Everyone has a critical role to play in a small business; if you have less than 100 employees I doubt you could point to one person on your payroll that you don’t absolutely need. The metaphor of a team pulling together pretty much defines a small business, if you have even one person who is working against the team there is no hiding it. This is especially true during peak seasons, and for most small business year end is THE peak season. As a result workloads are high, nerves are fraying, and nothing threatens to drag you over the cliff faster than someone who isn’t pulling with the team.
So what would you do if you, or a manager, notice that someone on your team isn’t pulling their weight while others are trying to pick up their slack?
This is easily the number one employee issue that gets my phone ringing this time of year. While the answer most people are looking to hear is fire them, with people it’s rarely as simple as that. The first thing to do is to take a deep breath, a long step back and remind yourself why you hired them in the first place. Remember, if they didn’t have the skills and experience to do the job then you wouldn’t have hired them. Then ask these four questions…
- Does this person know what is expected of them?
- Has this person received the training and/or feedback they need to meet those expectations?
- Are there roadblocks that keep them from performing or that are creating frustration?
- How do they think their work compares to others around them?
These three questions can help you to identify the cause of the problem, at least from your perspective. Your next step will be to get their perspective. Sit down with the person and explain your frustration as clearly and unemotionally as possible, then ask them the same three questions and see if you can’t find some places where your perceptions don’t match.
I am a firm believer that there is no capital “T” truth, meaning objective truth; perceptions color our opinions of everything in our lives and we are only capable of perceiving truth through the lenses of our own biases. This is why the sit down step is so critical. The point of this conversation is to find the disconnects and discuss them. Ideally you will find that there has been a misperception related to one of the four questions, all of which lead to actionable solutions. As always one conversation is not a fix, so whatever you have agreed to do to remedy the situation, make sure that it involves regular check-ins and ongoing coaching.
The alternative outcome is if you go through this process and the employee either is unable to be a productive participant or is unable to acknowledge that they are running in the wrong direction. Unfortunately there are people out there who simply don’t want to work more than an 8 hour day, or a 5 hour day; there are people who just can’t handle the stress or the pace or certain environments. That’s OK, really it is. Trying to force someone to be the person you need them to be just doesn’t work, you’re spending 90% of your time on the least productive members of the team – imagine what would happen if you spent it on the most productive. The people that aren’t on board might not be the right fit for your team in which case, yes it is time to cut the cord and let them run on their own path.