically to working conditions, career moves, forms of recognition,.  Hiring to create a Best Fit between an employee and the organization will help both to succeed.  Tables 9.1 and 9.2 on pages 124-126 of One Foot Out the Door are a wonderful resource to help align company goals with employee goals.  There is a much greater chance for success if organizational requirements and an employee’s desires are compatible.

Changing the perception of employees from costs to assets requires executive leadership and buy-in, and therefore strategy as well as conviction.

3.   What should managers do since they are usually more attuned to employee alienation than executives because they have daily interactions with subordinates, and may be much more energized in regards to this issue than are their executives?

Managers should find allies among executives and bring the book and associated material to the attention of executives who are already aligned with the goal.  Those executives can bring the book’s data and ideas to the executive group as a whole.

Effectiveness requires widespread buy-in among executives and a percent of managers.  To achieve true success, there must be collaboration between the needs of executives, management and subordinates.  Common goals will result in enduring partnerships and produce a work environment that is well prepared to generate profit.

 I encourage everyone to respond to my blogs or inquire about my book, One Foot Out the Door, which can be purchased at www.amazon.com

Sincerely,

Judith M. Bardwick, Ph.D.