I once spoke with a busy and beleaguered Chief Executive Officer and asked her to outline the two greatest challenges that her business faces on an ongoing basis. After a few seconds of contemplation, she sighed deeply and said, “If it wasn’t for those demanding customers and those hard to manage employees, things would be pretty good around here!” The scary part of our conversation is that she was serious!

Managing employees in today’s complex workplaces is no easy task and promoting positive employee engagement is a very difficult challenge. The following major issues, if left unresolved over a period of time, will send employees looking for help. Often help comes in the form of seeking union representation or outright leaving.

1. Poor Supervision or Management
To the employee, their immediate supervisor “is” the company. If their immediate supervisor has effective leadership and supervisory skills and treats employees with respect and dignity, employees are likely to be satisfied and more productive. If they don’t they will become highly dissatisfied and performance will quickly suffer.

2. Confusing or Unclear Organization Structure
Clear reporting relationships are essential for success. If the organization structure is unclear and employees receive mixed or confused directions and instructions, conflict and inefficiency will result. Many organizations assume employees will just figure it out! Not so!

3. Lack of Communication
Employees frequently indicate that they do not get timely or accurate information about matters that directly impact them in the workplace. Some employees even report that they learn about important developments affecting their workplace from others who are not even part of their workplace!

4. Unclear Goals and Objectives
Employees often feel that their organization does not routinely share information relating to overall goals and direction. When this condition occurs, employees are susceptible to feeling uncertain about the future of the organization and about their own employment.

5. Retaining Poor Performers
Employees don’t typically complain that they are overworked. Employees will routinely take extraordinary steps to get a job done. However, they will complain when they see coworkers or groups within the organization who seem to get away with poor performance while they are working hard to meet difficult schedules or requirements. When this occurs, hardworking employees get the message that their efforts don’t matter. When this happens, your best workers tend to disengage.

6. Feelings of Insecurity
There is no job security in today’s globally competitive economy. Job security today is a myth. When employees do not receive meaningful information about the state of the business rumours will arise to fill the void. Unfortunately, rumours are often worse than the actual situation.

7. Lack of Opportunity for Promotion
Most employees take great pride in their job and in the company they work for. Most employees believe that dedicated efforts and loyalty should be rewarded. When promotional opportunities arise in a work unit, employees expect that existing individuals should be given a fair chance at the promotion ahead of those from elsewhere in the organization or from outside the company. When employees do not perceive that promotional opportunities are fairly assigned they become disengaged. Why would they work hard if there is absolutely no chance of promotion?

8. Lack of Rewards
Employees become very quickly disengaged if they perceive that their hard work and dedicated efforts are not rewarded. Employees do understand tough economic times, however they are very quick to notice when inconsistent rewards and recognition occur.

9. Favouritism
If employees feel that certain individuals in the workplace receive special treatment or consideration because of their relationship with their immediate supervisor, they will identify this as favouritism. Once identified, favouritism leads to all sorts of destructive and negative behaviours in a workplace.

Employers and companies of all sorts and sizes are encouraged to take a careful look at their organization to determine the extent to which any of these nine elements exist. Efforts should be taken to correct them, or they risk employee disengagement or turnover.