Getting the right result for the team with a difficult employee – case study
I was standing in a small meeting room, with one of my team members being really aggressive towards me and literally threatening me. Let’s call him Steve. I glanced behind me to make sure there were people in the office who could see us … in case Steve started to get physical. Luckily, I calmed him down.
Steve was really starting to feel the pressure. I was managing a team of 12, and Steve was the worse team member by far. He had an entitled attitude, was lazy, disruptive and didn’t pull his weight. I’d already had a ton of complaints from several team members about him. I had been working with him within a Performance Improvement Plan. Steve had improved, yet he still had a long way to go. He was on track to easily miss about half his objectives within the PIP.
A Tough Situation
It was a really tough situation. I had a lot of sympathy for Steve. He had trouble in his personal life, and he wasn’t really helping himself. On the other hand, my job was to improve team performance, and he was single handedly damaging team performance.
I didn’t see Steve really trying to improve. I didn’t feel he would get to a good enough standard no matter what I did to help. The team around me saw I was working to help Steve – giving him a really good chance improve.
A week later, I asked my boss and HR to start disciplinary proceedings with Steve. I had been keeping both parties involved during the PIP so the conversation literally lasted a few minutes. I was given permission to start disciplinary proceedings. Steve left the business.
Impact On The Team
The impact of Steve leaving on the rest of the team was only positive. Team trust in me reached an all-time high. The team members felt safe because they knew I would give anyone a good chance to improve if they had problems AND they also knew that I would take the right action for the team. Team performance jumped up almost immediately on Steve leaving and it carried on climbing. I got a lot of appreciation from my team.
My bosses and HR were equally confident and trusting of me – I demonstrated I took action for the right reasons, worked to try to improve the situation first and then took the tough decision to remove a team member as the last resort.
More people were subsequently added to my team.
Always Get The Right Outcome
Use our system to remove six key barriers that stop most employees improving. Even when you don’t succeed in getting enough improvement, the system makes removing the individual very straight forward because you have so much evidence. It becomes obvious to all that removal is the only option and you have minimised legal risks and maintained or improved team trust.
Join our How to Manage Difficult Employees course to learn all the skills you need resolve any people problems as quickly, easily and cheaply as practical. You, your team, your business and your career will be better off.
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