How To Deal With A Difficult Employee

It is essential to understand the attributes of difficult employees

How to Deal with a Difficult Employee

Handling the workforce is a major task for any business leader. Every company needs an efficient team to make the organization successful. Employees play an important role in building and maintaining a business. Sometimes it is very challenging to deal with difficult employees because you don’t want to lose them as they are an important asset to your company. Expelling such employees is not s good option. The best way to deal with this situation is to understand and communicate with your employee.

Characteristics of a Difficult Employee

Before taking measures to handle employees it is essential to understand what are the attributes of difficult employees and why they act like this. There could be many reasons that employees can behave differently at times. It might be possible that something is bothering them or they are worried about anything. Here you will get to know the other attributes of a difficult employee.

Dishonesty

One of the major characteristics of a negative employee is that they are not honest with their job and co-workers. They used to adopt shortcuts for promotion. In this way, they won’t be able to get fair with their work and dealings.

Blame Others for their Mistakes

Moreover, when they are accused of any mistake they try to lie or put the blame on the other co-workers. When they don’t focus on the work, surely, they are going to mistakes in their work which shows their irresponsibility.

Poor Job Performance

A difficult employee is not regular and does not reach the office at the given time. In this way, his reputation got disturbed and he loses interest in the job. Due to lack of interest employees don’t take job responsibility and perform low in day-to-day tasks. The two main reasons for this could be lack of ability and low work motivation. Halo states due to low employee engagement each year companies lose $450 to $550 Billion.

Not responsive to Calls

Other than that when it comes to important meetings and calls, they show their most irresponsive behavior which directly affects the company whereas good employees work hard and enthusiastically complete their tasks. They lack engagement and show no interest in the meetings.

Tips to Deal with a Complicated Employee

There is a solution to any problem so here it is for this one. One should try their best before giving up. So here you will find some tips and tricks to handle a difficult employee.

1Identify Behaviour Problems

The number one tip is to try to find out the reason behind an employee’s changed behavior. You need to talk to the employee before taking any hard decision. The behavioral issue in employees may vary from person to person as every individual is different from another.

2Discuss Openly How to Manage Poor Behaviour

You need to try to talk to your employee as a co-worker, not as a boss. In this way, he/she will feel free to discuss what bothers him/her. You need to understand your subordinate point of view and same way employees will understand some of yours. Try to discuss openly the core issue with your employee.

3Be Clear with Instructions

Whenever it comes to your duty as a boss, you need to make clear all the points of your employee. It might be possible that he is hesitating to ask about the point again and again. Give them full and final instructions about the project so they could have a better understanding of it.

4Be Fair and Unbiased

You need to deal fairly with all of your employees. If you don’t do so this will create a competition and jealousy factor among your employees. You should give equal importance to all of your workers so they don’t feel uncomfortable in their working zone. Don’t put an overburden on the freshers. Decide on a meeting or performance appraisal day with your employees to motivate him/her for the better.

5Listen to Employee’s Feedback and Business Suggestions

It can be helpful for your business if you listen to your employee’s ideas with attention. Give importance to their suggestions and ideas so your company can come up with an advanced thing. When different minds work together they come up with a unique idea. Other than that you need to give equal attention to the feedback of your employee. If there’s something he likes to review about so listen to it properly before making them quiet.

6Stay Calm and Show Respect for Subordinate

The best way to deal with a difficult employee is to listen to him with a calm mind and heart. Do not stress all the things as it might create a mess all over. Try to give respect to everyone’s opinions no matter if they have a different taste or way of working.

7Give Time for Improvement and Motivate

Other than all the above-mentioned tips, give your employees enough time and space to adjust according to the environment. Let them talk to the customers themselves so that they can get training about how to deal with customers confidently. Try to motivate your employee and appreciate him if he has done a good job. It will help him increase his morale. Happeo statistics mentioned, bosses that support the overall well-being of their subordinates, witness a 21% enhancement in employee performance. Employers should use attendance and task tracking application to monitor employee performance on day to day basis. Tracking the check-in and check-out times will help you in analysing the attendance of habitual late employees. In addition to that employers can keep a follow on tasks, projects, and timesheets and handle HR workflow effectively.

Ending remarks

Employees are not all the same in their performance. Do not expect to get perfect work on day one. Therefore, give your employee time to adjust to the organizational environment. Try to build professional yet friendly working conditions to achieve the objectives.