Common Issues that use of Human Needs Skills improve

Customer Relationships

• Salespeople and sales support staff who are not equipped to deal with emotional arousal in customers, leading to relationship breakdown and a reduction in future business
• A lack of skills in moving customers up the value chain to increase margin
• Difficulties in bringing on board major new customers
• Inability to resolve customer disputes satisfactorily before they progress to legal action

Conflict
 

• Poor communication between employees and across departments that prevents necessary work being done efficient
• ‘Personality clashes’ where people with strong areas of specialised knowledge do not understand each other and are not working well together
• People getting deadlocked in conflict

Sales and New Business Development
 

• Not winning tenders because our customers say we are 'uncompetitive'
• Making really good presentations but not closing the sale
• Sales losing momentum because we are unable to involve the key stakeholders in our customers’ business
• Confusion within our customers business as to what they really want
• Allowing price to become the dominant issue in the sales process
• Doing a large volume of work with the customers procurement department, but unable to get to other key decision makers to get the deal signed off

Lack of leadership skills
 

• Poor buy in and failure to delivery on performance and strategic objectives
• Managers burning out, not delegating sufficiently and not coaching people to develop themselves as successors or as resources for the business
• Managers being promoted based on their technical skills but with poor ability to manage and get the best from their team
• Group meetings going off course, running over and being de-motivational for attendees. This results in poor decision making and a lack of follow through by the people attending

Culture
 

• How to deal with and operate under targets that are imposed on an area, that seem unrealistic and out of touch for those that they are imposed on
• Staff having a history of working with imposed developmental initiatives that did not teach real skills of problem solving and working well with people. This has resulted in people becoming cynical and sceptical with regard to future training initiatives
• High staff turnover, sickness rates, poor life/work balance and unsatisfactory attendance at work
• Low morale in individuals and poor performance in areas of the business