Are Whiners Ruining Your Business?

Funny how things work.  We need help in our business, so we place an ad and then interview.  Things look good, you make an offer and the vacancy problem is solved, and you can now get down to business again, right?

Unfortunately, your problems may be only beginning.  In our consulting practice the hardest thing we can do is convince managers not to hire--to hold out until the perfect person shows up.  The stress of a current opening, or the immediate need to fill a position so the rest of the staff can take off their extra load to cover the work, or help them from feeling overwhelmed, you are often pressed to fix the vacancy.  However, filling a position with the wrong staff is literally poison.

With so much digital information available, the interview process is more and more difficult, only adding more complexities to the process.  Let’s face it, people are interviewing for the position, do you really think you are going to see the real person in an hour sit-down?  So now you have even more difficulty finding the right fit as anyone can go online and get endless information on how to nail the perfect interview!

The other end of the spectrum are the other employees who has been there and now are getting burnt out.  Daily monotony with the job, issues at home, or internal conflicts that are in every business, now start the killer process of taking your customer service, and employee satisfaction right down the drain.  Welcome to the world of whiners.

If there is one thing that is absolutely time consuming and outright venomous to an organization, it is a complaining, whining staff member.  Not only that, they have the potential to spread their misery, and somehow bring down a whole team in a really short time frame.  Interesting in that one miserable person on board can have that much influence.  Actually, it’s usually the other staff that finally give up and decide to move on, as the frustration of having this constant negative influence no longer makes work fun, so out they go, now compounding the problem of the poison staff and a vacancy you really don’t need.  Additionally, you now have lost a staff member you really hated to see go, that you genuinely loved to see coming to work everyday.  What a mess, and all because of one constant, irritating time bomb in the ranks.

So what do we do?

First of all, you simply must directly address the problem.  It can’t just sit and brew.  Whiners can be experts in their fields (of misery) so you have to be careful as you work to find a solution and improve performance.  A good whiner (oxymoron?) works the system well, sometimes becoming the Robin Hood of the staff by addressing problems in front of staff as if they are the spokesperson defending the downtrodden.  The whining is shrouded in a veil of performance improvement.  Never get into that pattern in front of the masses.  Simply acknowledge the issue and ask to meet one-on-one to better understand the issue.  Taking them out of the crowd mentality and out of their safe haven, starts the process to open and meaningful discussion.

Sometimes when we need to implement change in an organization I purposely seek out the complainers to join a team to look at fixing things.  Then in that group, which openly acknowledges we are coming together to make things better, I can set ground rules--no whining, no complaining on a personal basis, and no long drawn out reiterations of issues of yesteryear.  We’re here to fix things, so let’s all work together.  I have had some really nice success turning the biggest whiner into an action person.

The end result sometimes really means getting to a genuine, honest conversation.  One that acknowledges you see and hear the frustration, and acknowledge that actually you have come to the conclusion that this person really is in the wrong place.  Not for you, but for them.  You see their frustration on a daily basis, and rather than keep them in that place--upsetting and dragging down others, you have decided to actually help them find a better place so they can enjoy work.  So, what can we do you help you apply elsewhere, look at a better fit of a job, and plan on setting an appropriate exit date?  Honest, direct and goal oriented--to either make a change in their workplace or quit the endless, agonizing madness of whining.

Glad to see we finally recognized the job fit is just not what you want, and oh yes incidentally, we don’t either.