One of the classic questions faced at interviews by prospective employees is “What is your greatest weakness?” Your employees can’t be perfect because nobody is. The key is finding out how you can address their weaknesses and help your employees overcome them.

In this article, the Panthera team explains what employee weaknesses can be detrimental to your business, and what you can do to resolve them.

What employee weaknesses can be damaging to your business?

Employee weaknesses is a wide topic but some of the most common weaknesses that we come across in the workplace are:

Lack of teamwork

If your employees aren’t working together, several issues may come up in the future that you will want to avoid. These issues include your staff members falling out (which can lead to your employees quitting), a poor working environment for new staff members, and a drop in your productivity.

Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success. If your employees are not working together effectively then you should expect to get far less meaningful work done on a daily basis.

Underproductivity

Underproductivity can either be an individual problem or widespread throughout your workforce. The issue with a lack of productivity is that it can spread like wildfire – just like the positivity of a sales team can be affected if one person turns up who’s got out of bed the wrong side that morning. Because of how contagious workplace culture can be, if one person consistently puts in less effort, you can expect the rest of your staff to follow suit soon after.

Poor work ethic

When your staff are unmotivated, you will find yourself dealing with the underproductivity issue we just touched upon. In order to avoid having an unmotivated workforce, you need to reward your employees and create a culture that raises employees who go the extra mile.

Lack of skills

Sometimes, your employees’ weaknesses can be purely vocational. If this is the case, then your workforce won’t be preforming to their maximum capacity because they don’t have the skills or knowledge to do so.

Learning is a process that shouldn’t have a defined end-goal. Even if you only hire people with master’s degrees, there are still things that they can be taught that will benefit your business.

Don’t let your employees rest academically once their initial training is complete. Not only does this allow your employees to become more adept at task fulfilment but it will also give them a sense of progression.

What you can do to remedy these weaknesses

Invest in training

With additional training, your employees will be able to achieve more in your workplace. Whether it is catching up on some basic academic skills that they may have not been able to achieve at school or in-depth workplace training, investing in your employees is always worthwhile.

Additionally, more people will want to join your company when you are hiring if you advertise that they can gain additional skills and qualifications while working for you.

Reward your employees

One common issue that employers face is that they don’t know what their workforce’s maximum capacity is. A good way of determining this is by rewarding your employees. This will incentivise them to work harder and deliver better results.

If you set a target and raise it each time it is met, you will eventually be able to see how much your workforce is capable of – once the progress plateaus.

Do teambuilding exercises

In order to avoid the fallout that can come form a lack of teamwork in your organisation, consider doing some teambuilding exercises. These will help your staff come together and create a much more positive working atmosphere for all of your employees

We can help

If you would like with making sure that you can budget effectively to train your staff by addressing their weaknesses properly, get in touch with one of our professional accountants.

Please call 01235 768 561 or email enquiries@pantheraaccounting.com.