How to Handle Difficult Employees

Managing employees is unquestionably one of the most challenging aspects of operating a business.  Despite all of your experience and education, you will probably wish you had a psychology degree to help you deal with the complexities that your staff will create during your normal day-to-day operation.  As a manager, you may have a few employees who come to work on-time, do what they’re supposed to do without causing any problems and then go home at the end of the day.  The rest will probably drive you insane.  Here’s a few suggestions on how to handle them:

Never Empower Anyone with the Ability to Change your Mood

Your own sanity is paramount and it is important to never let your employees make you less effective at managing your company because of their behavior or unprofessionalism.  Allowing your employees the opportunity to drag their drama into your office or your head is detrimental, particularly if you have a large staff.  If someone in your office wants to get pissed off, frustrated, stressed out, anxious, worried or whatever, let them.  It’s their prerogative to give in to their emotions.  Even if they have a justifiable reason to be emotional; in business, emotions can cloud your judgement.  Just flip it off like a switch.  This may be difficult to do at first but with a little effort, you’ll realize how easy it is.

The only person who should have the ability to affect your mood or your psyche is yourself.  Don’t let others around you influence how you feel.  As the boss, you don’t have the luxury of letting yourself lose your cool.  You must remain calm so that you can address the situation with a clear head.  If one of your employees is throwing a temper tantrum, just let them, ignore them until they are calm, send them home or fire them for unprofessional behavior.  Don’t let their actions manipulate your frame of mind at that moment.  Remember that if one of your employees effects the way you feel, it’s only because you let them.

Really Get to Know Your Employees

Depending on how many employees you have, do your research and know as many of them as you can.  Read through their personnel files, ask one employee about another, observe their behavior around the office, talk to them.  Obviously if you have thousands of employees this may be difficult or even impossible.  However, if you truly get to know your employees and find out what makes them tick, then you can ascertain the proper way to react to them if there’s an issue. 

There could be many reasons why an employee might need to be reprimanded.  They could be lazy, incompetent, overzealous, egotistical, unethical, disloyal, careless, inappropriate, clumsy, etc.  You may have several employees who fall into one of these categories.  However, the way in which you deal with them individually may be different.  You may need to come down hard on one employee for insubordination and you may need to finesse another, based on their personality.  Using the same technique with every employee will not always be effective.

Use Psychology

A good manager gets in front and leads while a bad manager gets behind and pushes.  Even though you might think you can control your employees, the days of whipping slaves is long gone.  Therefore, you must possess the power to inspire your employees to work.  There are several techniques that are effective.  Be motivational rather than adversarial.  Give them incentives to do good rather than punishments for doing bad.  Make it psychologically uncomfortable for your employees to be inefficient so that they have no choice other than to do things the way you want them done.  Employees hate discomfort.

Get Them Out of their Comfort Zone

Sometimes employees get too comfortable to the point that they start to think you work for them, rather than the other way around.  Power struggles in the workplace are annoying and counterproductive.  The good news is that it doesn’t take much to rattle an employee’s psyche and bump them out of their comfort zone.  It could just be a matter of switching them to a different department or office.  Rearrange their shift so that they’re working with other people.  Toxic employees tend to group together.  If they are no longer surrounded by their cohorts, they tend to not be as brazen.

Give Them the “Shape Up” or “Ship Out” Ultimatum

When an employee becomes difficult, it’s always a good idea to have a sit-down with them and express what they are either doing, or not doing, to meet your satisfaction.  Make them realize that they are in job jeopardy if they don’t change their ways.  This conversation usually draws a proverbial line in the sand.  The employee either recognizes that they could lose their job if they don’t improve or they completely tank and spiral out of control.  The situation very seldom remains the same after this talk.

Let the Toxic Ones Go

From time-to-time, you will identify employees that are just miserable and there’s nothing you can do about it.  They hate their job, they hate you, they hate their co-workers and they hate their lives.  These people are a lost cause.  Help them leave by making it easy for them to do so.  If not, they will corrupt the natural harmony of your office and negatively influence your otherwise positive staff.  If flat-out firing them doesn’t seem feasible, back them into a corner by making them think they have a good reason, or no choice other than to quit.

For more information on how to properly manage difficult employees, please contact Ashlar Consulting Corporation at 305-849-9399 or visit www.AshlarConsultingCorp.com.