From a new employee’s perspective your organization might resemble Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice fell down a hole and encountered a world with strange new rules and an assortment of weird characters. 

Does your work place have any characters like these from Wonderland?   

·      The White Rabbit always running around stressed and harried saying things like, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date, no time to say hello, goodbye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late”.

·      The Queen of Hearts, the ruler in Wonderland.  She is severe, dominating, childishly cruel and always screaming and yelling at her subjects, “Off with their heads!”

·      The King of Hearts who is ineffectual, but often quotes the rules. He does however undo some of the Queen’s cruel sentences. 

·      The Cheshire Cat who

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Stressed employees are not the best, most effective employees. If you and your staff are undergoing major changes, a busy business cycle, end of the year budgets or other stressful events, you may want to know that new research puts a new light on the age-old idea that all people respond to stress with the “fight or flight” response. Until rather recently 90% of the research on stress has been done with men. Women, it turns out, have an additional response to stress. Researchers have termed it the “tend and befriend” response. According to a landmark study conducted by four women researchers at UCLA, a chemical named oxytocin is released in women who are in stress.  This chemical buffers the fight or flight response and encourages a woman to tend to her children and/or befriend others. As she does those activities more oxytocin is released and more calming occurs. Oxytocin is not released in men in stressful situations. 

So while men may respond to stress by  raising their voice or holing up somewhere until they become calmer, women can calm themselves by 

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FROM THE NEW NEWS FILE:

Ninety two percent of managers told researchers that they are doing an “excellent” or “good” job managing their employees, BUT only 67% of workers agree with them.  In addition 23% say their boss is doing a “fair” job and 10% say they are doing “poor’ job. 

What explains this discrepancy?  Research conducted by Rasmussen Reports LLC for Hudson, a staffing and outsourcing firm, suggests that while workers aren’t giving managers an overwhelming thumbs-down, the difference does suggest a problem. 

 Basically, no one thinks they are doing a bad job, but most workers 

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Organizational changes can be very difficult for employees and for the managers and supervisors.  During times of change supervisors and managers are called upon to use or develop a different set of skills. Changes causes distress, uncertainty, resistance and anxiety on the part of employees and often mean a loss of some kind. 

• A particular duty that they were good at
• A relationship with a colleague that will end
• The ability to feel competent and on top of things
• A piece of equipment that they were accustomed to
• A new software program that is difficult to master at first.

 Here are a few ways you can help your employees [Read more →]

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