Complaining can influence organizational communication in both positive and bad ways. Constructive complaints, or planned forums for workers to air their grievances, provide insightful feedback that may be used to enhance operations, goods, and services, hence they ought to be promoted.
Venting and persistent complaining have benefits and drawbacks for the person and the group, thus they should be allowed the appropriate time and space rather than being suppressed.
Malicious whining reduces productivity, fosters a hostile work atmosphere, and only serves to advance personal interests at the expense of others and the group.
Managers may establish a positive, high-performing work environment while monitoring and containing the risks and costs of complaining for themselves and their teams by managing these various forms of complaints with the proper behaviors.
The Elements of Complaining
diverse complaints have diverse underlying motives (both conscious and unconscious) and outcomes. When dealing with employee complaints, begin by determining the type of complaint and its motivators:
Productive whining
Complaints that are constructive aim to expose a problem and make it better. Productive complaints, often known as “voice,” can yield important input that is required to alter practices or behaviors that are detrimental to the organization and to improve procedures, goods, and services.
For instance, employee complaints about a lack of natural light in the office, an excessive workload, the usefulness of a new product, or a team member’s inappropriate behavior might identify possible issues and inspire ideas for improvement. Productive complaints can provide useful information to a manager who is prepared to listen and can identify issues that need to be resolved quickly before they spread throughout the organization.
Venting
Venting is a sort of emotional whining in which the person frequently and forcefully tells others how unhappy they are with someone or something. Venting typically has one of two purposes: either to find allies or to let out pent-up stress or irritation. Positively, expressing your emotions can bring about momentary alleviation from pain.
A high level of physiological activation is maintained while unpleasant emotions are suppressed, and this can have detrimental impacts on our health and cognition, such as raising our risk of cardiovascular disease.
In addition to fostering emotions of social support and reducing loneliness, venting to a dependable coworker or coach can also help us gain perspective on a situation in a secure setting before it becomes more serious.
That being said, listening to someone vent places a double load on the listener: first, they must accept and manage the complainer’s unpleasant emotions, and second, they must then manage their own emotions or shared discontent with the problem.
If this goes on too long, it could make the listener feel worn out and lose their capacity for empathy. In addition, it can cause chronic stress and foster a culture of negative emotions if complaining is used frequently and habitually as a means of coping with unpleasant emotions rather than constructive, solution-focused grumbling.
Continuing to gripe
Some folks appear to be always complaining. The world around them, as well as their job and employment, are frequently seen more critically or pessimistically by those who complain a lot. In this situation, whining is more a reflection of the complainer’s thinking and attitude than of any actual issue.
The social costs of this behavior are considerable because it drains people’s energy to listen to a chronic complainer, and people who are close to them frequently give up attempting to help because it never appears to make a difference; instead, a new complaint replaces an old one.
Chronic complainers can be helpful “trouble finders” by bringing to light any red flags before they spread widely, which is one benefit. For instance, persistent complainers may be the first to identify any possible flaws in a new work-from-home policy.
Therefore, persistent whiners shouldn’t be completely disregarded because they’ll either bring up new issues or eventually wear down the people they work with. Furthermore, if you notice a particular employee beginning to feel cynical about everything related to work on a regular basis, this could be a crucial individual warning sign of oncoming burnout.
Maliciously complaining
A harmful type of complaining, malicious complaining is intended to discredit others or obtain an unfair advantage. Instead than being motivated by discontent with an organisational problem, this behaviour is driven by some sort of personal advantage.
Malicious complaints, on the other hand, benefit the complainer at the expense of the victim. This kind of whining is frequently linked to rumours and intrigue. Leaders must act swiftly if someone raises unsubstantiated or inflated complaints or speaks ill of others with the purpose to damage their reputation or career or to elevate their own position through negative social comparison.
Rarely does this kind of whining have a positive outcome, and if it persists, it can degrade team morale, foster a toxic and psychologically dangerous work atmosphere, and adversely affect productivity.
Unchecked workplace whining can have unfavourable effects, such as “complaint contagion,” in which the negative attitudes and feelings associated with some types of complaints can spread to others and influence team and organisational culture.
A learned helplessness and decreased productivity can also result from persistent complaints that offer no alternatives. You must take care when handling the grievances of your team members as a manager. This is how:
Start with being intrigued and curious.
When you initially learn about a complaint, be appreciative of the messenger for having faith in your ability to address it. Employees who express their dissatisfaction to their manager directly are more likely to be committed than those who will turn to their peers or friends instead (using venting or malicious complaining, for example), even though the message may be cloaked in negative emotions like frustration, disappointment, or even anger.
You have the opportunity to determine the issue as they are coming to you. Take on a curious attitude during the chat. Keep an eye out for the false consensus bias, which can lead to attitudes like “If I don’t personally experience it, it must not be true” or “If it’s not a big deal to me, it shouldn’t be to them either.”
Take into account the intent when an employee complains about a certain subject. Does the complaint seek to hurt or seek to solve a problem? Does it present a chance or elicit a suggestion for improvement? Does it indicate a potential problem in the future? Has this issue been brought up by numerous staff members?
Is the person just complaining about something that isn’t really fixable in an effort to be heard? What do you intend to accomplish with your comments, and how can I help you? is a direct question you might make if you can’t figure out the motivation behind the complaint. This can give workers a better understanding of their complaints and provide suggestions for how you might support them.
Encourage constructive complaints and make them easier to make.
Encourage the use of different viewpoints and constructive, solution-focused whining. You may, for instance, schedule frequent forums for staff members to offer constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement.
Regular performance reviews also offer a framework for constructive criticism from both parties and a chance to develop psychological safety. In order to avoid complaint contagion and malicious complaining, employees who are aware that they have a clear opportunity to express concerns about anything with which they are not satisfied may wait for the right moment and location to do so.
Installing a time buffer, or taking a brief break before talking about a complaint to consider it, its effects, and possible remedies, might help the complainant express their concerns more clearly and with less negative emotion. Additionally, it may enable the recipient to gather materials and concepts for a response.
You might also think about asking workers to discuss some complicated issues or common worries in a safe group setting so that everyone can voice their opinions and take other viewpoints into account. Recognise “helpful” concerns that offer channels and improvement possibilities to assist staff in adopting more proactive, solution-focused mindsets.
Address negative complaints.
Negative concerns must be addressed immediately since they can swiftly damage teamwork and culture. If a team member is “known” for malicious or persistent chronic whining, others may grow weary of listening to them, which could result in their complaints being overlooked.
If you discover that an employee frequently complains about someone without attempting to resolve the issue, you should address the relationship, perhaps through mediation or a fruitful discussion.
Simply confronting the behaviour can be quite helpful in some situations because employees aren’t always aware of how their tone or bad outlook affects others and effects culture. If a person complains about the same thing over and over again, especially if the issue is unsolvable, they may require support to adjust their attitude and behaviour in order to accept and manage with the situation better.
To avoid further contaminating the team’s culture, they might need to decide to leave the circumstance if that isn’t an option (or be asked to leave by the manager).
