What is the percentage of marginalized employees in your organization? Are you one?
Marginalized employees may be on the short side of education and experience. Yet many of these folks may be natural managers. They have the ability to engage, motivate and lead their teams. They create positive and productive work environments.
On the other hand, marginalized employees may be highly educated managers: business, technical and engineering personnel. They may have quirky, assertive or just plain normal personal styles which don’t mesh with your own biases.
Then again, marginalized employees may be under the thumb of weak or political managers, who keep them “in their places”. These employees do a great job making their managers’ KPI’s look good. They are key to that manager’s performance-based compensation.
What is the impact of marginalized employees on your company’s organizational health?
Consider what happens if you consider industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) management and leadership models fostering employee development, rather than marginalization. Ponder how formerly marginalized employees can contribute to driving revenue throughout your organization.
After all, collaboration is the hallmark of teamwork within the IoT business ecosystem. Isn’t it time for you to identify marginalized employees and develop their untapped and inherent skills?
Your marginalized employees are waiting right now for you to discover them. And that is their own Achilles Heel.
Manager- leaders: marginalized employees believe if they are doing their job productively and profitably, they will be at least keep their job. By recognizing and rewarding them, how do you exceed their expectations and your organization’s productivity?
Marginalized employees: how are you doing this to yourself? Do you feel you don’t deserve anything better than an hourly wage? Alternatively, perhaps you feel you are the smartest person in the room: it is up to everyone else to ramp up their brains so they can comprehend what you are saying.
Either way, it is a two-way street: dialogue between management leadership and employees. It’s not a function of waiting for management to realize you have that valuable pair of glass slippers.
Sometimes marginalized employees are the Cinderellas of your organization.
Eventually Cinderella herself decided to risk that first step. She took action to improve her own situation.
Some marginalized employees wait expectantly for you to find their glass slipper and have that epiphany about their value. Some make end runs to transfer departments because you persistently block their opportunities.
Some Cinderella’s jump ship and leave your company for greater opportunities with more like-minded employers. What is your rate of employee turnover?
Consider the relevance and value of developing talent throughout your organization, not just in sales, management or the C-Suite.
Alternatively, you formerly marginalized employees, wake up and promote yourself!
Consider the relevance and value of letting management and human resources in on the excitement that you’ve decided to get your GED, complete your two-year Associate degree or start your MBA.
Everyone might start regarding everyone else with a new pair of eyes.
If your corporate culture recognizes the potential for employee growth and development at all levels of your organization, good for you. If not, it is time to consider the value of this type of corporate culture in the sustainability of your organization.
What steps will you take to identify and cultivate marginalized employees?
Babette Ten Haken is a catalyst, corporate strategist and facilitator. She writes, speaks, consults and coaches about how cross-functional team collaboration revolutionizes the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) value chain for customer loyalty, customer success and customer retention. Her One Millimeter Mindset™ programs draw from her background as a scientist, sales professional, enterprise-level facilitator, Six Sigma Green Belt and certified DFSS Voice of the Customer practitioner. Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Visit the Free Resources section of her website for more tools.
Image source: iStock
.
Leave a Reply