Reducing the Risk - Dealing with difficult workplace situations
Why do people put off dealing with issues in the workplace?
In my experience, most people naturally will try to avoid conflict in workplace. Whilst on the whole this can be beneficial, when it is manager failing to deal with underperformance or other issues with an employee this can have significant consequences.
In general, people don’t like being negative and often put these sorts of things off or minimise the impact of the issues to try to avoid the uncomfortable situation. There is also often a fear of what could go wrong in terms of following proper process and any impact on the manager or supervisor dealing with the issue.
Why should we have these conversations?
Managers need to have these conversations as there can be an overall impact on the performance of the team or more widely within the organisation. The risks of not dealing with something are usually worse than actually dealing with an issue.
Failing to address any issues can have an impact on others in the team also as poor performance or behaviour may seem to be tolerated and lead to further issues. Others in the team may need to pick up the slack and feel that they are having to perform more than they should to make up for other’s shortcomings.
Often the individual will know something isn’t working or that they are not where they should be performance wise, but on other occasions they may not be aware at all. If the person doesn’t know something is wrong, how can they improve, so having the conversation early and being direct about expectations might be all that’s required.
Finally, ignoring a situation won’t make it get better and the above issues can develop and get worse.
How can I help?
I have significant experience across a number of organisations in supporting managers in dealing with difficult situations and getting the required outcome and reducing the risk of the situation escalating. Often issues can be solved informally, but sometimes things have already reached a critical point and require some careful thought and actions to resolve.
Services I can provide:
- Problem solving – Coming into the organisation to support for a particular problem
- Line Manager Training – Working on a series of common HR issues with line managers using the organisations own policies and procedures to give everyone the confidence to use the procedures when required. These sessions can be in person or online and can be tailored to cover purely the process, the people skills, tools and techniques or a combination of both.
- Policy and Procedure writing – I can create a suite of people policies that are compliant with legislation and meet the needs of the organisation and help launch, raise awareness and train on the new or updated policies.