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In recent research conducted by Leadership Management Australasia, nearly 4000 respondents in Australia and New Zealand were asked how they felt about their jobs. The survey revealed more than 60% of the workforce either hated their jobs or didn’t care about their work, as long as they got paid. It showed nearly half were considering looking for a new job while 62% either hated or were ambivalent about their work. (Source: APN).

Organisations in Christchurch have now moved out of their initial crisis response mode into business recovery and a ‘new’ normal. This typically includes temporary accommodation, disrupted workplaces, cramped working conditions and longer commutes; extra or different demands, loss of staff and/or clients or records.

Systematic management failure is a label I use to describe issues that are years old and have been unsuccessfully dealt with, by a long line of managers. Systematic management failure occurs when managers go into new roles and in no time at all, find they’ve inherited a number of longstanding issues. They discover that despite various attempts in the past to resolve the issues to a successful conclusion, it hasn’t occurred.

I get a bit concerned sometimes when I hear managers decide it’s time to send staff off to courses, workshops or seminars and then adopt a ‘pick a course, ship ‘em off, forget about it’ approach.

There’s nothing like being in a major earthquake to focus the mind and sharpen the senses. The most basic instinct to kick in is personal survival and following that, concern for the wellbeing of family, friends, neighbours and the safety of homes. Business owners and managers within organisations had additional concerns - their business premises, operating equipment, stock, staff, loss of revenue and possible livelihoods.

There is one common workplace issue that has the most potential to lower employee morale, lower workplace productivity, waste hundreds of hours of person hours and drive managers and workmates to distraction. The issue is poorly performing staff that fail to meet the required work standards and they may be widely known as being this way, for years.