Good management requires no secrets. It embodies many things. Managers need not coddle employees, but they must be sensitive to employee concerns. Grievance and complaint-resolution channels should be created and scrupulously used so that problems and unrest can be detected and confronted. Workplace policies against discrimination in all its forms must be communicated to supervisors and employees, and enforced aggressively and fairly.
Economic uncertainty is tough enough to deal with.
The toleration of unlawful discrimination in the workplace in this day is unthinkable. Employees should be briefed, at least annually, as to policies and laws that prohibit discriminatory conduct. Organizing efforts in nursing homes and hospitals very often invoke the impact of what the unions see as intolerable workplace conditions on the quality of health care that results. Such arguments over health force managers to make even harder decisions than most entrepreneurs when attempting to control costs. If the steps outlined above are skillfully applied, chances are very good that union talk will not begin to be heard.