5 Common Personnel Problems and How to Address Them Discussing common personnel problems businesses face and strategies leaders can use to fix these issues and improve their company culture.
By Jason Hennessey Edited by Chelsea Brown
Key Takeaways
- Personnel issues can significantly impact a company's productivity, revenue and overall success.
- Investing in your employees and creating a positive work environment can lead to higher employee satisfaction, reduced turnover and improved business performance.
- This article highlights the most common personnel problems businesses face, such as understaffing, lack of training, micromanaging, poor communication and burnout, offering strategies to address these issues.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Many businesses run into personnel problems at some point, whether it's a high turnover rate, low employee engagement or simple communication problems. The employees that make up your team are your company's most valuable asset.
Having a healthy team and workplace culture can go a long way in increasing your business's productivity and revenue, preventing many common problems that cost companies time and money. In doing so, you'll have a happier, healthier and more engaged workforce to help drive your organization toward success.
Related: What Makes a Great Company Culture (and Why It Matters)
1. Understaffing
Understaffing is one of the most common issues businesses face, and it can quickly cause major problems in daily operations, affecting the quality of service you offer your clients or customers, the amount of work you're able to take on or complete (and therefore your bottom line) and employee morale. Understaffed workplaces have higher turnover rates because they tend to cause employee burnout as the staff has to overwork in order to compensate. So what's the solution?
I like to analyze our specific task needs and find ways to automate them using AI or tools on the market. Then, I start a talent search. Unfortunately, many businesses wait until they're in urgent need of new hires before beginning the hiring process, but hiring is a process that requires foresight and planning. It's best to start hiring when your team is working at only 80% of its capacity. This will allow you time to find the right candidates and have the capacity to train them before you're at a crisis point. If you're currently at that crisis point, it may be a good idea to hire with the goal of reaching that 80% capacity or below rather than a 90-100% capacity.
2. Lack of training and development
One of the most common business mistakes I see is business leaders failing to invest in their employees by training them. Effective leadership requires you to acknowledge that your employees may eventually leave you for new opportunities because of the lack of growth they've experienced under your leadership. The truth is that high-quality employees want to be developed. They want to grow and will feel more satisfied if they're given the opportunity to do so, which means that they will stick around in their job longer. We offer career pathing opportunities that we share with employees for future growth, which empowers them to advance their own professional development. Employees are more likely to leave a position when they feel they have no more room to grow there.
Furthermore, lack of training creates problems throughout the business. Employees who aren't adequately trained will not be able to perform their jobs properly, forcing others to pick up the slack and creating an unequal team dynamic that leads to frustration, burnout and interpersonal conflict. To have a smoothly operating business and a healthy working culture, training is vital.
Related: 4 Big Benefits of Improved Employee Training
3. Micromanaging
If you asked employees what kind of leadership they hate the most, many of them would say micromanagers. But the thing is that many micromanagers don't realize that's what they're doing —they're simply trying to stay on top of things and keep people accountable. Usually, this is rooted in a lack of trust in employees or an overbearing hierarchical leadership structure. Micromanaging can take several forms, but it's characterized by over-involvement from leadership to the detriment of the employee or team's performance.
To combat micromanagement in your organization, take a look at your leadership structure and how leaders interact with their teams and employees. If you've hired well, your employees should be fully capable of keeping themselves on track with their work as long as your expectations of them are clear. Give them the responsibility and authority to solve problems at the level they arise, using their expertise in their roles, and the freedom to reach out for help when they need it.
4. Poor communication
Communication issues are sometimes difficult to recognize because they can be disguised as other types of problems — things not getting done when they're supposed to or interpersonal conflict, for example. That's why communication should be a priority for every organization. Excellent communication can prevent and solve many types of problems.
So what does excellent communication look like? It's trickier than it may seem because many companies believe they have good communication practices even if they're not adequate. Communication begins with trust: Employees need to feel safe sharing their thoughts and bringing problems to their leaders to ask for help.
That means that leaders need to be available to receive communication, and employees need to understand who to speak to regarding different issues. That means creating clear communication procedures and easy, regular processes around common communication needs. It's also helpful for leaders to check in with their teams and individual employees regularly to have an ongoing dialogue and a venue to build trust and open conversation about whatever may need to be discussed.
5. Burnout and low employee satisfaction
If you've already addressed the other four problems listed above, you'll have done a great deal to improve employee satisfaction and lower burnout. However, these are major and complex issues many businesses are facing, and they're something leaders need to be constantly aware of and monitoring because it's easy to begin slipping even when things were previously going well. My best advice is to listen to what's going on within your organization and what your employees' concerns and needs are. Don't assume you know. Remember that each person is an individual, and your decisions as a leader affect their well-being, as does the working environment you create.
So where do you start? Ask them! Talk with your employees to find out how they want to be supported. We send out an anonymous survey to employees twice per year, then communicate changes we've made based on the survey results.
By addressing these personnel problems, you can create a healthier and more productive workplace. Remember to invest in your most valuable business asset — your team.
