Do You Avoid Dealing With Difficult Employee Issues?

Do any of these 5 situations resonate with you?

1. One of your employees is consistently late for work. Since its only a few minutes, you justify to yourself that its not a big deal even when its apparent that the work is affected.

2. You have an employee who refuses to take on an assignment because she says that its not in her job description. You know that these are tasks that she should be doing, but shes a great employee otherwise and you dont want to make waves.

3. Your staff spends a lot of down time above and beyond appropriate breaks or lunch periods to gossip. It bothers you that this happens every day and that work is not getting done, but you dont address it.

4. Youve been approached by one of your employees who is uncomfortable with the comments that another co-worker made about the anatomy of a female employee. You tell the employee who brought this to your attention that until the female employee complains, she must be fine with the comments. You dont investigate the issue.

5. All of your employees work hard and go above and beyond with the exception of one employee who makes a point of only working half as hard as the rest of the team. Instead of addressing the issue with the offending employee, you give his assignments to others on the team because they know how to get things done.

Managing employees isnt easy, even when youre not faced with difficult employee issues. Taking action when there are inappropriate situations with your staff in the workplace is all part of the supervisory role.

Avoiding difficult work place issues creates

Resentment with the rest of the staff who may feel that you are favoring the difficult employee

Loss of respect and credibility from your employees and your manager

More time spent listening to employee complaints which takes away from everyones ability to be productive during the work day

Increased turnover. Many people chose to leave an organization rather than continuing to work for a company that appears to lack leadership

Lost productivity

Additional costs to your business when work is not done

Affects your confidence in your ability to manage and lead staff

Take Action: Decide here and now that you want to create a work environment that is not only productive, but where all of your employees understand what is expected of them and are happy and engaged in their work.

For tips on how managing difficult employees, be sure to read 10 Management Tips for Dealing With Difficult Employees.