Handling difficult workers

issues at hand.

However, an employee who is difficult to manage can make your life absolutely miserable.
They can be every bit as disruptive to the forward progress of your organisation.

All managers will have to deal with difficult employees during their careers.
As a manager it is your job to deal with them. If you don’t deal with the problem, it will only get worse.

Some difficult employees are that way simply because their behaviour has worked to their advantage in the past.
They may not know any other behaviour or they may choose to exhibit this behaviour when they think it will be most effective.

One way of dealing with difficult employees is by not condoning bad behaviour.
In many ways, it is like dealing with children. If every time a child screams, its parents give it candy, what will the child do when it wants candy?

It will scream, of course. The same is true for the employee who “blows up” whenever anyone disagrees with him.
When he does that people stop disagreeing with him and he thinks he has won. As a manager you can deal with that in a number of ways.

Evaluate

It is important when dealing with difficult employees to act quickly.
Often you will need to act almost immediately to neutralise a dangerous situation.

However, it is always appropriate to think before you act. Clearly if an employee comes to work with a gun, you will need to act more quickly than when someone complains that another employee is always taking credit for their work.

In either case, take the appropriate amount of time to evaluate the situation before you act.
You don’t want to make it worse. Recognise that most employees can be “difficult” from time to time.

This can be caused by stress on the job or away from it. Some employees are difficult more often than others.
It is not always your least-productive employees who are difficult. So take a moment to evaluate each situation for the unique situation it is.

Do your homework

Always act on facts. Don’t base your actions on gossip or rumour.
The person spreading the gossip is a difficult employee in their own way.

If you have not seen the inappropriate behaviour yourself, look into it. Ask the people reportedly involved. Collect all the facts you can before you act.

Don’t use the fact that you haven’t seen the inappropriate behaviour as an excuse to delay doing something.
It is important to act promptly. Make sure you aren’t part of the problem. It will be much more difficult to remain calm and impartial in confronting the difficult behaviour if you are partly responsible.

If that’s the case, be sure you acknowledge your role in it, at least to yourself.

Develop a plan

You are a manager. You know the value of planning. This situation is no different.
You need to plan the timing of the confrontation. You need to select a quiet, private place where you won’t be interrupted.

You need to decide whether you need to have others, like an HR representative, present in the meeting.
Plan the confrontation and then make it happen. When you have prepared, it is time to act.

You do not need to act impulsively, but you must act quickly. The longer an inappropriate behaviour is allowed to continue, the harder it will be to change it or stop it.
Confront the problem

Don’t put it off. It may not be pleasant, but it’s an important part of your job.
It will not “fix itself”. It can only get worse. You have planned this confrontation.

Now you need to execute. Deal with the behaviour, not the person. Your goal is to develop a solution, not to “win”.
Focus on the inappropriate behaviour; don’t attack the person. Use “I” statements like “I need everybody on the team here on time so we can meet our goals” rather than “you” statements like “you are always late”. Don’t assume the inappropriate behaviour is caused by negative intent. It may be from fear, confusion, lack of motivation, personal problems, etc. Give the other person a chance to develop a solution to the problem.

They are more likely to “own” the solution if they are at least partially responsible for developing it.

Try to draw out the reasons behind the behaviour

As you talk with the difficult employee, actively listen to what they say.
Stay calm and stay positive, but remain impartial and non-judgmental. Ask leading questions that can’t be answered in one or two words. Don’t interrupt.

When you do respond to the difficult employee, remain calm. Summarise back to them what they just said, “so I understand you are saying”, so they know you are actually listening to them. Disciplinary action should only be an option when all this has proved ineffective.

If you can find out from the difficult employee what the real source of the inappropriate behaviour is, you have a much better chance of finding a solution, and this can help you to realise organisational objectives as such practices are fertile grounds for breeding, creation and maintenance of a cordial industrial atmosphere.

As Dennis McCafferty points out on CIO Insight, business owners too often let poor performance slide without ever dealing with the problem directly.
Some employees constantly arrive late to work while others can’t seem to grasp the concept of deadlines.

Perhaps you have an employee whose brilliant-but-mercurial personality has alienated everyone.
If that’s the case, it’s long past time to have a constructive conversation to correct the problem.

Otherwise, these personnel problems can damage productivity and even your company’s reputation.
Your goal should be to correct the problem, not create a confrontation, so careful planning is essential.