Employee Behavior - The "Victim" in All of Us.

2010-09-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

I am been in HR for 15 years and am always dumbfounded by the predictability of employee behavior. People have a natural leaning towards being either a victim or a warrior. If you can image a 9-point scale, with 1 being a victim and 9 being a warrior (you will notice there is no "middle"and you can't use 9.5) -- what whole number do you represent? You may slip up or down on the scale from time to time, but where do you usually rest? I would say that most find more comfort in the range of 2-4 while it takes courage and the right culture to to be an 8 or 9.

Do you find yourself easily finding the wrongs or the programs that aren't working and making it known to others that you are more wise than the creatures of certain programs? Does it take a bit more energy to give people the benefit of the doubt and to work at trying to uncover a person's motivation?

It is rare that someone truly has bad intentions...where they work at trying to make someone's life or job more difficult. We generally approach a person's intention as they are in it for the sport of it - to actively work at creating barriers and challenges for people. Really?? Not so much. If you can be a bug in someone's brain, do you really think someone thought of a particular program to be difficult or to have it fail or to have it not accepted?

Think about yourself. Take responsibility for yourself and become aware when you slip into the victim category.

Looking at human behavior through HR Goggles

2010-09-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

I will soon be sharing some progressive, uninhibited insight through my eyes of an HR professional. Employee behavior is very predictable and I look forward to sharing my views.