Problem Employees

Sooner or later in your management career you come across a problem employee. I am not talking about someone who is merely adequate in their job performance, and thus near the top of the list when downsizing occurs. I am speaking of the employee who comes in "around" 9AM, chats with everyone, gets coffee, manages to find their desk about 10ish, then leaves for lunch promptly at 11. Or, the employee who visits a client on Thursday and yet by Wednesday of the following week still hasn't managed to find the time to communicate the change requests to the development team. Or, the employee who violates one or more of your rules of office/professional conduct repeatedly. These behavior issues are not limited to the rank and file, either. An employee who is supposed to be a manager or supervisor but who spends most of their time traveling to seminars, or classes, or just about anything else instead of doing their job and leaving some poor soul to act as their surrogate during the twenty hours of the day they cannot be reached is doing more harm than an absentee junior employee.

How do you deal with these kinds of employees and issues?

Depending on the circumstanced, I prefer to give the employee the benefit of the doubt if they have an otherwise good track record with the company. It may be a temporary situation or even (if the behavior has been communicated to you by someone else) a case of scapegoating or "cover your ass" maneuvering. An option of moving the employee to another area and letting them know that it has been done so out of concern for their job performance allows them the chance to either redeem themselves, or in the situation where they were falsely accused, to prove their worth.

Your meeting with the employee in question can reveal anything from a confirmation that the employee is unhappy and does not want to stay to an indication that they were unaware of any problems with their performance. An objective review of their accomplishments should be done. It often reveals problems with perception. For example, the employee saw a short delay in an application launch as a necessary step to ensure quality and customer satisfaction but someone else saw it as poor planning. If the main problem is communication, then detailed processes for feedback and project status should be worked out with the personnel involved. Often the problem is simply that the employee is used to a different level of initiative and feedback or is focusing on the wrong aspects of project management and/or customer satisfaction. Determining how and when the problems in communication started is an essential part of remedying the situation. You also want to guard against office politics playing havoc with your workforce. If you suspect that this may be the cause, isolating the person or people involved will save you a lot of grief down the road. I've seen entire teams decimated by one individual who did their best to lay blame at the feet of others.

To be fair to everyone involved, try a lateral move to an area of equal responsibility and workload for employees who do not have a (recent) previous incident on their record. If the employee is truly beyond saving it will show right away, whereas an employee who has been the victim of office politics should generate much more positive feedback within six to eight weeks. The move should be to an area that does not face the customer directly, if applicable. There is too much risk in allowing a potential problem employee to interact with your customers.

If all efforts to reform the person (or simply clear up any misconceptions) have failed, then you have to proceed quickly, yet with due diligence. Quickly because the person involved is obviously a liability to the company. Due diligence because it not only protects your company and yourself from legal repercussions, but also because it is the right thing to do. First, start a paperwork trail that can be audited after the fact if need be. Even if the initial issue is minor, you need to have the paperwork to establish a pattern of behavior or to forestall claims that the employee was not aware of a performance issue. Your Human Resources department no doubt has a procedure in place for starting a termination process, including any required timelines and meetings. (If not, then your company should establish one as soon as possible.) Your second stop should be with your security administrator. Limiting access to data, applications and customer data is essential. It only takes one disgruntled employee to get your company the kind of press it hopes never to have. Remember: the weakest link in security is the human factor.

In the case of serious or repeated transgressions, schedule a no-nonsense meeting with the employee in question. Let them know that things are not working out. This should not be a surprise to the person in question. By this point you should have had a least one "meeting of the minds" session, and hopefully several less formal status meetings where improvement plans and coworker feedback reports have been reviewed. A definite schedule for separation should be discussed, including any need to transition work to associates. I recommend that you never ask an outgoing employee to train their replacement, though. One or two meetings to review documentation and project status should be fine. Some employees will simply resign on the spot no matter how generous your severance package, so be prepared to cover that employee's responsibilities that day, if necessary.

Whenever projects are completed (or fail) a "lessons learned" meeting should take place. The idea translates well to employee separation as well. An interview with the employee (preferably by HR personnel) can yield important feedback, including issues that were not previously shared for one reason or another. For example, I ran into an associate who was processing out on her own initiative. In talking with her, though, she revealed many points that I had never heard her voice before, including during meetings to discuss strategic planning. Whether it was the freedom of knowing she was leaving that day or simply wanting to give me a few words of advice she helped me form a better picture of employee attitudes. In addition to the HR-employee meetings, senior management should have periodic meetings to discuss employee issues such as turnover, layoffs, firings and overall morale across departments. You may be surprised to find that some of your best employees are leaving due to things as seemingly innocuous as a dress code. As mentioned above, good people leaving from the same area may indicate that the problem is office politics.

Terminating an employee is never an easy task. On some levels it feels like you have failed, either to spot (and stop) a problem from occurring or in rehabilitating an otherwise valuable employee. Change and turnover are inevitable, especially in IT. As with all aspects of your job, try to learn from mistakes. Not just the ones that you make, but also from the ones other people make.

Until next time, thanks for Talking Technology with me!