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React and manage your company’s non performing employees

As an HR professional, understanding mediocre or poor performers goes a long way in correcting a negative behavior at work place. Tackling employees needs and demands requires time and tactics.

People tend to break down when they are loaded with work responsibility at home and in office. Some people manage these situations exceptionally well while some loose hope for any improvement. This results in throwing tantrums on their employer and making them the sole reason for their current sorrows.

The organization looks upon these medium performers as a liability to them and hence do not recognize them nor fire them. These kind of employees are involved in daily management activities and hence do not display or showcase exceptional results which ultimately leads to no career development for them.

Negative Impact on performance

Experts believe that such kind of employees usually ruin the learning, morale and performance of other employees. As it will be difficult for co-workers to escape from such negative impact, it is for the employers to deal with the problem. Experience and common sense says that if such employees are ignored or left to change by themselves, the workplace can soon turn indifferent to the company culture and even start disrespecting it.

Check out the list of things that a low performer does:

Spreads negativity about the organization and its environment. Discusses and talks to co-workers during breaks on the negative side of the organization. Creates an environment of discomfort against company policies and procedures. Handling such kind of employees is a challenge for any present day organization as this behavior tends to disrupt the healthy environment of the company.

Building understanding for employee

Change in the employee behavior needs to be studied by the organizations so they can understand the change in the mindset of its employees. In any new job people start off with enthusiasm however as time passes by they tend to loose their energy and ultimately lands up in an unplanned situation which they cannot handle.

Understanding what has gone wrong in the whole episode is a difficult task for managers to handle. This is because employees are not open to accepting the problem or taking responsibility for mediocrity at work.

Employers face crisis for three reasons:

Dealing with an employee who creates disturbance in the organization is delayed as proper identification of such a person is not an easy task.

The following measures will help employers handle such problems efficiently:

Give opportunity to employees so that they can share their thoughts:

Have an open, serious discussion with the employee. A straight no-nonsense talk can alert the employee in a great deal. Once the employee knows that, as an employer, you are serious about the issue, he/she will share his concerns and speak out. Once, the employee realises that the manager will help him overcome indolence, it is important to brief him about the expectations regarding his progress at work.

You can reward the employee and provide him support to grow in the organization which will result in improvements in his attitude and work responsibilities.

Define Objectives:

Sit with the employee and help him understand what the organization expects out of him and how he can set easy achievable goals for himself in line with the organization’s objectives. Try to recognize any act of positivity which will inturn help in boosting his morale and eradicating negative behavior.

Go to the grass root level:

Need specific training and development programs will definitely put the employee into the next level where they will not only gain confidence and perform better but will also specialize in his current work profile.

Review and feedback is essential:

Once the communication and training bit is done, the manager must review the employee’s work to see for progress or digress. In case of poor performance and unchangeable attitudes, the employee must be warned firmly. It should be clear that disinterested work patterns and attitudes will not be tolerated and will be subjected to further disciplinary action.

Time to say good bye:

Despite of all efforts and help, the employee is reluctant to change his attitude, calls for a serious action from the management which can also lead to a final termination from services. Share your concerns and his drawbacks politely in order to avoid any arguements. Further it is seen that such employees are already prepared for such a decision and they seldom go against it.

What can be concluded?

The take away from such an incident is that the employer conveys to his people how much he values his culture and that he will not compromise on anything and retain its dignity. Further, the organization needs to strengthen its recruitment strategy to avoid hiring people with any negative mindset.

Want to find out more about recent trends in human resource management, then visit Amit Kumar’s site on corporate culture development Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.

The economy has us all a little worried, right? We’re all trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got, especially when people aren’t spending money like they used to. There aren’t a whole lot of basic solutions. You either increase income or decrease expenses. Payroll costs can be significant. Can they be reduced without layoffs?

