Response to “don't Make This Common Hr Mistake”

In “Don't make this common HR mistake”, the author, Chris Griffiths, discusses a common management problem that small business owners usually face. According to Chris, small business owners would avoid direct communications with their employees about disappointing behaviors. Instead, they would turn to consultants for advices to resolve the situations. However, the author believes that the most beneficial method is to establish a non-confrontational communication between employees and employers. This will provide an opportunity for the owners to express their expectations of their employees in a way the employees could understand. Lastly, the author suggests documenting the result of the communications to create a standard for future references. I feel this is a very good example of setting up a set of policies to indicate the appropriate and acceptable behaviors within the organization. Since the results are well documented, employees can self-check if their behaviors are considered to be deficient. Thus, employees are naturally self-monitoring and will likely be able to perform better. The clear defined policies can also be used as a guideline for employers. They can reward the acceptable behaviors and punish the deficient ones based on the documentations using either positive reinforcements or negative reinforcements. This idea follows the social cognitive theory and I believe it will be beneficial to a small business organization. In a smaller firm, a frequent communication between employees and employer is easier to accomplish and the employers can express and reinforce their expectation regularly. Thus, I think the author proposed a suitable solution for small business and it can be beneficial for the organization in a long run.