How do you deal with the “problem” employee at your organization?
Over my years of teaching, I’ve had the opportunity to teach several classes pertaining to homeland security, terrorism, and counter-terrorism. In the class, one of the frequent phrases that we explored had to do with the quote of “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”. Our discussion of this thought often became quite lively as the classification of a person into either category is all dependent on which side or perspective you were viewing them from.
I had a talk a few days ago with a friend and our conversation somehow pivoted to one where we explored how every organization has problems and difficult employees. Being that Georgia is an “at-will employment” state, my friend made the comment about how “problem” employees are usually fired by their workplaces in order to solve the “problem”. I do not doubt that this is the case in most situations of difficult employees but I couldn’t help but to think as to whether a similar statement could be made about “problem” employees as the earlier statement about terrorists.
According to statistics, whenever an employee is terminated, it costs the employer anywhere from 2 to 3 times that employee’s salary to hire and train their replacement. This doesn’t take into consideration the cost of requiring other employees to compensate for the worker shortage until a replacement is brought onboard and caught up to speed with the job. So letting a worker go may solve one problem but it is a very costly move that can easily cause other issues within the workplace.
I have no doubt that terminating a “problem” employee may solve the problem, but is it justified and, more importantly, is it the right move to make? In other words, could one person’s problem employee be another person’s innovative, stellar employee? If so, how is it that the same employee can thrive in one environment but be perceived as a cancer in another?
We see this situation regularly play out in the sports world where one team may trade an underperforming player to another team in hopes that a new environment may spark better production with the player. Sometimes the player improves with the new team while other times they don’t. In cases where they improve, I’ve often questioned whether their increased production was due to changes that the player themselves made with going to a new team or were there things that the new manager or coach did that the previous manager or coach couldn’t do? If it’s the latter, then the problem may not have been with the employee (or player in this context), but with the manager, coach, or supervisor.
So is there anything that you can do to avoid terminating a “problem” employee?
Develop relationships with your employees.
I’m sure many people may quickly say that they have good working relationships with their subordinates but I’m not talking about this. Instead, I’m talking about building authentic relationships with your employees to know them as people. Get to know about their families, their goals, their desires, their future plans, how they define success and failure, their motivation, etc. Basically, get to know what drives them! This doesn’t mean that you should try to become their friend as I know there’s a huge difference between being their friend and being their boss but being the boss does not mean that you can’t know or understand them better.
Develop a plan to help them reach their goals.
In order for a person to become a leader, you have to first be able to lead yourself. Once you’ve mastered this, you should strive to lead others. How do you accomplish this? Well it’s not because of your title or what you’ve gone through to get to your current position at the company or in life. You lead others by helping them become the best version of themselves! This means to help develop them as people and as leaders by demonstrating to them how this process will escalate them on the path to reaching their goals.
Don’t be afraid of their movement!
Over the years, I’ve seen many supervisors fail to invest in their subordinates because the supervisor was afraid that either the employee would leave the company after being invested in or that the subordinate may eventually be promoted over their current supervisor. My thought on this has always been “who cares?”. If you treat people well, invest in them, and help propel them on the path of success, they’ll treat you equally well in the event that they are eventually promoted over you or even if they leave the company.
I understand that you and your company want to get a return on your investment in developing people and that you argue that their leaving the company prevents that. I disagree wholeheartedly with this shortsighted viewpoint! We’re never guaranteed to be at a company for any specific time period. It’s delusional to think that an employee owes the company a 20 or 30 year career because you invested in them. Why? Because no company will guarantee their workers that the organization will still be in business or that the employee will still have a position at the company 20 or 30 years from now! So, it’s our duty to maximize the production and impact of our subordinates for as long as we have them - regardless of whether this may be only 6 months or 35 years.
In this post-Covid world, people and the workforce have changed. What worked in terms of leadership and people development before doesn’t produce the same exact results now. Since covid, people are more focused on balancing their work-personal lives. They’re looking for something that allows them to work towards something with purpose that is larger than themselves. They’re looking for opportunities to make connections and build meaningful relationships with others, including those at work. They’re looking to make a personal and professional impact while working to achieve their goals.
Conclusion
Wise leaders today will recognize the changes in the workforce today. They’ll also see their role as a guide and mentor in the lives of their employees. They’ll recognize the need to constantly demonstrate how their employees are just one part of a larger mission. While they know that they’ll have difficult employees at times, they’ll also understand that the problem could easily be because the employee may not feel connected at work or they don’t feel as though their role/job has purpose. We live in a time where some people come from a background where they were never encouraged or given positive praise for their efforts and accomplishments. They may have never had someone to take the time to get to know them, their dreams, and to invest in them. Wise leaders will understand that providing these types of opportunities to their employees can turn “problem” people into the very “dream” employees that the organization needs.
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