“My associate or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.”
The above statement is the Ninth element of employee engagement in Gallup’s Q12. The Gallup organization interviewed thousands of employees and found that this statement is linked with employees staying on their job and putting forth a great effort for the company. Have you ever worked with someone who just wasn’t holding their own at the job? Have you ever managed someone who knew the job well, but chose to just do the minimum?
These types of issues are common experiences for managers and it can affect morale greatly. Ideally as a manager you would want to supervise a team of excellent folks who work together well and challenge each other to do their best work. What often happens is that you may have mostly excellent employees with one person who is underperforming. This one staff person unfortunately has influence over the remaining staff who can be resentful that they are working hard and their peer is not. They may also be upset that you, as the manager, aren’t dealing quickly enough with the problem person.
What do you do as the manager? Deal with the problem employee directly by discussing the following:
1. Is the position best suited to the employee’s strengths?
2. If not, is there another position that would be better suited to this employee’s talents and strengths (that they are qualified for)?
3. Is there something you can do as a manager to increase the employee’s engagement at work?
4. Are you giving clear directions and expectations regarding what kind of performance you want from this employee?
There are two main options that could occur – the employee stays or the employee leaves the position. As a manager, you only want the employee staying if they are committed to quality work. As difficult as it is to let someone go, sometimes it is the right thing to do for the team, the organization, AND the problem employee.
Without giving away your staff person’s private information, it is important to have a firm grasp on how they are impacting the rest of the team and this assessment should contribute to your decision about keeping or losing the problem staff person.
Finally, make sure you aren’t spending more time dealing with the problem person than you are supporting your star employees. You will get much more from nuturing your excellent employees than from trying to “fix” your mediocre employee.
I would love to hear from you about this post and your management experiences around this issue. E-mail me at chris@chriscoward.com to submit your comments.