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This podcast is for small to medium business owners. You've got a lot to gain, a lot to lose, and business is tough; there's a lot at stake. Business acumen is what every business owner needs, it will make a profound difference to your business.
This podcast will cover marketing, positioning, branding, lead generation, selling, negotiating, customer service, managing staff, managing finances and accounts and much more.
https://www.businessveteran.com.au/
mark@businessveteran.com.au
What to do with a problem employee.
What a massive topic for a 10 minute podcast. So what I'll do it break it into several parts.
Now if you've got a business of any size, you got employees. And if you've been in business for more than 5 minutes, you've probably had problem employees. You know the joke about staff problems? If you've got staff, you've got problems!
As I've mentioned plenty of times before, in business there is only one way forward. Get good at managing people. You could hire someone good at managing people, but you still have to know what they look like, and still have to manage them, of course. This is aside from the fact that a capable CEO is going to cost serious money.
There are some businesses that you can run on your own, such as a public accountant, and you can even sell it and get some value by selling your client book. But the vast majority of businesses require you to employ people, get them servicing the clients so that you can sell the business, extract your equity and step away free.
All right back to the problem employee. Let me classify problems into behaviour and outcomes. Outcomes are the things your employee is responsible for, and typically you would have some kind of measurement for them.
Behaviour problems covers absolutely everything else the employee does or doesn't do. So not the measurable outcomes they're responsible for, but everything else.
Let's start with behaviour problems and let's start with the most serious behaviour problems.
Now aside from extremely serious behaviour issues such as physical violence, or bullying or threats, the most typical serious behaviour problem is the “actively disengaged” employee. This employee is badmouthing you and the business, to their fellow employees, or even worse to your clients. They are bitter and negative.
They're most likely doing this behind your back, so it is not always easy to find out that it is going on. Shockingly, this type of employee constitutes 20% of the working population. So the chances of you getting one of these sooner or later is high (if you haven’t got one already, that is).
The problem with this behaviour is that it is undermining the efforts of everybody in your business. It is causing more damage to morale and productivity than you probably realise. Often this type of employee is a talented high performer when it comes to the outcomes, - probably why you’ve put up with him until now. However everyone who has been in business a long time, will urge you to take action quickly, even if that means the pain of risking being without the trouble-maker while you replace them. They will tell you to cop the pain now because you will thank yourself later (and so will your team).
Once these lemon suckers are either fixed or gone, you will find that the collective productivity of the team increases to more than replace, the toxic person who has left.
So what do you do with them? Well in my experience, about half the time you can fix them and the other half of the time you have to move them on.
To address this particular behaviour problem there is an important business tool which can really help. It is called a “values statement” with an associated “code of conduct”. In a perfect world, you will have a strong values statement already. If you don't, don't let that hold you up from dealing with the problem. In a future episode, I’ll show you how to create an authentic values statement, and how to use it.
Meanwhile, in regard to your problem person, I suggest finding at least 3 examples of their negativity or problem behaviour. Talk to your other staff, if you have established a good trust relationship, they will let you know what's going on because they don't want this behaviour in the team as much as your business doesn't need it.
If Mr Toxic is silly enough to put his negative vitriol into an email or on the phone which your system has recorded, then you have what you need. Sit them down and tell them they have an attitude problem - give them the examples. Ask them what is going on for them that may be impacting their attitude at work. Tell them the problem is urgent and needs to be resolved within a week, or maximum two.
Hopefully one of two things will happen. They will either quit, or they will improve and engage honestly with what the problem is for them.
As I have said plenty of times before, if people are give honest and objective feedback, they will generally either quit, or step up.
The big test will be whether they take responsibility for their actions, and resolve to change their attitude, either that or they’ll blame you (or anything else) and try to justify their behaviour. Don’t take it personally, some people carry around a huge amount of baggage that they picked up years ago. And don’t try to fix them either, as the old saying goes, they have to want to change – nothing will change until they genuinely decide to.
Don’t delay in doing something about this problem employee, their impact on the rest of the team is enormous and they are counting on you to take action.
The second most serious problem in my view is insubordination - in other words, refusing to do something. The obvious question is, is it something that is required for an outcome they are responsible for? If it is, then them saying ‘no’ is simply not an option (assuming, of course, that what they are being asked to do is not illegal, unethical or unsafe). Show them how the request is necessary for them to achieve the outcomes they’re responsible for. Again, they will typically go one of two ways.
Now to less serious behaviour problems. You might have an employee who's attitude and performance was great, but has recently declined. The first thing to check is their leave accrual. It took me a while to figure this out, but eventually I learned to ask if they have had leave lately, “oh look at that”, the recently underperforming employee had not taken leave in a year or more. They take their leave and return to their previously high performing selves.
If lack of leave doesn't seem to be a problem, then you need to sit down with them and tell them what you are seeing and experiencing. Like all relationships, we avoid talking about a problem which only makes things worse.
When you meet with them, use objective data, not your guess or perception. Objective data doesn’t always have to be numbers, it can be anecdotes, stories in other words, describing things that have happened.
Now I have found that people are not always good at realising or articulating what is causing them grief. If they can't or won't express what is going on for them, a very useful tool is the Gallop Q12. It is a list of questions that the Gallup organisation has developed based on research which can give you a lot of clues on what employees need to be fully engaged. I will put a link to these questions in the notes. Have a read, and see if you are creating an environment where employees can thrive, or if there is something you, as leader, are not providing for them which might be contributing to the problem. This is worth an episode in it’s own right. Lookout for an episode on “employee engagement”.
Next time though, I’ll cover problems with Outcomes. From serious problems such as falling a long way short of being able to the job, through to just not getting enough done (ie productivity), to less serious problems such as those great employees who do most things well, but keep doing (or not doing) some things which is driving you demented.