You may think that skills and experience are the most important characteristics of your employees, but attitude is just as important. You may have great professional skills, but it’s your attitude that sees it through. In the workplace there are factors that constantly affect your employees’ attitude, and when they are affected, your business is affected too.
Large companies can afford to have an HR department that will manage these factors and keep employees satisfied and productive. But if your business is small, this responsibility falls on you and your managers. By positively managing the workplace, you can shape your employees’ attitudes and improve your company’s performance.
When employees have a negative attitude they are more likely to be disengaged and do their job with the least amount of effort and with little concern for the quality of their performance. Here are four areas of your company that are affected when an employee has a negative attitude.
Work Environment
Negativity in the workplace can make everything seem harder, decrease trust, block cooperation, decrease productivity, and create a negative ripple throughout your team. The stress caused by a negative coworker can affect individual employees, causing them to take more sick days or even decide to look for a different job, even if they enjoy the work they are doing.
Employees with positive attitudes feel connected, committed, and invested in the success of the company and are more productive than negative employees. A bad attitude coupled with a lack of concern for the company’s well-being is costly to a small business and should be taken seriously, because those same employees can easily become more productive simply by changing their attitude.
Helpfulness
It is important for employees to have a helpful attitude at work while assisting customers or helping coworkers achieve your company goals. An employee with a negative attitude often focuses solely on what they have to accomplish to get by. They don’t have a broader perspective of what is going on around them and won’t notice when the printer ink is low–or if they do, they won’t change it because it’s not their job. Not looking out for coworkers is inconsiderate and makes the other employees work harder and lowers the team morale.
The more helpful an employees is, the more likely they are to dive into every project with interest, willingly learn new skills, share ideas and work cohesively with other employees on projects and initiatives.
Client Interaction
Attitude really is everything when it comes to customer satisfaction and directly affects your business. An employee with a negative attitude may be disengaged from customers and view them as an annoyance, inconvenience and lack concern for their needs. They are less likely to solve problems, offer suggestions to the customer, keep the area clean or the inventory stocked. When an employee has a positive and engaged attitude it’s likely the customer will be satisfied, tell others about your service and create loyalty to your business.
Commitment to the Job
Small businesses that have negative employees have more to lose than a larger company because there are less people to balance out the negative. Poison seeping into a small pond is going to spread quicker than the same poison seeping into a large lake. Small businesses need committed employees who are willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill the duties of their positions, help their coworkers and other departments and even develop new ideas to make the company better. When committed individuals work together as a team towards company goals, everyone benefits.
Employees with a positive attitude don’t shy away from trying something new or finding a different way to do things. Small businesses need employees who can think outside of the box and innovate new ways to accomplish existing tasks and approach goals. Employees with optimistic attitudes know their ideas might not work out, but at least it’s worth giving it a shot.
Conclusion
In conclusion, attitudes are contagious, and it starts with you. Some people are naturally pessimistic but can still develop a positive attitude toward work if they are taught how. For example; teach your staff to approach every situation, positive or negative, as a puzzle instead of a problem. Curiosity is piqued when a puzzle is presented–it doesn’t matter if it’s a jigsaw puzzle, crossword, Sudoku, or Where’s Waldo–humans like a puzzle, and that’s all a problem is.
Model the attitude of “curiosity,” and “we will figure this out” rather than “not knowing is bad” or “problems are stressful,” and encourage your managers to build on it. Soon it will rub off on employees and create a positive, helpful, and productive atmosphere.
