Motivate your staff before concluding they are depressed

As a manager in a medium-sized company, I have had a rather rough year since my employees look depressed and rather unhappy. This has affected our bottom line and a management expert suggested that we should have regular bonding sessions. While I will try the suggestion, I wonder what else we should do to minimise workplace depression.

We must first get our terms defined clearly if we are to avoid confusion. Part of the problem you find yourself in is that of terminology. Your use of words can easily lead to misunderstanding.

Depression, in a clinical medical sense, is a description of a medical disorder which has clearly defined and recognisable set of symptoms. For this diagnosis to be made, the symptoms of sadness, hopelessness, lack of self worth, and, in severe cases, thoughts of suicide, must be present for a continuous period of two weeks (other criteria must also be met for this diagnosis to be made).

I do not think that your employees are all suffering from this disorder, and it is most likely that what you call “depressed and rather unhappy” is the lay description of a workforce that is demotivated and that is not productive.
The demotivated staff have led to a bottom line that is now the subject of your question.

So, will regular bonding sessions lead to an improvement in your bottom line? Perhaps not. The reason for the poor motivation and declining bottom line must first be found before a solution can be prescribed.

What you now have is a solution to a problem you have not identified. In this regard, you are not alone, and are in the sad company of many medium-sized companies who fall into the trap of clever, usually young experts who take people like yourself on company-paid weekends to exotic destinations.

I cannot blame such experts for their taking advantage of companies that are unable to do basic checks on the consultants they hire. It is the duty of the company to ensure that it only accepts advice and acts on the suggestions of competent and qualified institutions. Short cuts are expensive

In many (not all) retreats as proposed in your case, the staff are taken through a series of “fun-filled activities” that generate much sweating with little or no thinking about the real issues. At the end of a day filled with running, jumping, skipping, touching, pulling and pushing, the team retires to the bar where huge quantities of expensive alcohol are drunk into the small hours of the night.

In the morning, most of the participants are dehydrated, have severe headaches from too much food and wine, while still others are consumed by guilt and shame for things they might have done to a colleague of the opposite sex, in a state of advanced inebriation.

This is complicated by the previous day’s exhaustion, but fuelled by desires that could not be expressed in the course of the normal work environment. Scandalous sexual encounters have been reported during these regular out of town “bonding sessions”.

Before you follow this route, I would suggest that you approach the problem much as a doctor would an ailing person.

First, establish exactly what is ailing the company. Is it a problem of the bottom line alone, or is the top line also affected? If both are affected, then you have a different problem. Without going into details of this type of scenario, consider the possibility that your expenses (fixed and variable) might be the problem.

This will require a careful examination of your accounts, with comparisons of the various items over the preceding few years.

How long have you had the problem? What internal and external factors might have come into play that could explain the decline in your profits?

For example, what have interest rates and taxation regimes done to your business and what has technology done to the way you conduct your business. Are you still “analogue” while all your competitors have gone “digital”. Do you, in fact, have a business in this day and age or are your products now fully outdated. Are you, for example, selling fax machines while your competitors have moved to scanners? What a thought!

What are the exact signs and symptoms of your malady? Is it possible for example, that you have high staff turnover, too many accidents, fraud or are your staff on a go-slow?

Full diagnosis

What complaints do your staff have? Salary, working conditions, management style, leadership.... Or, why do you describe them as depressed and unhappy?

You must then go on to investigate each of the main findings to be able to find a remedy. Is it your software, hardware or simply old and outdated manufacturing tools and machines that consume too much electricity? In short, you must make a full and proper diagnosis of the problem before accepting any solution.

After that you may then prescribe. New machinery or a bonding session in a good out of town location.