A new CareerBuilder survey, released last week, found that more than a quarter of the over 2,100 managers surveyed (from approx. 2,000 U.S.-based companies) have a direct employee that they’d like to see leave the company. Even more interestingly, many of these managers chose NOT to directly confront and deal with the problem situation, instead choosing to engage in passive-aggressive behaviours, or drop hints, hoping (against all hope) that the offending employee would somehow get the message.
I don’t know what these managers are thinking … perhaps they’re hoping that if they just ignore the problem, it might just miraculously vanish! Not!! When you don’t address the situation with a non-performing employee, the problem gets worse, never better! In fact, I think the greater tragedy is what your lack of action will do to the morale of the rest of your team. You see, when you have a poorly-performing employee, the rest of your team is well aware of the situation. And when you don’t take action to address the problem, you actually, without perhaps even realizing it, demotivate the rest of your team. They observe your procrastination and indecisiveness and take that to mean that you don’t care. And if you don’t care, then why should they?
So … directly confronting and dealing with your problem employee will improve productivity. A good reason on its own to take action, but the bigger reason, in my opinion, is that your lack of action will create negativity amongst the rest of your team.
So what do you think? What’s stopping you from taking action with your problem employee? Please share by adding your Comment below.