I've known for some time that work ethic makes a rather gigantic difference in performance amongst peers. In fact, one of the things I'm most proud of is my work ethic, and it's a huge part of the reason I've come as far in my career as I have.
Lately, though, my career has taken a turn in the direction of being in charge of other people, and this has really given me a new perspective on work ethic. It was one thing to look at peers and think about their work ethic and compare it to my own, criticize it, or try to learn from it, etc. It's a completely different thing to have to manage people of incredibly varying degrees of work ethic.
Earlier this month I had two employees rotate out of my department, and two new ones rotate in. Both are doing fairly well, but one has gone above and beyond and in less than a month has shown more ability in this position than many of the employees that have been working in this position for years. The biggest difference between this new employee and others currently working in my department appears to be her optimism and her work ethic, and it's really what got me started on thinking about this topic.
Realistically, I'm here because I need advise. I've been reading a lot about managing and attitudes and emotional intelligence, but I'm struggling to translate some of that into what has become a fairly hostile environment with one of my employees. The biggest issue with this employee is a major lack of work ethic. When asked to step into a different role with more responsibility instead of coasting along in an easy role that allowed a ton of down time, the employee became bitter. Now, that bitter attitude has ballooned outward from dislike of me and my decision to a general anger at, well, seemingly everyone, and work is being affected in multiple areas as a result.
I can't take back my decision at this point; not only would that negatively affect those others who were moved, but it would show that I'm willing to cave if someone throws a hissy fit long enough, and that's not the example I want to set so early in my tenure as a supervisor. However, I can't ignore the fact that this is negatively impacting our department, and also spilling over to other departments at this point. Discipline is difficult because union employees have certain protections in place, and, long story short, I basically have to witness a pretty egregious activity in order to make any headway there. The employee in question has been savvy enough to ensure that the only time attitudes get out of hand are with other union employees while no supervisors are present, leaving HR in the role of arbitrating a "he-said-she-said" situation, which rarely ends in the appropriate disciplinary actions.
I'm at a loss. How can I work to motivate my employees, many of whom really are trying their best, to keep going in the face of adversity? How can I motivate this particular employee to live up to the standards? I've tried multiple positive reinforcement tactics with no results.
Taking a quick tangent, no talk on work ethic would be complete without a quick glance at the COVID situation. I'm unsure how other companies are handling it (though my anecdotal evidence makes it seem similar to my employer), but my employer is being incredibly cautious, which is leading to some poor consequences. A number of employees are willing to call and say that they are potentially exposed because they know that, best case scenario, they'll get up to two weeks off from work without consequence. Sure, we ask them to get tested and return to work if negative, but they can drag their feet on the testing and ensure they go to a center where results take 3-5 days, and suddenly they're off for two weeks, anyhow, just "waiting for the ability to test," then waiting for results. I am fully aware of one employee who outright told other employees that they did this because they had no vacation time left and wanted some time off around the holiday. However, due to company policy being so stringent about ensuring to the best of our ability that no spread occurs under our roof, there are no repercussions for doing this.
I bring this up because it's a huge smack in the face of work ethic. The only people I would think would be willing to give up two weeks of pay for the chance to sit at home and "wait" for test results would be people without a good work ethic. Employees get ample vacation time throughout the year, along with extra personal time given for a number of reasons, which should give them the ability to take as much time as is needed away from work to keep themselves healthy and recharge as needed. In fact, some of the employees that have been with the company the longest have four to six weeks' worth of vacation, plus those extra personal days that are awarded throughout the year. Behavior like this basically guarantees that the individuals' career will stagnate, but the employees who are willing to participate in this behavior don't seem to care all that much about their careers advancing any farther than they have already. That is just a foreign concept to me.
This brings me back to: I need help learning how to increase work ethic in people I work with. Plenty of management books teach of ways to get people to listen and perform, but I have not come across one yet that discusses ways to increase work ethic, including one called Reviving Work Ethic. I'm at a loss and it's having a serious effect on business at this point.
