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Holding your employees accountable for their work is vital when you are growing a business; but that shouldn’t come at the drastic risk of losing your talent.
Instead of finger-pointing and playing the blame game when employees are under-performing tries these suggestions:
Be clear about your expectations
When assigning tasks to employees for special projects or implementing process changes, it is important that you clearly discuss expectations. The discussion is not only opportunity to give direction, but also to hear from your employees. Leave room open for them to digest your expectations and provide you with feedback or concerns regarding those expectations.
Be Empathetic
Whether we plan for it or not, life happens. We cannot predict the days’ events, but we can be empathetic and understanding of life’s happenings. Before pointing out failures, give your employees a chance to express why they fell short of meeting expectations. Hear it from their point of view first and then remind them of previously agreed to expectations. Ask them probing questions about how they think they can improve on delivering in the future.
Give them options
Explain the different options available; the solution could be moving them to another department, re-arranging the work schedule to accommodate lifestyle changes or possibly discussing an exit strategy. The last thing you want is someone working for you that doesn’t want to be there. It’s better to find out while they are still there so you’ll have the chance to cross-train someone to replace them.
Follow through
When it comes time to implement disciplinary action, do it. Don’t get too caught up on small details that you “let it slide”. Holding employees accountable requires you to actually follow-through with doing what you say you will do. Why is this important? Because it sets the standard. Now that you’ve heard from their point of view, provided options and explained disciplinary measures it’s time to implement. Implementation shows you are serious about the future of the organization and you expect them to be serious about it too.
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