How to Win Staff Back Over?

DubTony

J.Biz wrote: »

Thanks Everyone for your advice. I agree with pedroeibar1 - Part of the problem is me I've let this area of the business slip and only recently started tracking how long the work was taking and their metrics, so it was a sudden shock. One of the group was a manager of the division, in hindsight the business out grew her and when we found the preformance metrics out was immediately demoted. Then as we started to address it we've met the underlying attitude. To clarify there is a onsite manager that runs the day to day in the business, not a CEO in title . She's relatively new in and has inherited this crowd, she's very good but is as frustrated as I am. They do respect her but it's a case of they have been used to doing it this way for a while and feel being asked to preform better is stressful - which they then blame for mistakes. If we didnt have to do our work fast we wouldnt make mistakes, fair point but the targets we are asking are reasonable and there is no excuse for not following procedures.

Now all their work is checked, every mistake means a meeting with the manager, warnings will be issued for repeat offenses of the same mistake. Still havent found a solution to the disparity in targets.

DubTony from what i understood you can't fire someone on the spot you need to formally set up a disciplinary meeting 24 hours later to discuss the matter?

It can be tough to bring a new person in to manage a dysfunctional department/business, but this is where strength is required. Ideally a new manager comes into that situation with all guns blazing, coupled with a bit of an authoritarian attitude to shake things up, and then relax after the crap has been sorted. (I know, makes me sound like one of them old style managers But I never got any crap from my employees). Looks like you're on the right track. Getting through it will take time and patience, but it'll be worth it.

With regard to gross misconduct and summary dismissal.

Here's what http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemployment_and_redundancy/dismissal/fair_grounds_for_dismissal.html says about it

Conduct
As a ground for fair dismissal the term conduct covers a very large area of behaviour. There is a need to distinguish between gross misconduct and ordinary instances of misconduct.

Gross misconduct may give rise to instant (summary) dismissal without notice or pay in lieu of notice. Examples of gross misconduct include assault, drunkenness, stealing, bullying or serious breach of your employer's policies and practices. Your contract of employment may contain further information concerning gross misconduct.



I guess it comes down to what would be regarded as gross misconduct. Just be aware that an employee can be instantly dismissed.

antoinolachtnai

Employees can certainly be instantly dismissed.

If the situation arises though, I would suggest suspending the employee immediately by sending them home, then regrouping and deciding what to do. Sometimes people get hot-headed and the advantage is that this gives an opportunity to back out of a situation and consider the context and get advice. You can then hold a hearing and go through with the dismissal or change course. You should also provide for an appeal procedure in your employment contract so that even if someone gets fired on the spot there is still a right of appeal of some sort. (You need to make sure that every employee has an employment contract.)

The fact that there are a lot of employment law considerations in this country shouldn't stop you from acting boldly and doing what you need to do to save your business. It just means that you have to do it with a lot of skill so that you can show that your actions are fair.

_Brian

I would urge you not to terminate an employee on te spot for failure to meet targets or making a mistake.
This type of termination is dangerous ground and typically reserved for gross misconduct usually deliberate offences.

Have a disciplinary process.

Verbal warning - written down and signed.
Written warning.
Final written warning
Then termination.

This will save you having your ass dragged through the courts.

pedroeibar1

There are a couple of points above that are worth repeating
Firstly, as Antoinolachtnai says every employee needs (and legally should have) an employment contract. That contract should spell out everything, from job description, holiday entitlement, to dress code for customer facing staff, to internet access and usage. (Legally he is right on firing, but it is not a route I would take a chance on.)

Secondly, like Brian above I am not an advocate of firing an employee without the three strikes protocol, it simply is too risky. Even if you win an unfair dismissals case (and the odds are heavily stacked against an employer), the costs and time spent on it will be huge, not to mention the stress and distraction from your core activity.

The real message is that you need to be SEEN to be taking charge again. Be careful not to undermine your No.2, work in conjunction to achieve set goals. Take control in small ways initially, but let the staff know that you are back in control. Small things will send the message and they will see it – it is not petty, it sends a message. If you buy a newspaper for your reception area stop doing so, as it generally is used by the staff ( if you really need it there, give an instruction that it is for customers only and not to be removed by staff.) If there are biscuits provided in the canteen, stop buying them. If queried, do not apologise, do not explain, do not give reasons. (If you have to, let it be known quietly that you are seriously pi$$ed over the cost of two missed orders/contracts.) Do not let everyone know where you are when out of the office. Come back into the office unannounced during the day; find out what is happening and any infraction gets actioned. Call your switchboard. Count the number of ‘rings’ and comment on it, as in ‘Well done, picked up after 3 rings’ or ‘why did it take ten rings before pick-up?’ Be there early, do not tolerate lateness. But if someone performs above the norm remark on it also and buy a cake, saying for e.g. ‘I met Joe from XYZ Ltd and he was really appreciative of X doing Y so quickly/whatever’. You probably know all this stuff but you have too many ‘alligators’ to see it clearly.

