How To Manage A Difficult Employee
Having to manage a difficult employee is never fun and can be the most challenging part of your responsibilities as a business owner/executive. While never easy, this article will address a step-by-step way to consistently and confidently handle the most challenging employee situations. In addition, how you handle a difficult employee will send a strong and powerful message to those who still work for your company. Addressing the problem: When you first realize you are having a problem with an employee you are responsible to manage, bring this individual behind closed doors and discuss your specific concerns. The conversation should be brief and to the point, making certain your employee understands the concerns you have and the improvements you expect. Be specific with your comments and only address the business concerns you have, setting aside any personal issues. Of course, always look to support this member of your team in any way possible with the intention of a positive outcome. Tip From The Coach: As this is the first meeting you are having with your employee to discuss your concerns, take notes during this meeting, date them, and place them into this person's employee file. This will serve as a reminder of the problems you expressed during this meeting and will document the first time you asked this employee to specifically improve their performance. This is also the perfect time to review together this person's written job description and is another way to clarify your expectations. Continuing problems: If problems persist with this same employee, bring this individual again behind closed doors and present a written memo recapping your concerns. In this memo, list the day/date of your first meeting when you discussed your initial problems with this individual's performance and list specific areas of improvement which must happen. Remember, when you are requesting improved performance, the improvements must be measurable and must have a time frame or date when these improvements will be measured and reviewed again. Tip From The Coach: After you present your written memo outlining your concerns, have your employee sign and date this document which validates the points discussed during this meeting. In your memo, be certain to include the words, "failure to improve your performance, may lead to termination." This makes your intentions perfectly clear. Of course, always consult with your human resource department and your legal counsel, prior to presenting your memo, so everyone is in the loop. Terminating this employee: If necessary, termination of this employee may be required. If so, make the termination, swiftly. This person's attitude can be detrimental to the morale of your team and their attitude might be affecting those around them. The termination meeting should be done at the end of the day so this person's departure will not disrupt others. Make certain the meeting is brief and state exactly why this person is being terminated and have all final paperwork ready for signature. Tip From The Coach: Sadly, the termination of an employee is not a pleasant part of business management. On a positive note, take the time to analyze what went wrong and look for possible solutions. Ask yourself, "was this person the perfect fit for the position, did we give this person proper training, could I have done anything to change the course of this situation?" In asking these questions, sometimes very positive improvements can be made. Employee terminations and the investment to hire a new person, is expensive and should not be taken lightly. Want to ask some additional questions about how to handle a difficult employee? Fax a note on your letterhead to 435-615-8670 or send an E-mail to ernest@powerhour.com and The Coach will fax/E-mail you a free TeleForum invitation. Author's note: Ernest F. Oriente, The Coach, is the founder of PowerHourŽ a professional business coaching/recruiting service and the author of SmartMatch Alliances?. He has spent 17,500 hours [since 1995] delivering customized training, by telephone, in leadership, traditional/Internet marketing and sales for fast growing sales companies and entrepreneurial businesses worldwide. PowerHourŽ specializes in global distance learning by telephone, using their state-of-the-art conference call system for interactive and dynamic TeleForums. Twice-monthly TeleForums link 10-100 executives/professionals/individuals who are geographically dispersed, in a time efficient and profitable format. PowerHourŽ is based in Olympic-town?Park City, Utah, at 435-615-8486, by E-mail ernest@powerhour.com or visit their TeleForum website: http://www.powerhour.com. To receive a FREE success newsletter, with subscribers in 74 countries, send an E-mail to: ernest@powerhour.com. Recent PowerHourŽ articles have appeared in 4000+ business/trade publications and websites.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How to Keep a Good Employee: Look, Listen, Learn
Recently a client told me a wonderful story about how a change of attitude helped her to keep a valued employee.
Indiscretion Can Kill Your Business
The quickest way to cancel out all the thought, work, energy, time and expense you've poured into promoting your business is with indiscretions. I'm not talking about giving your clients' confidential materials to their competitors, though that certainly will kill your business I'm talking about the indiscretions that leak out of your mouth, such as:
Lets Make Training More Interesting!
