Managing Difficult Employees When They Make Errors

Correcting an employee when he is at mistake and the one who is very conscious about his performance is never an easy task. Whenever we face such a situation we need to keep some things in back of our mind.

Holding a proper private meeting:

Holding a private meeting gives you a perfect opportunity to keep away from any embracing situation. With this direct one to one session you can ask all sorts of questions about the responsibility and task completed and the unfinished work as well as the problems which the employee is facing.

If the situation is handled the other way around and the employee is told about his mistakes in front of all the staff this would first of all sound very unprofessional and furthermore this will also upset everyone around.

Attitude during the confrontation:

When confronted such an employee one should maintain a very positive and balanced attitude not to harsh and not too polite. However, being firm or harsh from the start is never a good idea. You should remain very polite in questioning and collection of all the facts and figures. When you have a reasonable proof of mistake then you could be a bit firm in your stance.

Prepare a plan for this and then work accordingly this will help increasing the objectivity of the whole exercise.

You can choose these steps but this may vary from situation to situation.

i) Identify specific situation which needs resolution.

ii) Identify the extent of task which was unachieved.

iii) Draw attention to the outcome of this improper performance.

iv) Provide an effective resolution how the situation should have been handled.

v) Highlight the potential result if the secondary plan would have been implemented.

If the mistake is not that big, then you should have a very suggestive approach towards and remain very calm so that the employee will not be repeating the same mistake.

When all this exercise or meeting is over be very sure that the task or objective is not achieved.

Follow-up:

In order to ensure that the employee is not going to repeat his mistake and will have remain positive about the corrective meeting session you need to maintain a proper follow-up on his performance. Have meetings again. If the problem has been fixed and there is some improvement appreciate the employee and give him some positive feed back to encourage him to keep on performing the way he is. However, if the things are not the way they should be the employee is repeating the same mistake then do investigate and confront him/her again to find out why this is happening.

Regrettably, many Managers do not take the pain of finding out why an employee is not performing up to the mark. If the Manager or Team Leaders talk to the employees, find our their reservations, ask for possible solution, collect suggestion and listen to their point of view this will give a very positive feed back to the employee that the Manager is also concerned about his issues and concerns.

The Management has to ensure that they create and positive environment in the workplace. They also need to make sure that all the conflicts are addressed in a professional and positive manner. We can also refer the employee for additional training so that he will improve and be more productive for the organization.