Jess Coles – Bio – Experience Managing Difficult Employees and Improving Worst Employees
I had a corporate career starting as a trainee with EY and finishing 13 promotions later at board level for a £150m in sales staffing business. From 2016 I built a consulting company, had a small team and then covid hit. Enhance.training had been a business plan for a few year’s and covid turned in into reality.
Our YouTube Channel
Over 28,000 subscribers, 1 million views and counting.
My Difficult Employee Situations
Notable Difficult Employees situations I have dealt with using exactly the same steps, approach and system I teach in How to Manage Difficult Employees :
- Underperformers – managed many staff that, for a variety of reasons, where performing below or significantly below the level of their colleagues. These include staff protected by leadership team members
- Angry staff – those that had a variety of issues outside of work that created a lot of anger and aggression in work
- Underminers / Bullies – those that use power of their position, or social status to put others down and try to control them or remove a perceived threat
- Unmotivated staff – those that don’t really want to work or are upset or angry at event happening in work or have problems with colleagues
- Negative staff – those that find faults, complain a lot and bring down the positivity of the team.
- Solo stars – individuals very happy to use and abuse colleagues to do better personally
- Unmotivated teams – those that lack confidence, motivation and the support of leadership teams and management. 4 examples of worst to best team transformations are below.
Here are the Results I have achieved
Worst Team to one of the Best Teams
Turning around team performance
Transformed a team of 17 staff.
I was like working in a morgue, no-one spoke. Everyone was heads down, working. Knowledge sharing and insights were low. Output from team was low value (administration mainly).
Transformed to:
High performing, prizing winning team generating £’millions in additional profit and cash each month. There was the constant hum of voice as team members discussed problems, collaborated and supported each other. And there was fun, banter and social chatting too.
Additional teams were added, so I ended up managing 35 staff after 15 months in role
Transformed a team of 12 staff
I took over the team, including the previous leader of the team. The team had almost caused the business to fail (run out of cash). Their confidence was low. They were down and dejected with little talking in the office. Where they worked was separate from the rest of the business (felt excluded). The team were joked about by the rest of the business. There had been little investment in the team and the systems they used.
Transformed to:
A highly valued team (by the rest of the business) which had increased cash by £3m (12% of sales), increased visibility of performance, reduced old costly paper based administration, and was now supporting the business in key decisions. The team were happy, motivated, talking and confident. The business was confident to invest in them, installing new & better systems.
Transformed a team of 8 staff
I took over a team that had lost the confidence of the owner and leadership team. Their output was constantly being questioned and challenged. They were viewed as poor performing, a cost and hindrance to the business. They were not trusted to pull their weight within the business. The team members were down, demotivated, lacklustre, unsure of their future and looking for roles elsewhere.
Transformed to:
A team that’s output was trusted and relied upon by the rest of the business. All the snide comments and put-downs by the rest of the business disappeared. Team members were excited, energetic, committed and involved with the rest of the business. There was interaction, collaboration and joint problem solving. The business invested in new systems and the team invested in implementing new ways of working and processes to increase their performance. The value of the team’s output to the business was now 3-4 times their cost.
Transformed a team of 5 staff
I took over this finance team when they were 6 months BEHIND on producing their management accounts. They hadn’t filed VAT returns, Corporation Tax returns and more. Management had no idea on the performance of the business, the unpaid customer invoices were piling up and the team leader had just resigned. To say the rest of the team were shell-shocked would be a complete understatement. The team was a mess and confidence was rock bottom.
Transformed in six months to:
A team completely up to date with their work, tax returns filed and giving the business up to date performance information. The team was confident, calm and very much back in control. The rest of the business was confident in the team. They made critical decisions on the information provided rather than questioning every figure. The backlog in customer invoices had been removed. Everyone was looking forward to the future.
My Career History
Join our Difficult Employees Course
