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Chana R Schoenberger
Q. A mid-level professional at the company I run is constantly complaining
about her job. Her performance is acceptable, but she comes to me with an
unending stream of gripes about working conditions, and often involves her
colleagues by copying them on complaining emails to me. What can I do to get
her to stop poisoning the atmosphere?
A. There are two problems here. One is your complaining employee, and the other
could be you.
Every office has at least one squeaky wheel that makes noise about everything
from the quality of the coffee in the break room to the company s
expense-reimbursement policies. Typically, this person is never happy with
working conditions and will move on to a fresh grievance as soon as management
addresses an old one.
Such a person can create a toxic atmosphere in the office. For one, they rope
in colleagues who would never complain on their own. They can also create mass
dissatisfaction that destabilise your workforce. A drumbeat of negativity gets
in the way of everyone s performance.
The first step is to consider your role as the manager in this situation. Let s
assume that you are a decent and ethical boss who wants your people to work in
a friendly environment, at least comfortable enough so they will be content to
stay.
First, consider whether your complaining employee is the canary in the coal
mine, says Stevenson Carlebach, president of Eque LLC, a
communication-effectiveness consulting firm in Connecticut in the US. Since
employees tend to take a positive tack with the boss, managers usually think
everything is going well it also means they believe their staff likes them
more than they actually do. It s possible that the complainer is in fact the
only one who is telling it like it is.
Talk to employees you trust to tell you the truth, Carlebach says. Ask them
what is accurate about the complainer s comments. Then go back to the
complainer and ask her to help you address those specific problems.
Simultaneously ask her to acknowledge when you ve fixed something she flagged,
as well as existing good points about working in the office.
Another point to consider is whether you are successfully making your employee
feel that you are listening to her. When people don t feel heard, they tend to
repeat themselves, often increasingly loudly and stridently, Carlebach says.
If I were the boss here, I would assume that part of cause of the endless
complaints is my not having demonstrated sufficiently that I heard the speaker.
It s normal to address complaints by trying to get the other person to see the
situation your way. Since you don t see the same problems she sees you think
the coffee is just fine, you don t agree that the expense policy needs to be
changed she might feel that you are just trying to get her to shut up. Sit
down with the complainer and make sure that she hears that you take her
concerns seriously, Carlebach says.
Be careful to avoid making your employee feel as though you blame her. (Of
course you blame her. Just don t show it.) The key is to make her understand
how her constant complaints are impacting you and the rest of the office, while
simultaneously reassuring her that you believe she has good intentions.
Carlebach suggests phrasing it this way: When you send emails complaining
about working conditions and copy your colleagues, I feel undermined. I worry
that a negative perspective can become infectious and I don t want everyone to
be focused only on what s not working. At the same time, I m sure that you have
good intentions my guess is that you have real concerns and are trying to
address them.
Then request, politely, that she bring her concerns to you first without
copying others on emails, and that she try to recognise what s good about life
in your office. Surely not every aspect of her workplace is unpleasant.
What if your inquiries confirm that she is the only one on your team who sees
these problems? In that case, her efforts to spread unhappiness around your
workplace could be more detrimental to the team than having her is worth. If
you think her pot-stirring undermines office morale and productivity more than
her mediocre job performance raises it, you may want to consider easing her off
of your team. The rest of your team will thank you.