Performance appraisals - everyone hates them, but they would be useful in your case. It is a bit simplistic, but in reality employees like to know where they stand, and it is really demotivating for the good ones to see a few w@nkers repeatedly get away with bad performance.

Somewhere at the back of my head I have a recollection that some of the posters here are/were connected with the SFA and might be able to advise if it has standard template contracts/performance reviews so membership of an organization like that could be very worthwhile.
Best of luck with it.

Phil_Lives

You know you have a problem in a department but don't know what it is.
You are the Manager so you are the last one who will find out.

Hire a go-for or junior admin to "help" them for a few weeks. They will actually be an observer and would be aware of this when going in.
That person will be observer and will tell you who is who in the department.

I remember in my first paid job the Production Manager couldn't figure out why our cell wasn't working. 1/2 particular people in the cell were intent on destroying productivity in the Cell. Production Manager knew something wasn't right but hadn't a clue what it was as he was an outsider who wasn't being given reliable information from the team.

J.Biz

Thanks Everyone, especially Pedroeibar1 you've been so helpful. I wish I had you or someone like you on my team.

We do have all the employment contracts and disciplinary procedures in place, we just need to start enforcing them now. As Phil pointed out its about half the people that are the problem and the other half probably under preform to avoid making the others look bad and creating an environment where they would be very uncomfortable. Using all your advice above we now have a plan in place. Thanks again everyone, you have no idea what a relief it was to be able to discuss this.

padma

A pal of mine in Australia works with businesses and conflict situations in business. He sent me a YouTube video this morning with him explaining about collaboration with staff. I feel it may be a good thing to pass on to you, just as something to ponder on a more holistic level of managing your employees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyJI27O68G0

dvd

some good advice already given here.
this sounds like where i used to work. you will find that there is one or two calling the shots and influencing the rest. you need to identify and get rid of these . even if it costs you a few thousand euro in a year or two. then if you can get one of the most respected person thats left and appoint he/she a supervisor and explain whats expected of them.
the problem seems to be that you allowed things to gradually slide over time and the employees kept taking. it is now very hard to reign it back.

okiss

I have some idea of what you are going through J.Biz. My relatives have a small business with a number of employees. A few years ago they had a problem employee but after getting legal advice they worked this person out of the company.

I would do the following as Brian said - Have a disciplinary process.
Verbal warning - written down and signed.
Written warning.
Final written warning
Then termination.

What Phil_Lives said here is a good idea.
Hire a go-for or junior admin to "help" them for a few weeks. They will actually be an observer and would be aware of this when going in.
That person will be observer and will tell you who is who in the department.

Once you have built up a clear picture of what is going on, who is causing you problems and not pulling there weight. I would then get legal advice from some one who knows employment law. Get them to look at your current work contact and be prepared to change this to include the following:
a) have regular staff reviews
b) allow you to move people into other business sections
c) see if you can put them on a 3 day week due to lack of contracts/work.
If you look up welfare.ie you can find out more about this. It would save you money on wages, tax and prsi. Your staff would sign on the days they are not working and it would improve you business cash flow.

I would arrange to have a chat with each person in the department in private and ask them how do they think they are doing?
What can you do to improve things? You may hear complaints but you may get some ideas of how things can be improved. You might have a staff member who could tell you it is hard to work with "Mark" due to a & b.
I would let them know that you are not happy about losing contact x and losing money on contact y due to people making mistakes. I would then ask them do they need retraining on how to do a, b,c?
If you do retraining get this put on paper to show it was done and the trainer and staff member both sign it. You need to put yourself in a position that unless there is improvement you can remove a person out of the business.

The reality is that you are running a company and not a charity. You need to make a profit to pay your wages, revenue, the other bills, to keep people in employment and long term you need to have cash reserves to replace/repair items and to improve the business.

beauf

I can only echo what others have said. But Abide by their contracts.

Make some of them team leads with clear reasonable performance metrics. Any team that under performs the team leader is reasonable. Make them compete with each other for You also need them to be able to stand out from each other. You need to build up some clear provable data on who is under performing.

Perhaps there's some software you can buy or get written than can eliminate a lot of mistake and reduce the workload. Allowing staff to concentrate on key tasks and not be buried under repetitive work. Perhaps some software that give idea of metrics that the staff will find useful. Give them more job satisfaction.

Define a clear goal that the objective is to improve the business, and its not a witch hunt.

I think its great you are looking for ideas. I would question how good the managers you have in place are if they haven't done this already.

