April 2010 Management Minute

“What do YOU need?”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

We all have needs, and my needs are different than yours. Maybe some of our ‘needs’ could be better classified as ‘wants’ when compared to the need for food or shelter. But within the human resources conversation, meeting people’s individual needs will mean the difference between a stable, productive, satisfying workplace and a high-stress workplace which seems to be constantly filling voids in staffing—a costly process all would agree.

The complicating factor is that some needs are more easily communicated and more readily recognized than others. For example, competitive pay and reasonable work hours are obviously desired by all employees; we only need to negotiate and fine tune our respective definitions of ‘competitive’ and ‘reasonable’.

But life throws us curve balls sometimes, and life can be downright messy at other times. These are times when astute managers will be looking out for the changing and often unspoken needs of their employees which most likely were not discussed during the hiring process. A recently single parent; a person recovering from a serious illness; a person grieving the loss of a loved one; these will all likely have unique needs which probably were not addressed during initial hiring conversations.

One skill which separates excellent people managers is their ability to constantly be on the lookout for signs of change which might not be verbally expressed by the employee. These changes will often be transient, but may be very foundational in the life of the employee. If not addressed in terms of what the person needs, these changes may lead to frustration and stress on the part of the employee and their team mates.

This is one more in a long list of reasons why constant, multi-dimensional, communication is so vital to a successful organization. If the manager is not communicating frequently and intentionally with employees to keep in tune with subtle changes in behavior or attitude, radical changes could take place in the team dynamic, leading to yet another possibly preventable, but certainly costly, loss of a valued team member.