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What’s causing Your
(Staffing) Headaches? Susan Rochester: Balance at Work When you get a headache, you know it’s a symptom caused by something else, right? It could be stress or caffeine withdrawal that is the root cause. We can take a tablet to cure the symptom, but unless we attack the underlying problem, relief is only temporary. Problems with employee performance are very much like headaches. We can act on the symptoms, but until we diagnose and “treat” the root cause, any improvement will last only for a short time. If you want to turn things around, you need to be prepared to find the cause and take appropriate action. The sooner you do this, the more effective you will be. There are three steps to indentifying and curing the cause: 1. Ask 2. Act 3. Assess The first step is to ask the person concerned. They will know better than anyone what is behind the problem. Whether they are willing to tell you will depend on your relationship with them, of course. They need to know they can trust you. The most important thing to remember at this stage is that it’s their actions, not the person themselves, that you have a problem with. Attack them personally and you might as well give up right now. Sometimes, the employee may not understand themselves why they’re not performing to expectations. Perhaps they think they are performing well or perhaps they’re not clear on what the expectations are. Another alternative is a lack of suitability to their job or poor fit with the company culture. These can be measured objectively with behavioural assessment tools, such as Harrison Assessments. Once you have established the root cause its time to act. The action you take will depend on the root cause. You also need to know what you can do and what is beyond your control or your expertise. The situation many managers fear is that the employee will reveal personal problems – which are definitely beyond your control. These may not be so scary if you have access to other services such as psychologists. If you don’t already provide counselling through an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) it might be time to consider doing so. A professional counsellor will assess the employee and refer them to other services as needed. (Note: It’s not sufficient, or smart, to ignore personal problems if they are affecting work performance.) Other issues, such as insufficient training, are well within your control. Also, if an employee isn’t clear on what’s expected of them, now’s the time to let them know. If during the “Ask” step you discover the employee is just not a good fit for the role or the organisation, you could consider career counselling or other assistance with career planning. This may mean they eventually leave your organisation but at least you’ll have the opportunity to replace them with someone who is a better fit (especially if you introduce assessment of job suitability as part of your recruitment process). Whatever action you decide to take, don’t assume it’s the end of the matter. Instead, you must assess the effectiveness of your action by monitoring the employee’s ongoing performance. You may find you continue through the “ask,” “act,” “assess,” cycle more than once. If things return to how you believe they should be, congratulations! You’ve cured your headache! Source: Balance At Work Disclaimer: Links to third-party web sites are provided for your convenience only. Subscribe-HR does not endorse nor support the content of third-party links. Subscribe-HR is not responsible for the content of a third-party web site. By clicking on a third-party link, you will leave the Subscribe-HR web site. Privacy and security policies may differ from those practiced by Subscribe-HR. Subscribe-HR does not represent either the third-party or the customer if the two enter into a transaction. |
