When I was first-time a HOD, I had difficulties trusting my team. However, now I stay out of my Team’s way and let them do their jobs. There’s more to being a Leader than telling your people what to do. It’s about building a real relationship with your employees so that you trust each other and can get things done. Unfortunately, many Leaders don’t care about their employees’ morale and spur them on by any means necessary. Although there is a no one-size-fits-all method since every Resort has a different culture and every Leader has their own unique style. But there are things that should be avoided in most situations if you want Resort employees not to hate coming to work every day.
Here are some guaranteed ways to completely ruin Resort employee’s morale especially under current circumstance while we are dealing with the drastic COVID-19 pandemic.
Holding Employees back, even if they’re doing well.
Leaders should trust their Teams and get out of the way. If people have initiatives they want to propose, or ideas to make things better, at least let them have their say. Let your staff own their ideas and give credit where it’s due.
Dishonesty. Always tell your employees the truth.
Never lie to your employees, even if it’s a sensitive topic. Honour the rewards that you’ve committed to (like a promotion or raise you promised). Employees will never work to their full potential for someone that they don’t trust.
Setting impossible goals
If you do, your staff will feel like they’re underperforming, even though they probably aren’t. A Goal exists to encourage performance, but when employees are consistently not meeting targets, their morale is never going to be where it should be.
Threatening jobs.
When you make your team members feel like they’re easily replaceable, they have little incentive to perform. Making someone fear for their livelihood only causes fear, anxiety and distrust. It’s easy to crush someone’s spirit if you treat them as part of the budget.
Not accepting responsibility for mistakes.
Frequently, Leaders refuse to accept responsibility for their worker’s mistakes; which can ruin morale. If a member of staff makes a mistake, the blame should fall solely on the Leader; or on the whole team (depending on the culture).
Never offering any praise.
I am not saying that you should constantly be showering your workers with compliments, but, you should identify when your workers do a good job, and then these people need some sort of reinforcement that they’re doing a good job.
Calling employees out in public.
Don’t try to teach people a lesson or make an example of them. Instead, pull them aside and deal with the situation in private. Public embarrassment can only serve to make employees scornful and ruin the Resort environment.
Giving vague or incomplete instructions.
It’s frustrating not knowing exactly what you’re asked to do, and then if they do it wrong and are reprimanded by their Leaders for it, that just makes things worse. Clarity is important in the resort.
Micro-managing.
When you micro-manage a Resort employee, you’re telling them that you don’t trust their abilities. That sort of discouragement is enough on its own to make someone hate coming to work, even if they like everything else about the job. In the early days, I had problems trusting my teams, to let them get on with the jobs they had been employed by the Resort to do. But I soon realized that there was more to being a Leader than telling your people what you wanted them to do. As I built real relationships with my employees, so that we could trust each other, and we could all get things done; I soon realized that everybody’s morale improved and we could all actually even start enjoying coming to work building great place than ever, end of the day the resort environment is more than a workplace, it’s their ultimate home where they have very high hope.
About the Author: Shameem Mohamed Ismail is the Assistant Operations Manager at Amilla Fushi Maldives. He has been in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry for 20 years.
