Running into conflict with your employees is one workplace situation that no one can avoid. No matter how good an employer you may think you are, there will always be some bone of contention for your employees. To run a business smoothly, however, you have to make sure that your entire working team is happy and it is only through this that your business can find success. This article provides some methods with which you can deal with problematic employees.
Advertisement
1. Ignoring Doesn’t Help
In family counseling sessions, the therapist always tells the parents that ignoring the teen’s behavior of acting out is not going to make the problem go away. It’s a similar situation in the corporate family. If your employees is truly an asset to the company, then you need to make sure there is a non-confrontational channel of communication. This will allow you and your employees to voice your sides in an orderly manner and resolve the problem.
2. Nip It In the Bud
When you see a problem arising, don’t wait until the problem gets out of hand. A good boss will cut down any disruptive behaviour right at the start. If you wait and hope that it will go away, it can lead to a negative pattern. Moreover, when other employees see what the slacker worker is getting away with, it will encourage them to follow this behaviour or at least it won’t motivate them to live up to their full potential.
3. Don’t Go All Out
Make sure you give a few warnings before you punish the bad behaviour. This is important because often people don’t realize that they are being disruptive to the work environment. For this reason, it is important to tell the person what they are doing wrong. Make sure they understand how their behaviour is harming their own productivity or that of others as opposed to simply telling them their behaviour is unacceptable. This will have much better rewards in the long term as opposed to if you go berserk at the slightest signs of a problem.
4. Gather Information
Often a difficult employee is hard to spot. To get to the root of a particular problem and see which employee is causing it, how and why, you need to be informed of the situation among your employees. When you personally do some research you will also be able to know which of your employees are trustworthy and which aren’t. Furthermore, when you have actual examples of how your employee is creating a problem, you will be able to explain to them with a lot more clarity and will have a higher chance of making them see what they were doing wrong.
5. Provide Corrective Behaviour
Sometimes employees may revert back to their old ways even if you’ve pointed out their mistakes. While it could be because they are simply being subversive, it can often be because they don’t know the correct way to go about things. It’s your job to guide your employees and show them how they can live up to their full potential.
Advertisement
Shawn Wise is the Director of Marketing at AZWorkersComp.net. Shawn not only works with small business owners find Arizona Workers Compensation but also likes to work with small business owners on their business. Shawn looks to provide resources and information to small business owners to help grow their business.
