Blog Details
Employee Workplace Fear: Biggest Obstacle to Company Innovation
Fear is perhaps the greatest obstacle to innovation that employees face in today’s business world. According to a recent survey of 420 office working adults conducted by an independent research firm on behalf of Accountemps, nearly a third (28 percent) stated that the fear of making mistakes on the job was their greatest fear.
“Fear of failure holds many people back in their careers, but without smart risks new ideas would never take shape,” says Max Messmer, who is the chairman of Accountemps as well as the author of Managing Your Career for Dummies®. Messmer believes mistakes happen on occasion and it’s normal to take extra precautions to avoid them, so long as it doesn’t impede your confidence that you can get the job done.
When asked “Which one of the following is your greatest workplace fear?”, workers responses, according to Accountemps, were:
| Making errors on the job | 28% |
| Dealing with difficult customers or clients | 18% |
| Conflicts with your manager | 15% |
| Speaking in front of a group of people | 13% |
| Conflicts with coworkers | 13% |
| No fears | 3% |
| Other | 7% |
| Don’t Know/No Answer | 4% |
| 101%* |
* Responses are rounded.
How Can Business Leaders Help Employees Overcome Fear to Find Success?
In personal situations, fear can be paralyzing if you don’t get control of it fast. But in terms of corporate success, employee fear can be an impediment to innovation. Armed with the knowledge that many employees fear making a mistake, now is the time for business leaders to embrace fear by putting it to work in their favor, rather than allowing it to work against them.
Here are a few great tips from the survey to help manage your employees’ fear and turn it into a driving force for your organization.
1) Provide a roadmap. Make sure your employees know their responsibilities and priorities on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. However, when providing this roadmap, make it simple and straightforward. A convoluted or overly-complex guide, may invite the fear of making mistakes back into the equation.
2) Provide directions. Having a roadmap is great for employees to follow, but detours do happen. When giving your employees a new project or responsibilities, be sure to provide clear directions that includes potential obstacles they may stumble upon. Most importantly, give them instructions on how to overcome these barriers.
3) Provide a mentor. Mentors are great to have in business and in life. Not only do they know a few shortcuts that will make your employees’ journey more efficient, but they also know a few roadblocks and speed bumps they might want to avoid. Employees who can listen to their mentor’s wisdom will have less fear of making a mistake.
4) Show appreciation. Don’t let saying “Thank You” become a lost art in your business. The truth of the matter is that no man is an island. You may have done the lion’s share of the work on any given project, but you also probably had a good bit of help along the way that was instrumental in your overall success. Acknowledge that help. Offer praise and show appreciation to your employees and acknowledge their success, and they’ll be quick to help out in the future, rather than cower in fear.
5) Instill a collaborative environment. As a business leader, you set a good example to occasionally jump in and assist an overburdened colleague. Be sure to convey that you expect and appreciate this same kind of behavior from your employees. Fostering a workplace environment where employees regularly help each other can help overcome an employee’s fear of making a mistake when buried in work.
These revelations are hardly earth shattering, but they can make a huge difference in not only how your employees handle workplace fear, but also contribute to innovation in your company.
