All business owners face the problem of dealing with problem employees now and then. It can be a difficult subject to approach though, here are 4 tips to help you out.
1. Be Constantly on the Look Out for Problems
You need to be present in the office, that way you’ll know exactly what’s going on and be able to spot problems as they arise. It’s always best to do this so that you can intervene and act as quickly as possible. It might be a case of acting as a mediator between two arguing people. Do your best to calm the situation and restore order before things get out of hand.
Your problem could be with an employee showing up late or missing days of work completely without explanation. In this case, it’s also good to intervene quickly and see if there’s a pattern to their absences. Don’t be one of those bosses who ignores problems hoping they’ll go away by themselves, they won’t!
2. Do Everything You Can to Help
Being confrontational is rarely a good way to approach a problem employee. You’ll probably end up making the situation even worse, and that’s not good for anybody. Instead, take a calm and helpful approach. You’ll probably discover that there’s a good reason for poor performance or absences, they were just reluctant to tell you about it.
There is a whole host of issues that could be behind problematic behaviours. Try speaking to them in private and learn as much about their problems and situation as possible. Once you uncover the root of the issue, you can start to think about how to reach a positive solution for everybody going forward.
3. Get Help from Specialists
There are external companies that can help manage absences by looking after the health and wellbeing of your employees. Absence is one of the biggest problems employers face, and there’s usually a good explanation for employees taking time off work.
Get in touch with a company like Health Assured, they offer integrated health, wellbeing and absence management services. By looking after your employees’ health, you’ll find that absences start to drop, and productivity starts to rise. And that can only be a good thing.
4. Know When It’s Time to Fire
Once you’ve tried every possible avenue to help and reform the problem employee, you might have to think about whether it’s time to dismiss them from their job. There are only so many chances you can give to someone before you run out of options. If you’ve done as much as you can to help, you shouldn’t feel guilty about the decision.
Before you fire them, you should go through a number of warnings and make it clear to them that each warning they get brings them a step closer to being fired. If their behaviour still doesn’t change, there’s not much more you can do to help them.
The workforce is vital to every business, so make sure you spot any problems and resolve them by following these 4 tips.