Many HR managers believe that by sending their workers to participate in external training programs, they have fulfilled their responsibilities. This is not the best situation. In this article, I will be emphasizing on how to increase the interest-level of your employees who attend the training program taking into consideration that there is increasing cultural diversity and computer literacy in the workplace.
Preparing For ISO 9001 2000 Registration
The steps need to be taken to prepare an organization for ISO 9001 2000 registration:
Lets Flourish and Prosper!
Some say that in business as in sex: if it is good, it's great and if it is bad it's still pretty good. This does not happen to be true. If business is bad, it can get very bad. There are personnel problems, production expenses, overhead, laws, taxes, fines. Faulty financial decisions, inability to accurately evaluate the situation and quickly resolve problems all lead to an extremely high mortality rate among new business: up to 95% do not survive past their first 12 months.
How Managers Can Turn Failures Into Successes
Although there are real, external reasons for managerial difficulty ? including massive reorganization after takeovers and the realities of discrimination due to age, sex, and race ? managers fail most often for reasons they themselves create.
Medical Malpractice: Three Myths That Cost Your Hospital Millions
What's the use?
6 Steps to Effective Communication
Effective leaders are known for being excellent communicators. Here's what to do.
Write Winning Proposals For Venture Capitalists
You need to secure money for your project. You visit venture capitalists to see if you can get that money. A venture capitalist views your project as a pure investment. A venture capitalist has no emotional attachment unlike you. You need to write a proposal that is structured around a venture capitalists needs, not yours. What may interest you may have no relevance to your potential funder. You need a business plan that is 'investor-focused'.
Riding the Waves to Success
Last week I was confused and frustrated about a few things
related to one of my businesses, and a bit upset with myself
and "The Universe." As a result, I went into a deep
meditation to get some clarity and help.
3 Innovation Keys - Do Your Innovative Efforts Need More Power?
Recently, I attended a webinar with nearly 400 other Chief
Learning Officers - during one polling period, we were
asked what primary driving force pushes organization-wide
or individual innovation - the majority agreed that
leadership is that force.
Keep The Faith - Transform The Fear
FEAR! To what extent does fear rule your life? How is fear controlling or motivating you? Bring up the topic and watch people react. Our lives incorporate so many beliefs about fear- reinforced by what we tell ourselves and what we hear from others. Is it any wonder that finding peace and serenity becomes such a challenge within a strong climate of negativity?
Effective Meetings Begin With a Real Agenda
Everyone knows that an agenda is the key to an effective meeting. But an agenda
that consists of a list of nouns, such as budget, software, and picnic, is useless.
Here's how to prepare a real agenda that puts you in control of the meeting.
ISO 9001 Registration ? 8 Steps for Success
You've made the plans, built the quality system and conducted the audit. So how do you register your company as ISO 9001 conformant? And how can you be sure you're getting the most value for your investment? Here's how the process works.
Overcoming the Document Tracking Challenge
"Where did it go? It was here yesterday. Wait. Here it is. But it looks a lot like the draft I just sent my team members yesterday. I don't remember when this change was made. Who made this change? Why is document tracking so difficult?"
Budgets!
Budgets! There I've said it. For some the most hated and feared word in business. But it doesn't have to be that way. As a matter of fact, a well thought out and constructed budget can be the small business owners best friend. After all, a budget is just a laid out plan to produce profits and profits is what we are all after.
Innovation Management ? Good Leadership
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.
Innovation Management ? Raw brainpower versus experience
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.
People Literacy
Every Manager has experienced the frustration of not understanding why one management approach that works beautifully with one employee is ineffective with another. That's because what we think would be motivating isn't always motivating to someone else.
Can You Sleep While The Wind Blows?
Let me repeat a story I heard many years ago that has stuck with me throughout my life. The lessons from this fable are many and have been applied to a variety of areas of my life. It recently popped into my mind again as I was thinking about the needs businesses have today for business continuity planning and disaster recovery contingencies.
|
