Are the overachieving staff becoming the underachievers?

Under achieving or over achieving, I believe that every member off your staff deserve quality attention and equal amounts of your time. Motivating in a form of disciplining should be used to encourage your staff to meet targets and stick to rules or guidelines of the company. Despite the fact it may be easier to temporarily ignore members of staff who are excelling in order to work on reaching those who are not, or vice-versa, on the contrary it would be more beneficial to the business to work on both simultaneously. Here’s why, When an over achiever performs it is for many reasons; it could be because they have personal goals they yearn to reach, because they want to excel the company’s guidelines and be deemed as an asset to the organisation and/or for credit and privileges like more responsibility within their job role. They put effort and energy into their work setting standards high within the work environment but also producing excellent results in customers and sales. Likely, these are running off the hope that they will be seen and appreciated for their hard work. I bet you’re thinking “Well there are not many employees like that any more , well if there isn’t ‘ any more’ that means you admit there once was, where are they now? This is not fact but I believe there are some cases where this is an element of truth, that those once over achievers are now the underachievers. Those who used to work hard to provide results are the ones that are struggling to meet deadlines, persistently late and/or demotivated to do anything outside the borders of their contract or job role. So why is it? Well I wouldn’t say it is because they love to get the negative (but a lot more constructive) long speeches from their managers but that does play a part, because all they lack is the attention from someone in a higher position to acknowledge the achievements. However on a stronger note I believe this merely happens as an accident, it subconsciously becomes a habit that they don’t generate enough excitement or energy when it comes to work related tasks. More often these ones become more depressed at work than the original under achievers because they know their capabilities, was once showing it but had no praises for it.

So what is the fix?

Firstly for the managers, appreciate your employees hard work, set rewards and benefits for these meeting targets and make it easy to attain, it’s not that gold certificate we all wished to acquire in primary school where the sticker chart got longer as the levels got higher but rather, reverse the set structure so that they can feel a sense of accomplishment even sooner. Take notice and have regular meetings with these ones just as you would to help the underachievers, promote the good work so that others see the standard you require however many fear that giving credit to an individual employee will lead to jealousy and hatred in the workplace but I say if done correctly with the reward system and accreditations being handed out fairly and frequently then you won’t need to worry about that.

Secondly how about you, being the employee who was once the achiever? I say you know what it takes to overachieve; you have done it before, get back on track and reward yourself with the satisfaction in knowing that you excel in everything you put your mind to. Leaving your job for this reason is not a wise idea, trust me I should know! This is a matter of personal advancement. Likes are your company will be one of the many realising that there are better ways of managing employees, that great staff is the reason why the business excels and that they need to notice those who help towards that. You’re likely to be one of the first that are recognised once your workplace enforces some practical procedures to monitor and accredit hard working individuals.

The stresses of work can be minimised and it start’s from changes within the higher positions in the workplace, construct the working environment you desire!

This doesn’t mean that you forget about those underachievers, for they are just achievers who need the push to knock off the ‘Un’. They have the potential to excel too! There are methods to do this and in the next article I give Building Achievers – 5 Tips.

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