Mrs OBumble

J.Biz wrote: »

One of the group was a manager of the division, in hindsight the business out grew her and when we found the preformance metrics out was immediately demoted. Then as we started to address it we've met the underlying attitude. To clarify there is a onsite manager that runs the day to day in the business, not a CEO in title . She's relatively new in

I was thinking about this overnight, and had a flash of the blindingly obvious:

You demoted someone instead of working to upskill them, and then you got in a new manager from outside. Basically telling the staff in the area that you think they're cr*p, and have no prospects.

It's no wonder that they got demotivated!

I know, there's more too it than that, it would have taken too long to bring the demoted one up to speed, the manager needs a broader skillset etc. But fundamentally what I wrote above is what your staff are thinking.

Strong management will get you back to minimum performance levels. But if you want the staff to go beyond that, to excel, to do the best for your business, then you have to give them some hope that there's a better future role for them - and a clear pathway to achieve that.

pedronomix

Good post Mrs O'Bumble and maybe you are spot on, however, I would not discount the notion that they are cr*p and need to just do the job or ship out! Either way, it is shape up or take the alternative!

padma

I would tend to agree with Mrs O Bumble's analysis. If for example she is correct, it is a classic example of how mistrust, lack of communication and top down management can have a massive effect on front line staff..

I don't believe that anyone goes into work with the intention of messing up, and even if they do mess up, they need to be guided in a better direction, trained and fully equipped to deal with the next situation that arises. People make mistakes, leader's roles are to improve and bring out the best in their teams, it is not to sack, demotivate or demote someone, but to build up, rely and ultimately trust their team.

Everyone has a right to dignity in the workplace, and a culture that is looking towards farming people out of work is doomed to fail, or at the least end up with people stressed in work leading to health repercussions for everyone in the workplace.

Carrot can lead a team, but also a bottom up approach can work too.

pedronomix

interesting to note the differing perspectives of those who are running businesses and those working in a job or in them.

professore

Who is managing the department? Or is there no manager? Maybe that's part of the problem.

CelticRambler

Just catching up with this, so not much to add that hasn't already been said except to say that if you've got the data available, you could call a meeting of all staff in this department and lay it out for them: this department is a significant drain on the company profits and major reorganisatin is planned, to be completed in six months time. When they ask if this is likely to include redundancy, you say it's one option you're considering, along with changed working routines, reduced basic wages topped up by performance-related bonuses (if they're sales staff) and reassigning personnel to other departments. At that point, tell them you're looking for constructive comment from each and every member as to how their job and their department can be improved, and they're to deliver their views to the new manager by the end of [September]. Give them a prepared form to fill in, including a big blank space for "other comments"

As has been said above, your objective at this stage is not to try and win anyone back but to cut out the dead wood and leave the business with an efficient department. Speaking to the group as a whole means that, for now, you're not seen to be picking on any one person (you could even include the other departments), but giving them a form to fill in means that they have to take personal responsibility for their continued employment in the company. You can use that form later on to help separate the motivated from the zombies and help justify additional supervision and/or first warnings. Delegating the job to the new manager will help reinforce her position, and setting deadlines will concentrate the minds. Just make sure you come down hard on people who don't meet the first, and make sure you yourself have a genuine plan of action for the day after the second. Don't let yourself be lulled into thinking all's well with the world because you make it through Christmas.

Good luck - let us know how it all works out.

J.Biz

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

You demoted someone instead of working to upskill them, and then you got in a new manager from outside. Basically telling the staff in the area that you think they're cr*p, and have no prospects.

It's no wonder that they got demotivated!

I know, there's more too it than that, it would have taken too long to bring the demoted one up to speed, the manager needs a broader skillset etc. But fundamentally what I wrote above is what your staff are thinking.

I can understand why you may have come to that conclusion but that isnt the case.

We did try up skilling. We brought in specialists and send them on external courses, when we asked them later was it worth the investment it was a universal no every time. The courses, which they chose, they said were too difficult or above their level and everyone else (in their role) taking the course there was far more qualified. Any form of training or up skilling is now seen as punishment, probably because sometimes the trainers have challenged their commitment / attitude.

The manager was moved from another department / role into them to manage their targets, anticipate what would be required and check their work. Things that the manager said she was unable to do. The move was made after a job went drastically wrong, causing many lost man days that would otherwise have been billable. But more to the point, it was being labelled as mistakes are unavoidable and no responsibility was taken - which means if a move wasn't made it would happen again.

From their perspective the less work that one does the less work that gets checked hence the less negative feedback and no one has had negative consequences before for slow work as they've been hiding behind excuses. We didn't have capacity to check metrics before the new system so they said they spent hours doing things which weren't true. We even outsourced some work which was done a lot cheaper and 100% accurately, so their jobs are on the line.

