Most of us want to communicate with kindness, but it can be difficult to convey warmth and compassion in frustrating, stressful, or exasperating circumstances, argues the Harvard Business Review. Three practices taken from the book Breaking Through by American Sally Susman can help you. First, meet confrontation with grace, suggests Pfizer’s director of corporate affairs. This means smiling, being patient and courteous when an employee brings you difficult news or questions your decision-making. An open-minded tone will indicate that you are there to listen, address and resolve problems, not to reprimand or impose your own authority. Next, give your employees credit whenever you can. In return, you will see their enthusiasm, hard work, confidence and loyalty. Finally, don’t catch your employees off guard and plan conversations by giving them an overview of what you would like to talk about. Your interlocutor will have the opportunity to prepare and you will show them that you really want to listen to their answer.
This is the proportion of Quebec SMEs who say they are optimistic about the future and anticipate growth from 1% to more than 20% during the first six months of 2024. This data comes from a survey carried out in November 2023 among of 1,271 Canadian business leaders (C-level to manager) by technology company Zoho Canada. The results are more encouraging than six months ago. Last spring, 59.7% of Quebec SMEs planned to grow. In other provinces, such as Alberta, 77.9% of SMEs expect growth of 1 to 20% for the next six months, in Ontario it is 72.5% and in British Columbia it is 71 .6%.
Losing a talented employee is costly, ranging from 30% to 400% of the employee’s annual salary. Departures sometimes seem sneaky and unexpected, because Quebec employees leave their employers despite a high job satisfaction rate – or 70%, indicate the latest results of a Capterra survey. Data from the Toronto company that provides customer reviews on software also reveals that in 2024, the trend will continue, with 47% of Quebecers considering leaving their jobs. Why leave? Because of stress, say 44% of Quebecers. And if we are stressed about a salary deemed unsatisfactory, it’s even worse. 42% are leaving to be better paid. Then come other issues such as lack of recognition (30.9%), social benefits (29.2%), lack of work-life balance (26.7%), additional bonuses (21. 4%) and strained relations with management (18.9%). For SMEs, it is crucial to understand what makes employees happy to limit departures, says Capterra, who interviewed nearly 250 employees of small and medium-sized Quebec businesses.
Even if paternity leave is often regulated by law, corporate culture and the gender-specific nature of child rearing discourage new fathers from putting their family before their professional obligations, observes the accounting professor at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University Claudine Mangen and her colleagues Claire Garnier, of the KEDGE Business School, and Edwige Nortier, of the University Paris Dauphine-PSL. The exploratory study was carried out in accounting firms in France, including KPMG, PwC, EY and Deloitte. Many men are unhappy with the status quo and have expressed frustration with the difficulty of reconciling fatherhood and the demands of professional life. The researchers observed that men who take parental leave are still frowned upon and fear that the price to pay professionally is even higher than that paid by women. Men also worry that hard work is so valued, observe the researchers, who suggest that companies examine the implicit principles governing work and hierarchical structure.
Source: Concordia University
Contrary to popular belief, workplace gossip can benefit both employees and employers. That’s because some gossip reduces the risk of employee turnover and, therefore, potentially improves an organization’s effectiveness, according to Binghamton University, New York. Doctoral student Jinhee Moon, who is not his first research on gossip, studied three contexts: at work, I sometimes complain about my organization when management is absent; if I feel badly treated by management, I talk to my colleagues about it; I sometimes brag about the capabilities of my organization when management is absent. The researcher initially thought that if an employee participated in negative gossip, it was to have some control or power, or because they wanted to remove someone from a position. However, employees do not consider gossip as information, but simply as someone who wants to complain. On the other hand, since it is sometimes difficult to leave your job, positive gossip about the employer can make the organization more bearable even if the employee encounters difficulties there.
