[Article] CONFRONTING A TROUBLED EMPLOYEE

[BBBEE_CompSpec]

The Do's of Confronting a Troubled Employee:

____ 1. DO - Establish levels of work performance you expect. Set limits that you will tolerate. Determine what is acceptable to you. Make expectations clear.

____ 2. DO - Document all absenteeism, tardiness, incidents on the job and poor or impaired job performance. Specific details are necessary.

____ 3. DO - Be consistent. Don't play favorites or give special consideration. Treat all employees equally.

____ 4. DO - Base the confrontation only on JOB PERFORMANCE (the Company's only concern), not suspected alcoholism, drug addiction, personal problems, etc.

____ 5. DO - Be firm, tell the employee that you are there to help. Try to gain trust.

____ 6. DO - Be direct; speak with authority. Individual will respect you for this.

____ 7. DO - Be prepared to cope with the employee's resistance, defensiveness, and even hostility. One effective method of overcoming resistance is that you talk about your feelings of concern first, then move to impaired job performance. To begin with the job performance usually creates hostility, resistance, and defensiveness.

____ 8. DO - Take the responsibility to intervene. Don't be afraid to get involved. Remember it is highly probable that the employee's condition and his/her job performance will progressively deteriorate.

____ 9. DO - Provide the information and make the appropriate referral in accordance with Company policy. (If necessary, explain Company's policy without specific reference to alcoholism.) Seek a commitment to referral and improved performance.

____ 10. DO - Continue to monitor and document.

The Don'ts of Confronting a Troubled Employee:

____ 1. DON'T - Be a diagnostician or counselor. Avoid labeling and personal recommendations.

____ 2. DON'T - Make value judgments. Better to say, I don't like this or that, than I think you are wrong. Rely on specific job performance criteria.

____ 3. DON'T - Moralize. Avoid the shoulds, shouldn'ts, don't you know betters because these kinds of remarks create hostility.

____ 4. DON'T - Ask why the employee does this or that. A why question opens you up to hearing a variety of excuses and sympathy-evoking tactics. The employee is always responsible for behavior and job performance.

____ 5. DON'T - Allow the employee to box or corner you. Regardless of any rationalizations, remain firm in your contention that it is the employee's responsibility to improve job performance by seeking help.

____ 6. DON'T - Allow the employee to play you against higher management and/or the union - you're not in the middle here - the employee is. NO UNION EVER PRAISED POOR JOB PERFORMANCE. Most unions want to combine their efforts with management to help the troubled employee improve job performance.

____ 7. DON'T - Make idle disciplinary threats. Follow through with your warnings, and it is best to establish specific check-back dates and expectations.

____ 8. DON'T - Discuss drinking unless it occurs on the job.

____ 9. DON'T - Cover up for a friend. Your misguided kindness can lead to a serious, even fatal, delay in real help reaching him/her.

[Dave A]

Would you say that one of the keys here is to wait until the employee raises that they have a personal problem?

____ 1. DON'T - Be a diagnostician or counselor. Avoid labeling and personal recommendations.

It's worth stressing that being a counselor is quite a tricky business. Probably best not tackled unless you have some training in this area. Also it's important to separate the personal problem from the performance problem, even if the personal problem is the underlying cause of the performance problem.

____ 9. DON'T - Cover up for a friend. Your misguided kindness can lead to a serious, even fatal, delay in real help reaching him/her.

That's not exactly in the spirit of uBuntu, is it.

[BBBEE_CompSpec]

You should already have an EAP in place in the business. The employee must know that you have an open door situation and that they can discuss problems with you, no matter how trivial, that may obstruct their performance.

Help the employee remove the obstacles in their life and performance will improve. With improved performance come improved production and profits.

[Marq]

Usually a 'troubled employee' is troubled because of reasons that have not much to do with the work scenario itself.

All of your do's and don'ts avoid the source of potential problems and have a head in the sand technique by focusing on the job at hand which is suffering as a result of some other influence.

Help the employee remove the obstacles in their life and performance will improve.

How do you suggest we do this if your set of rules prohibit finding the obstacles in the first place?

I would also suggest that, contrary to your no 4 rule, an employees alcohol or drug problem is the companies concern if the behaviors or job performance is affected by these practices. If the habit is affecting the work then they have brought the problem to work and made it the employers problem as well. A junkie, alcoholic, bad home scenario, money problemed employee will always promise you a better performance next time and will carry on as usual if not confronted by the real problem.

