Get an employee to shape up — or ship out
Employees screw up for all kinds of reasons. Maybe a promotion turns sour. Could be they feel unappreciated.
Some workers collect a stack of negative attitudes and hand out one a day.
Obviously, it's up to the chief to set standards and direction. But lone-ranger entrepreneurs aren't known for patience or touchy-feely expertise. Pressed for time and stretched for profits, business owners and top executives find excuses to avoid the discomfort of talking to employees who can't or won't perform.
When staff trouble is ignored, however, everyone suffers, including your customers. Letting a staffer get away with poor or damaging work sends a signal that talented performers are neither valued nor rewarded. Why should anyone go the distance if the guy who won't leave his chair is never called on it?
Why employees fail
Barring a total mismatch of jobs, personalities or skill levels, most workers want to do well. "There are almost always valid reasons for why the employee is performing work at a less-than-desired level," says organizational consultant Alan Barr at Creative Change Associates in Pittsfield Township, Mich.
For instance:
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Do employees receive training? Do they get ample time and constructive feedback to build needed skills? Most new hires are left to figure out roles on their own.
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Are expectations clear? "Research has shown that superiors and their direct reports often disagree by a factor of 50% on the specific skills needed to adequately perform a job," Barr says.
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Are expectations realistic? Many business owners get angry when employees don't work at the same level that the owners do.
Getting them back on track
Frequently, a worker doesn't realize his work isn't up to par. The first step is to talk to him — an informal coffee or lunch will do. You'll accomplish a lot more by identifying solutions rather than pointing out problems.
David Curtis, partner at the Dallas law firm of Gardere Wynne Sewell, suggests that you start by discovering answers to these questions:
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What value does the employee think he brings to the company?
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How does he think he's doing?
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If he does a better-than-average job, what rewards does he think he merits?
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What are his goals within the company?
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Where does he go when he needs help?
Listen closely and then respond with your own answers. It will build a foundation for describing your job expectations. Be specific. Then, working together, draft a plan for improvement, including periodic reviews and time-sensitive benchmarks. "The plan must be fair, realistic and well known to manager and employee," Curtis says.
To prevent legal trouble, keep a written record. Ask the employee to sign and date the agreement, including the deadlines and stages for improvement.
Taking stock of your behavior
One-time events don't change behavior over the long haul, of course. You must reinforce expectations. "Remember [that] negative consequences get folks to stop doing things; positive consequences get them to try or to keep trying," says Wally Bock, a digital business consultant based in Wilmington, N.C.
You might also need to change your own behavior. For example:
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Praise should be directed to specific tasks. "Nice work" is not nearly as effective as "Nailing that sale with Acme was really smart." Handing out personal compliments about, say, a worker's new haircut won't boost morale or performance. You're trying to develop a worker, not chat up a pal.
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Make sure compensation or pay-for-performance policies are rewarding desired behavior. Do you penalize the wrong workers? When employees who take time to train others or to develop teams don't make the same "numbers" as the workers they've helped, those trainers shouldn't be made to feel like suckers.
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On the other hand, most employees do not equate job satisfaction with money. Do you avoid rewarding top performers because you worry they'll ask for a raise? There are dozens of ways to recognize work besides salary. (How about paying for a family dinner out? Providing tickets to a game or performance?) Use them.
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Don't become so invested in the turnaround that you lose sight of business. For example, Marcia Layton Turner, who owns a small public-relations firm in New York state, hired an intern whose work proved thorough but rather slow. After bringing the intern on full time, Turner sent her to seminars, provided regular feedback and offered to pay for training — all to help speed up the work. But nothing changed. "The problem is that I was blaming myself, or perhaps too sure of my managerial talent," Turner says. After two years, Turner let the staffer go.
The upshot: Working on her own, Turner was more productive and increased earnings. "I waited too long, costing my company thousands of dollars in wages and lost opportunities," she says.
When to give up
In fact, some employees need to be cut loose. At Silverman's, a men's clothing retailer in Grand Forks, N.D., co-owner Robin Silverman says two staff members — a man and a woman — simply could not get along. There'd been attempts at harmony, including, says Silverman, only partly kidding, locking the pair in a room and asking them to deal with it.
But when the man overtly sabotaged the efforts of the woman to satisfy a customer's special order, the tension erupted like a volcano. The two started screaming at each other. The man stormed out of the store.
That left Silverman with four problems:
1. The loss of a good customer, who was furious that the formalwear he ordered wasn't ready in time for a trip.
2. "The employee who thought she did her job had her nose out of joint," Silverman says.
3. A valued employee had walked off the job. "That made him open to dismissal, according to our company policy," she says. "We run our business by certain values and we make that clear to employees."
4. The rest of the staff had to fill in for the salesman's absence, making them unhappy.
Looking to remedy the situation, Silverman called the employee who walked out and asked him to come in for a meeting. "I let him talk and didn't say anything. I wanted to hear his side of the story," she says. It became clear that he wouldn't take responsibility for his mistake.
She told him to go home and think about it. When he returned, Silverman said she'd expect him to apologize to the customer, the woman he'd undercut and the rest of the staff who had to cover for him. Otherwise, he'd be asked to resign — based on the policy about walking off the floor.
"But 48 hours later, he was back with the same mantra," she says. Silverman drafted a letter of resignation and had him sign it. You can't win them all.
The cost of recruiting and training employees is steep — even now, when talent is available and hungry. It will never pay off to ignore employees who are screwing up. Take a good look at how every employee is doing. Then start working on any problems before they fester.