Ek Se Badhkar Ek

Every company dreams of having top notch performers – one better than the other!! In reality, the picturesque reel life and the actual real life are far from each other – A deep dive into every organization will throw up 3 categories of employees that constitute the workforce.

Firstly, the Passive Employees – these employees have to be coaxed on progress with deliverables and aren’t affirmative on closures, they need to be prodded for updates in order to get answers or even results. When given a task, they dilly dally. Secondly, we have the Active Employees – these are the ones that are capable and possess an attitude to take on every task that they are assigned to. Their modus operandi is to first attain full clarity in understanding the requirement and then completing the task with cohesion and results. Finally, we have the Proactive Employee – the fair few that work on building the organization, these are employees that are aligned to the big picture of the organization, they are keen to finish tasks, and after understanding they use their own innovation to deliver the best to the task that they are assigned to, and bounce back with a “What next?” attitude, inviting another challenge to overcome and conquer.

Every organization will have a diverse mix of the above work culture practices, and you will find that it is the proactive employee that really drives the organization and is easily recognizable as the top performers. As leaders, one must involve flexibility as means to be accommodating to the employees. When given the freedom to experiment and execute, they perform each task with innovation and dedication. With flexibility at work, it is observed that the 20 – 80 paradigm reflects that there is always 80% people that comply with set guidelines, while an opposing 20% might misuse the flexibility and trust of employers for their own benefit. Such behavior is usually met with the traditional control aspect and a rigid process which diminishes the employee interest by punishing the majority that do comply, and breeds resistance amongst the employees.

Passive employees are like weeds in a garden that might influence others to work less, and show a tendency to distract others and repeatedly contribute towards no performance, as a result weaning them off is crucial for the health of the organization and is achievable through open and candid conversations during monthly meets where you can laud the performers and achievers, and take note that those with nothing new to project for a span of 6 months is in all probability a passive employee. At the same time, the active and proactive employees deserve recognition, rewards, and a healthy remuneration for their efforts to keep them motivated and encouraged.

It is therefore critical for the company to maintain a parallel focus on continually finding more of proactive members which is difficult to identify at the time of hiring yet can be identified shortly after. To maintain the churn of hiring and exiting, also necessitates accepting a healthy attrition of 10 – 15% which allows some of the identified passive members to move on and replace them with newer members and nurture them to be proactive and active! Managers taking a role and creating a platform and environment that spurs innovation, freedom and participative decision making. By inculcating the attitude of team performance above individual performance will eventually help retain more of the proactive and active members. Effective fair and transparent rewards and recognition systems are essential tools that can keep the energy and motivation high!