The following article stems purely from my thoughts, triggered by various factors such as conversations culled from colleagues, friends and groups of individuals both inside and outside of my career path. These conversations frequently took place at company-hosted parties, personal parties, happy hour after work get-togethers, and so forth. The beauty of witnessing conversations at these functions is that people tend to vent about work and other things that affect them personally. The common theme for most of them is that they have no control over many decisions at work and no one is willing to listen to them vent.  After bearing witness to these heart-felt conversations, I realized that this happens to me as well and the (negative) side effect was that I took these feelings home with me and let go of my frustrations at my spouse and children during discussions (or arguments) about other topics – I am positive I am not the only one that is guilty of this, but I wish I were.

The stigma at the workplace is that if any individual were to take the very daring step in expressing themselves, they would then fear being tagged with titles like “not easy to work with” or “not a team player”, etc. It would then end up as a permanent mark on an otherwise stellar work record, following the employee everywhere (or every department), they may go. Everyone reading this article right now should have experienced this situation at one point in their careers already. Whatever the problem or situation an individual has to deal at work or home, the ultimate common goal is to prepare oneself to return to work the next day as if it never happened.

At any company, employees perform their expected job role responsibilities in order to keep the business moving, without interruption. But then companies and employees in the backend continuously put their expertise to work, 24/7, in hopes of making their job more interesting and challenging with new initiatives and/or process improvements.

Companies are widely known to welcome innovation and many employees have those innovate ideas, suggestions and possible solutions culled from real-time experience. In order to give back to the organization that impacts people’s lives in different ways based on their services, employees should be encouraged to work closely with the company and think outside the box in order to get creative in addressing some of the areas listed below.

I personally was inspired and have a few of those ideas on topics given below which require little or no investment. I am positive if those people reading this article were to also put their creative minds to work and they could easily come up with even more effective and impactful solutions.

My approach for the items below being “What should be done to address any gap with more transparency, effectively and with a common goal of being accepted while simultaneously benefitting both the company and its employees”.

 Topics

• Freedom to Express Platform: There are many individuals at all companies as identified in the Professional Story section in my first article entitled “Leaders and Innovators – Born or Made with a Little Support?” (My solution will be shared in an article, coming soon, which can be implemented by any company, irrespective of the size.)
• A New Company Offered / Executed Benefit (Optional): We have standard benefits at all companies, but can we have something new offered by these same companies? (I assume having a really outside-the-box idea; the benefits are not quantifiable, and the best part is that it would benefit both company and employees with little or no investment – I am planning to run my idea with a few individuals to get their mentorship and assess the feasibility regarding any legal laws and/or implementation hurdles – I will update information later as it becomes available)
• Performance Review Process: Always a delicate topic as many keep complaining…can we add features to existing tools (www.workday.com) for transparency and acceptance by all?
• Companies Policies and Procedures: Finding the balance between Simplicity, Complexity, Efficiency, Automation and Reduction in Revision Cycles.
• Resource Utilization: Tools to control or eliminate under-utilization – mainly Priority vs Need.
• Critical or High-Profile Projects: Centralized open information sharing for everyone, irrespective of the outcome.
• Expenses: Department spending methods irrespective of budgets available i.e. Allocated vs Required – company to standardize spending habits during good or bad times

If we can creatively address the above topics (or others sent by you) in our companies, this would eventually translate into employee dedication, motivation, commitment, satisfaction and love for the company they work for. This is not an impossible idea to grasp. It is actually feasible. This can translate into a reduction in number of layoffs that are happening everywhere.

I end this article on a lighter note with a request to companies that if any savings result from the above, you will share with your employees as an additional bonus or incentive! As a company, you have nothing to lose (little to no funds being laid out) and everything to gain (satisfied and productive employees).

Finally, robot technology is advancing at an aggressive rate and may soon take all our roles away. Let’s try to beat them to the punch before we’re all replaced!