Personnel problems are some of the trickiest to deal with in the business world. You’re not just dealing with numbers—you’re dealing with people and all the attendant emotions they bring with them. As your business year continues, you are likely to run into a few awkward personnel situations. Below are three that tend to impact businesses across the world.
Inter-Office Relationships
While television and movies make inter-office relationships look fantastic, they’re actually a headache for anyone who runs a business. If you’re lucky, the people involved will keep everything very low-key and you’ll never be any the wiser. If you’re not, you can expect some real personnel issues to crop up. The best way to deal with these problems is to be equitable and to follow any protocols you have in place to the letter. Don’t become involved with these relationships on a personal level and make sure to keep a level head when dealing with any of the resulting problems.
Bringing in a New Generation
There’s a good chance that you’ll be bringing in a new generation of workers this year, and that’s going to mean changing the way you do things. Despite the doom and gloom forecast by most of the media when it comes to dealing with millennials, you won’t have to completely upend your business in order to cater to these new hires. You will, however, have to adapt to workers just as they adapt to you.
Many millennials pursue postgraduate education if they can manage it while working at the same time. For example, a hospital may hire a young nurse with an associate’s degree in nursing who wants to pursue further education. That employee can take an ADN to MSN program at the same time as working. The availability of online education makes hiring millennials a possible investment for greater future returns.
Dealing with Major Shifts
One way or another, your personnel needs are likely to change this year. You might have to deal with the pain of letting some of your best employees go, watch as one of your managers moves on to greener pastures, or have to hire a number of new workers quickly in order to fill vacancies. You can’t expect this year to be the same as last year, so don’t rest comfortably just because things are going well now. Start looking at your staffing needs early so you can put contingency plans in place.
You might also have to make major changes in your operations based on your employee demographics. It’s obvious that each generation or background your employees come from can change the way you have to run things. It can be tempting to attempt a one-size-fits-all approach, but research on leadership through multigenerational differences suggests that you may be better off playing to the strengths of each demographic individually. If you can draw out the best of your employees with a unique, and even personal, approach, your business will inevitably thrive.
The next year might bring some real changes to your workforce. Be prepared to deal with relationships, new hires, and wildly changing circumstances as the year goes by. The more you prepare, the better you will be able to weather the storms that are likely to come your way.
