As a manager, I know how to handle big performance issues; people need to be warned, given time to improve, and then either shape up or ship out. I’m wondering, though, about less severe issues and how to properly handle them.
One of my biggest day-to-day headaches are the minor transgressions, those behaviors that technically violate policy or slightly inconvenience employees, but are far from a fireable offense. For example, our company doesn’t allow sneakers as part of the dress code. We have an employee who walks to work, so he wears sneakers to come in and keeps a pair of appropriate shoes at his desk. This would be fine, but he often forgets to change and will spend the majority of the day violating the dress code. Generally he forgets because he jumps right in and focuses on something more important: his job! I don’t feel like I can sit this guy down and tell him that he’s violated our shoe policy and he’ll need to remember to change or he’ll be fired. That just seems silly.
Another example is an employee who doesn’t check our message board and won’t set up email reminders. She doesn’t want the email clutter, but also doesn’t want to take the time out of her schedule to check in for important messages every now and then. So if we need something like a health insurance form filled out, I need to hunt her down to get it completed. Obviously this example DOES affect my job, but am I to threaten the job of one of our top performers over it?
These ARE policies and requirements we’ve set though, and I don’t want to give the impression that our policies (small or large) can be violated without consequence. There are many examples of minor transgressions at the office. Each one adds up to drain more of my time/energy, and I do see signs of other employees following suit. Without consequences, there is no motivation to change.
Over at Fast Track, I weighed in along with three other fantastic career and workplace experts. Let us know what you think of our advice and if you have anything to add!
I think you provided some excellent insight, Alexandra. However, I also think that Anita had a good point--in deciding whether or not to pursue the issue, think about whether the transgression is affecting productivity and your team's ability to complete its mission.
Another good thing to examine is whether the employee is committing the transgression to "stick it to the man" or simply forgot, like the man who forgot to change out of his sneakers. In this case I would be more inclined to simply remind him to change when I noticed the sneakers than to have a sit-down "I'm going to have to mark this in your file" talk.
However, the woman who refuses to subscribe to company updates is definitely affecting the productivity of the department, simply because she doesn't want the inconvenience of a few extra emails.
Overall it depends on the wrong-doing, the intent behind it, and its affect on your team's ability to fulfill its role in the company.
Posted by: Linda Hildebrant | September 20, 2012 at 07:03 PM
Sweating the small stuff is a crime that most of us are guilty of at some point. And I do use the word 'crime' because it robs us of our most valuable resource - time.
It goes back to the basic principle that we need to invest 80% of our time in our top 20% of people, not the other way around.
Posted by: Brent Jones | September 23, 2012 at 05:49 PM
Wonderful, thats definitely what I was shooting for! You just saved me alot of looking around
Posted by: bostancirenault | December 10, 2012 at 04:33 AM