6 things that you think your staff love but they actually hate
More socials than you can shake a stick at
Everyone enjoys a good team outing from time to time, as it gives staff a chance to socialise with their co-workers which they can't do in the workplace. However, these socials become a problem when you start doing them all the time. Instead of being fun they become more of a burden because staff feel obliged to join in all the time when they would probably rather get on with their own life outside of work.
Not having regular performance reviews
You think that your staff hate the dreaded performance review because it puts them in the spotlight and pressures them to evaluate themselves. However, you are actually very wrong. One of the biggest peeves of employees is not getting enough feedback from their manager as it means they are working without a purpose and have no clue of how well/bad they are doing.
Performance reviews don't have to be long and tiresome, Oplift Review allows you to assess, collect insights, create reports and share all from one simple app. This means you can do it all on the shop floor in a quarter of the time it usually takes!
Your gesture of food and drink when working late after hours
You put on a spread of tasty snacks and beverages for your dedicated employees who are working tirelessly into the evening. How kind of you...but your employees know what is really going on. You are just trying to soften the blow of them working into their own time. Do you know what would be kinder? If they were able to actually leave on time, the snacks and drinks are a desperate attempt to cover up the fact that you are destroying their work-life balance.
Of course, this is nice if your staff work into their evenings on the odd occasion. However, if this is happening all the time, it's time you evaluate your targets and schedules because you are clearly working to unrealistic goals. By using a digital operations tool such as Oplift you give your staff the ability to work smarter not harder.
Giving your staff 10% discount
Considering most companies these days give at least 20% discount, rather than this looking like a kind gesture which you were hoping, it actually looks like you don't value your employees as much as other companies.
Topshop and other Arcadia brands give their staff a 25% discount
ASOS employees receive 40%
Boots give their staff a 22.5% discount
H&M staff receive a 25% discount
John Lewis offer a 25% discount
Greggs employees receive a 50% discount
Debenhams employees receive a 25% discount
River Island employees get a massive 40% discount
New Look employees get a 40% discount
You need to either up your discount offering or give your staff a different perk all together!
Being given more authority
You show your employees you value them and appreciate their hard work by giving them even more work and power. However, with more authority comes more responsibility, so if you are not upping their pay to match their new responsibilities then the chances are they are not going to be overly delighted about it.
Tip: Obviously you can't give everyone pay increases every time they step up in their role, but you can discuss the pay opportunities which will be available to them the more they progress. This shows that you have thought about what's in it for them, rather than ignoring it all together which makes them think you are just trying to squeeze as much out of them for as little pay as you can.
Extremely flexible working
Flexible working, in general, is a very good thing! It allows your staff to have more freedom and power overworking which hours best suit them. However, when you encourage extremely flexible working so that you can contact employees late in the evening, really early in the morning, or when they are off duty altogether it becomes a problem. It means that you blur the line between work and life so much that your employees never actually feel like they get a proper rest from work.
Tip: Encourage flexible working, however, set limits and boundaries for when it is acceptable to still communicate with staff. For example, no communications should be sent after 7 pm or before 7 am in the morning and you should especially not expect a reply from an employee on their day off.
