We hire employees to fulfill a number of roles, ranging from customer service to sales expertise, for their technical skills, to solve problems, to grow our companies and as one longtime business owner puts it, “to either save us money or make us money.”
During the hiring process, we use an in-person (or Zoom-based) interview to verify the applicant’s educational background, certifications, work experience, willingness to do the work we need them for and to make certain they are a good fit into our existing teams or departments.
Where things get dicey is the part of the interview about being a good fit with co-workers, bosses, vendors, or customers and clients.
Bosses and business owners often will trade the employee’s ability to generate revenue or solve problems against their personality problems. This leads to conversations like, “He’s the office jerk, but the clients love him and he makes his numbers, so what are we supposed to do?” Or, “She can’t get along with anybody, but she’s the best IT problem solver we’ve ever had. We’ll put up with the grief she gives us for her ability to keep our intranet running.”
These rationalizations are visible to the other employees, who may work just as hard at their jobs but they also don’t bully, bother, harass, demean or irritate their co-workers. They notice when employees with attitude problems get a free pass for their interactions, and it does a lot to hurt morale, create dissension, impact retention, divide the group and cause people to quit.
The necessary conversation with these types of employees with high technical skills and low people skills has to go like this: “We love your effort. We appreciate the skill you bring to certain projects. While all that is true, it‘s also not the only reason we hired you. We hired you to get along with everyone. Half of your job is your technical skills and what you do to work with our clients and customers. The other half of your job is how you interact with your bosses and co-workers. I’ve heard about and seen examples myself where you have been sarcastic, condescending, rude, abrupt or dismissive of your colleagues and it needs to stop now.”
At this point, the employee probably will become defensive or even accusatory, trying to rationalize these behaviors or deflect back to the idea that “no one works harder” or “my co-workers don’t care about the work as much as I do.” It’s important to reward their good work and also get them to see the negative impact on the business as well. If we have to keep making allowances for the employee’s lack of people skills, the issue will come to a bitter head at some point.
Some managers, supervisors and even human resources people would suggest this type of employee needs a performance improvement plan, but that misses the larger problem. It’s not the employee’s performance that needs to improve; it’s their behavior. As such, more accurately, they need a behavior improvement plan.
This distinction is important because the purpose of this written document is not to kill the employee’s spirit or cause them to stop working with enthusiasm. The discussion should center on what specific behaviors the employee needs to stop or start doing when it comes to how they interact with co-workers and bosses. These behaviors should not be based on labels, like, “you need to fix your attitude,” but rather, “I need you to not be sarcastic during team meetings” or “I want you to work specifically on being more patient with your co-workers when deadlines are approaching.”
This is a discussion, not an argument about who is right. Have your examples and your facts ready before you have this conversation. Expect this person to display a range of emotions, such as hostility, outrage or denial. Your goal should be getting the employee to gradually, or even grudgingly, agree that getting along with bosses and co-workers is important, will require some changes on their part and action needs to happen immediately.
We pay our employees for more than just their productivity and job skills. Our business success and growth has a lot to do with their attitude, enthusiasm and ability to serve each other. People stay at companies where the culture is positive and nourishing; they wither or leave where it is negative and toxic. Consider a BIP for your high performers who need to improve their people skills.
Steve Albrecht is a Springfield-based trainer, human resources consultant and employee coach. He can be reached at drsteve@drstevealbrecht.com.
"behavior" - Google News
December 08, 2020 at 01:05AM
https://ift.tt/37HRAGp
Opinion: Consider behavior improvement plan for toxic employees - Springfield Business Journal
"behavior" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2We9Kdi
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Opinion: Consider behavior improvement plan for toxic employees - Springfield Business Journal"
Post a Comment