When it comes to the workplace, what’s love got to do with it? Does love belong in the workplace?

I hear a resounding ‘No’ from one section of my audience? I figure you are recalling what are termed “office romances” and would emphatically agree with the statement ‘nuh wuk caan gwaan wen di luv a bite!’ (Work cannot go on when workmates are in love). You would caution that these liaisons have no place at the office as they very often get very messy. In fact, they create such a mess, that some businesses outrightly forbid them. But, there are some of you who would argue for such liaisons, as you recall the many successful marriages that have been the outcome. What kind of love is being talked about here? Eros or romantic love.

Though I foresee that this issue could become a very heated debate, we will consider the question from some typical workplace situations, to see if love and the workplace can and should coexist. With each situation outlined, both the employer and the employee are encouraged to consider how love can be expressed or received from their perspective.

Customer Relationship Management

The well-known adage “The customer is always right” forms a critical part of the philosophy of many businesses. Experience has taught that this adage is not necessarily true but it is good for business. Businesses worldwide are interested in how to attract and retain customers. This is the bottom line and many a job holder’s meal ticket.  Romancing your customer, an emerging concept, posits that you can attract and retain customers by providing them with what they need. You win them over with your expertise, knowledge, and helpfulness and you build trust so that they want to do business with you repeatedly. Pragma or practical love which has reason or duty as its basis is at work here.

Do you know that the same principles apply to managing relationships with internal customers? These customers are often overlooked to the peril of many otherwise successful businesses. Paying attention to your internal customers can facilitate profitable enterprise, not just for the workplace overall but also for individual workers.

Performance Management

Do you jump with jubilation at the thought of the annual performance review? Have you ever encountered your coworker in the hallway singing “appraisal time”? I don’t think so. The performance appraisal exercise is a dreaded ‘must-do’ in the minds of many supervisors and workers alike. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Deliberately communicate positive messages about your performance management system from the minute an employee has landed a job with your organization. Instead of being seen as a ‘necessary evil’, paint performance appraisals as opportunities for growth and development; where everyone learns how to maximize both negative and positive feedback. Create excitement around the performance review by judiciously planning and implementing the entire exercise. Make it a year-round process rather than a once a year event. Incorporate it with your communication, retention, succession and training & development programmes. Give praise and tangible rewards for excellent performance.

Make recognition an occasion for celebration.  Emphasize the benefits while acknowledging and mitigating the disincentives of the exercise. Avoid rater errors (errors in judgement that occur when a supervisor/appraiser observes and evaluates the performance of a supervisee/appraisee), and endeavour to make the process fair and transparent. Don’t create tasks that are hurdles rather, use ones that gently stretch your workers to attain the heights of excellence in performance. Gary Chapman would point to Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service and Receiving Gifts as being evident here. Do you see the love?

The employee can empathize with the supervisor in recognizing that assessing performance is never an easy task. The supervisor may fear confrontation and avoid giving honest feedback. Make it so that this is not the case with your supervisor. Be accommodating and open to constructive criticism. View these as stepping stones to career success.

Communication

The deleterious effects of gossiping and the company grapevine(s) are various and vicious. They can suck the very lifeblood out of an organization. Unproductivity, the erosion of trust, the destruction of morale, increased anxiety and stress are all outcomes. There are some who naively believe that if one ignores the gossip and the grapevine they will go away. Or they take a fatalistic attitude that says ‘that’s just the way things are, people will be people’.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Gossip or grapevine(s) which are an informal internal channel of communication, shoots up where formal channels do not adequately address the communication needs of workers. Workers may be feeling uncertain or threatened about their job security or there may be an impending large-scale change. Any matter that is of importance to employees is a good material for gossip. Rumors which are attempts to simplify and interpret uncommunicated, unverified, unconfirmed information, are almost always the consequence.

The damage is magnified by the ‘Chinese telephone effect’. Have you ever played this game? I am amazed, every time, at the realization that the statement made at the beginning of the game differs significantly from the one made at the end. Have you ever been a part of a grapevine? If so, think about the usefulness and the effect it had. Did it accomplish the outcome you wanted?

Owners/managers can lessen the damage caused by grapevines by starting their own. Manage by walking around. Walkabout the workplace with no particular objective than to catch up with your employees.

Roll up your sleeves and help them with their tasks, enquire about their families and find out what is on their minds. Engagement and trust are critical benefits.

Circulate employee surveys to get employees’ opinions on matters of importance to them. More importantly, do not sit on the results – ACT.

Remain open, transparent, and share regular updates. Use the technology, especially in these days of social distancing, and create a virtual ‘huddle’ to cater to your employees’ need to socialize.

Tell the truth but do it gently ‘seasoned with salt’. Get employees involved in finding solutions to problems and take their suggestions seriously. Implement the suggestions and if success results, reward the employee who made the suggestion. Quality Time, Acts of Service, and Words of Affirmation are intertwined into making communication in the workplace a loving act. Can you feel the love?

The employee has a part to play in making the communication process loving. Don’t become part of the grapevine and don’t engage in gossip. Go to the source, ask questions; provide feedback; be honest and open; make suggestions; do not allow previous hurts to prevent you from actively contributing to the organization with which you work. Forgive and enjoy the success that brings.

I would relish the opportunity to interact with you. Shoot me an email at ahermittsmusings@gmail.com.