When a business owner or manager begins to look at cutting costs, the first thing that gets pulled is the income or profit and loss statement. In a typical product-based business, the biggest numbers are usually product, insurance, and payroll. Product is usually out, unless you have serious inventory issues. You have to have something to sell, or you’re not in business at all. You know you can’t ditch your insurance expense. That leaves payroll and all the related costs that go along with having employees. You don’t want to lose anyone – the economy will pick up eventually. How do you cut payroll costs without resorting to layoffs?

You should review your benefits coverage and see if you can find a less expensive policy. Employees will prefer having some soft perks, like company picnics and employee banquets, temporarily eliminated instead of facing job loss. Once things improve financially, you can return business to normal.

Always be on the alert regarding overtime. Sometimes rescheduling individuals and offering flexible schedules can reduce overtime. If you pay for lunch hours, consider eliminating this at least in the short-term. Depending on the number of employees, these small cuts can make a big difference without having to resort to layoffs.

Presenteeism is a funny word for lost time when people are actually being paid. It is non-productive time and research has shown that for every 100 hours of paid productive time, you are paying for at least 2.3 hours of non-productive time. One way to eliminate the need for layoffs is to improve productivity and presenting it this way will help everyone get on board.

In what ways is productivity reduced? Employees who come to work sick or manage personal problems by phone, who take smoke breaks or spend excessive time socializing. Sometimes this happens because employees are afraid of being penalized if they call in sick or need to use counseling services. Instill this understanding as part of your culture to encourage employees to use their sick time appropriately as it’s been provided.

Most companies use disciplinary action to control absenteeism and productivity issues. There can be more effective ways to deal with this like offering “paid time off” vs. sick and vacation time so employees can use their time as they see fit without fear of being penalized. Also offering telecommuting or flexible scheduling can allow employees to be more productive and improves loyalty. Also offer wellness programs and employee assistance to help your team cope with health, financial or legal issues.

There are a lot of creative ideas out there for reducing payroll costs, including hidden ones. Every business is different – you know your business best, so you’ll be the best one to evaluate which strategies are right for you. Your bottom line may not go through the roof over this, but at least you’ll buy yourself a little breathing room when you go to pay your bills every month.

With 30 years of consulting experience, Steven Schlagel offers training and coaching for startups, entrepreneurs and small business owners. Check his site for more articles to increase your success!

Labor management is usually the biggest single expense for conveyor and self-service carwash operations. In a recession, efficient staff scheduling and labor cost controls can spell the difference between survival and success.

As most operators know, employee scheduling and time and attendance management is not as easy as it looks. To properly manage labor costs, you’ve got to constantly monitor employees with varying skill sets and availability, communicate a frequently changing staff roster to employees that are rarely onsite at the same time, manage time off requests, and handle dozens of work schedule questions or shift swap requests. You also have to keep employees from riding the clock or punching other staff members in. You may even have to monitor staff members who are minors or move shifts around to be sure that every shift has an English speaker or that an employee with particular training is on hand.

To be successful in the carwash and detailing business, you have to balance your staff members and the load level scheduling – ensuring that the staff are in place to handle the required number of vehicles quickly during busy periods, but not be overstaffed during slow periods – all while effectively managing and anticipating accurate labor costs.

Employee and staff management software allows operators to cut carwash staff scheduling and attendance management time from hours to minutes. Managers and operators can manage schedules at one or many stores, schedule to put staff members with particular skills or the most experienced staff into high volume time slots, notify employees of upcoming work schedules and send schedule changes by email or text message, monitor attendance from a remote location, and forecast your labor costs.

The hours you save with online employee scheduling and time and attendance systems will streamline your management time, freeing you to focus on the strategic decisions of running a successful carwash/detailing operation, rather than phone calls from disgruntled employees who didnt realize their schedule had changed. The fine-tuning you can do with employee scheduling, the reduction in missed or late shifts, the decrease in unnecessary overtime, and the ability to forecast labor needs and costs will save you money. In fact, labor management software can increase carwash profits by 3-5%.