Dealing with Problem Employees

Here’s some straight talk on problem employees. This bit of advice might not be easy to take, but believe me, it can change your professional life.

Do you have a person (or two or three) in your company who is making life miserable for you, negatively affecting the morale of your staff and even giving bad customer service?

Maybe they have been working with you for years; maybe they are related to you, or maybe they have some specialized knowledge important to your business. They think that you don’t have the guts – or the ability – to let them go. They think they can get away with the bad attitude.

Someone who is not contributing, doesn’t care, won’t adhere to your set standards and thinks you won’t do anything about it is “holding you hostage.” As a business owner or manager, you cannot let this happen. Don’t let anyone hold you hostage. It adds enormous frustration and stress to your life, it ruins the morale of those employees in your company who want to do a good job, and ultimately it takes time from the quality of the experience your customers get from your business.

Your challenge is to take the bull by the horns and go toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball, with the guilty party. Make sure they understand that their performance must change. But before you pull that problem employee aside to give them the “shape up or ship out” talk, ask yourself the following questions:

If you have answered “no” to any of the first three questions, the burden is on to you to provide more training. If you answered, “yes” to the last one, perhaps some short-term patience is what’s needed. A little understanding can go a long way toward making everything easier for everyone. Be calm and thoughtful and give your problem employee a fair chance to get back on board.
If, however, you employee has been thoroughly trained but still doesn’t meet your standards, the behavior is a question of willingness. And you need to take action.

It’s not easy or comfortable to discipline your employees. Here are a few reasons why managers and business owners don’t hold their employees accountable for the standards they set. Don’t let them get in your way:

Family Feelings. When you are working side by side with people, day after day, they begin to feel like, well … family. You probably spend as much or more time with some of your co-workers as you do with your actual family, not to mention that some of the people working for you might really be your family members.

“But They Won’t Like Me Anymore” Syndrome. People suffering from this affliction need to be liked. Being popular is more important than getting the job done. Yet, it’s more important to be respected than liked.

Terminal Niceness. I know you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. No one does. I’m no suggesting that you become mean, nasty and awful, but I do believe that you need to do the things that are best for your business, even if it is going to be perceived as men by an employee. Don’t forget, your job is to generate profits and to continuously improve the strength and value of your company. Your job is not to keep under-performing employees happy.

Your first action, however, should not be to fire your problem employee but to begin a progressive process for moving him/her out the door if change doesn’t occur.

And if the person doesn’t change, you must replace the person. Don’t give in to your automatic reaction: “I can’t replace her; she’s the only one who can …” or “I can’t replace him; he’s been with me forever.” Everyone can be replaced.

Remember, your first obligation is to your business and your customers. Anyone who is not contributing in a positive way needs to be replaced with someone who will.

For more business management tips from the author, Bob Negen, click here.