How to Identify and Address People Problems at Your Company

Solving people problems will make your company more productive.

Companies surveyed by Predictive Index stated that people problems were the number one reason companies failed to reach identified objectives in 2018. It isn’t easy to identify and address people problems in your business, but it is essential for success.

You may know in your gut that you have a particular people problem, but you will be better able to put your finger on exactly what the problem is when you gather data about your people as a first step to addressing the situation.

Using Assessment Tools to Identify People Problems

Behavioral and cognitive assessments are both useful tools in identifying people problems in the workplace because they objectively evaluate employees’ skill levels and interpersonal aptitude. Assessments can take managers from a gut feeling to a tangible picture of each employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

Assessments can be used on a routine basis to be more proactive about dealing with people problems before they get too ingrained and hard to change. The best way to handle people problems is to nip them in the bud so they never get big enough to damage your company’s functioning.

You can choose the frequency of assessments according to your needs and the severity of the perceived people problems with which you are dealing. Over time, people’s behavioral and cognitive characteristics can change, which can have a profound impact on the overall dynamics of a team or department. Interpersonal dynamics can also change as staff changes occur.

Being transparent about changes can help your employees accept your solutions to people problems.

Actionable Steps to Address People Problems

Once you have an understanding of the people problems in your company, it’s time to do something about them. The most common way to deal with people problems is by making more rules and penalizing employees for breaking them, but this is not usually effective and can even lead to higher turnover and the loss of valued staff members.

Working together with managers and your HR department, you can choose effective strategies to combat people problems with positivity to bring out the best in your employees. Once your team has agreed on strategies to begin solving your people problems, you can assign and delegate tasks to team members to roll out your plans.

Transparency Is Key

Employees tend not to like change, and resistance is to be expected. Being able to explain positively why changes are being made and the likely benefits of those changes for each employee as well as the company as a whole will help to lessen resistance. Anything you can do to get your employees on the same page will pay dividends as the process moves forward.

Let Narish International help you build higher-performing teams.