[BBBEE_CompSpec]

It seems to me you don't have an equity plan in place at the company. You also don't have an EAP in place either. Legislation has changed. You cannot get rid of an employee until you, as an employer, has done everything in your power to assist the problem employee. The Equity Plan is legislation. Every country throughout the world have legislated the EAP. Dismissal should be the last section of your agenda. Once you have attempted or resolved the troubled employee's problem there should now be no problem for better performance. The employees must believe you have an open door moratorium.

[Marq]

?

[BBBEE_CompSpec]

I like it when you play devil's advocate. It brings out the best in me.

Since the inception of COSATU we have had the law according to Legislation and the law according to COSATU. Many businesses have gone the route of believing every word told to them by the unions. They fear retaliation should they refuse to obey.

There are three audits you need to do on your business, on an annual basis, to stay ahead of your employees, namely:

1. O F O Code Audit
2. Skills Audit
3. HR Audit

Added to this you need to have in place:

1. Employment Equity Plan
2. Policies and Procedures Manual
3. Terms and Conditions
4. A Training Matrix for each year
5. An Employee Assistance Programme
6. A Succession Plan

Good Human Resources Practice include the following:

1. The four different Contracts of Employment
2. A Probationary Review Contract
3. An Organogram (Channel of Command)
4. A Production Flow Diagram for each department

This is besides all the Acts (A copy of each to be kept on your business premises), Regulations and Sign Boards required to run your business.

If you are running all the above-mentioned operations, plus instituting annual reviews, you have the perfect business. If you can get your WSP/ATR in at the beginning of April every year, your Mandatory Grant payment will take place before the limitation date, June 30 each year.Your Employment Equity Report will be ready before January 1. You will know exactly who is working and who is not, who needs training and who does not, and who remains in your employ and who goes. Your SETA will have so much respect for you, they won't have a problem paying your Discretionary Grant. You would be the perfect company to train employees in.

[Dave A]

And if you're a small operation, your competition will be happily getting on with the task of getting customers and hiring your well trained personnel while you fiddle with all this paperwork.

The theory is so grand it must have been put together by some of the most successful business practitioners in SA.

[BBBEE_CompSpec]

It is not that hard to put together. If you have a scorecard, your larger competition is supposed to be using your services in order to get their scores up to date.

Puting the material together is as easy as 1-2-3. It is all in my CD/DVD.

[Kemeca]

Help!! - what should happen when you get an employee who is totally disrespectfully. E.g. walks in my office and starts saying things like this company is abusing me and I cannot take this anymore. You are very using me and you have not benefits. When I die you will not be giving me anything. and all this was because I'd ask the employee to deliver a 25kg item to a customer. I offered to get someone to pick the goods up and load them so that he doesn't have to pick up and say we are abusing.

[Dave A]

Say "thanks for the feedback. Is that parcel delivered yet?"

It's a question of style.

I heard a lovely story once about a grumbling employee. The owner of the business said - "follow me" and walked to the front door of the premises. He turned to the employee and said "there's the door", then just stood there looking at the employee.

After about ten seconds, he then said "there's the job" (pointing at the workshop), "there's the door" (pointing at the door) and walked back to his office.

[daveob]

saying things like this company is abusing me and I cannot take this anymore. You are very using me and you have not benefits. When I die you will not be giving me anything.

I would start by getting the employee and his employment contract together, and examine the job description.

Then determine if he has a legitimate gripe of being asked to do tasks outside his area of responsibility or beyond reasonable requests by a superior ( that's you - make sure he understands that ).

Also, look at the details in the contract and see if there are any 'benefits' listed. If not, ask him if he wants to re-negotiate his contract and you'll be happy to present a list of company approved options for pension fund / death fund / etc contributions. Politely explain that as these were not part of the original contract, the addition of any new benefits would have an effect on the payslip - more deductions, less net earnings each payday, so that the "cost to company" remains as current.

If this is not what he wants, determine if the employee is asking for an increase to cover the costs of the benefit contributions. If so, ask him to give you a written motivation to support the assessment. For example, how has he helped the company progress, what has he done above the normal call of duty, etc. You know, thinks like being enthusiastic about making a small delivery to help out the team, and contributing to the teams enthusiasm, etc.