The company is growing so there is development opportunity, but frankly i'd spend as much time fixing their mistakes and dealing with the consequences lately as it would take me to do the tasks. I'm thinking i'd be happier in the short term having less staff and less problems.

In order to try turn them around we've given them minimum acceptable metrics and i've offered everyone one on one training, where i would watch over their shoulder for and then work with them to get their performance up to par. No one has taken me up on this offer. We thought about making it mandatory but then I was advised this could be used as an unfair dismissal case of making their job conditions unbearable and aggressively managing them out. We've also asked anyone who feels they aren't capable of meeting the metrics to come forward so we can move them to a different position / role and to suggest what they would like to do. We've explained why the situation cant continue as is, also our plans for expansion so that their jobs will become safe and their role in this. Generally there is just silence.

Hopefully things will turn around, only time will tell. Thanks again for the advice.

Thoie

J.Biz wrote: »

Thanks so much for all your advice, you are all so generous and i really appreciate it. I'm going to try splitting the department in two and separate them to a different areas of the office. Cant transfer them to other departments as they wouldnt be qualified / capable. Certainly going to start mapping out a warning system for mistakes.

Mrs O'Bumble touched on this, but you've had a group of people working in pretty much exactly the same role for 4+ years, and can't move them to other departments easily because they don't have the skills for it. Is there an obvious career progression in that role? I know you said they weren't interested in training, but surely out of a group of people, at least one may be interested in moving upwards?

Physically separating them if they're still doing the same jobs and collaborating may not help that much - you'll suddenly hear "Oh we were slow because we're not sitting beside each other any more".

Is there anything you could map out saying "these are the current skill sets of this role - here are the skillsets of <next role up the payscale>, and here's the skills gap between the two". That way people can see exactly what they'd need to proceed.

Another point is that if you're out all day doing "sales" type stuff, are you doing the right job? As the MD/CEO, is it time for you to take a step back from some of that day to day stuff, and get someone else in to do that for you, while you concentrate on running the business? If you enjoy the sales, and already have the contacts, the first thing you'll say to yourself is "I'm the only one who can meet these guys, I've got the relationships with them already, people like to see the head of the company". If you do think any of those things, ask yourself are they really true. Has the company grown to such a size that you need to hire someone else to do at least some of that work for you? Are you happy delegating that kind of thing?

Mrs OBumble

Mmm, if training is seen as punishment, then I'm thinking that they ARE crap, and the sooner you get rid of them the better! (Harsh, but there's something to it.)

J.Biz

Some people just arent interested in career progression to be honest. An sales support and administrative function can't just jump into being an engineer or lawyer for example. I've tried to bring people in that group on in their roles and to expand their abilities, we've opened new growth area's and empowered people in that department, however they've been unable to handle the expanded roles and declined more work in those area's retreating to comfort zones. On the other hand, people in other departments have taken their career by the horns and just run with it, climbing the ladder with just as much opportunity.

The job has grown with the business, some of the job functions that were repetitive have been automated some made quicker using software. But this hasnt free'd them up to do more work, just let them spread the left over work into more hours it would seem. Its not that they are sitting there doing nothing but they might spend six hours working on a €10 sale (loosing money) despite that not being protocol but its easy. Then not get around to the important regular large customer who has an urgent request.

In terms of my role, I don't want to give too much away or air my dirty laundry in public by naming the company for obvious reasons but I'm confident that I am adding the most value where it needs to be done. Say if we were a small cosmetic surgery and I was the only surgeon but the other roles were marketing, aftercare and customer support - If the surgeon wasn't part of the business the rest wouldn't come together and hiring another surgeon so i can babysit the unmotivated staff isn't an option because the cost would be too high and customers simply wouldn't support it. Certainly I'm not taking the easy roles or slacking. I am very present (currently still in the office well after mid-night and will be starting here at 6.30am tomorrow morning also). I've hired levels of management who are passing this problem back up the chain, understandably as to drop a whole department is a big decision and in the past i've always been immensely loyal to the staff - so till recently firing wasn't an option even considered.

pedronomix

The more I think about this, the better a study of man management it really is. Your honesty and openness in your answers is wonderful and many of us on here truly feel and identify with the situation you find yourself in.

My guess is that you are simply too nice. Nice is an important facet of being a good boss and manager. Too nice and the staff behave like bold children, they are emboldened by their lack of respect for you. This is imbued by a lack of any fear of you or that they believe that you have any propensity to come down hard on anyone. The more they get away with the braver and more brazen they become. Kids and staff need boundaries and limits to allow them to develop and mature into people capable of managing themselves!!

They are still pulling your chain...............

It is high time to show them that nobody is that "effing" nice, some marine-like flash/bang shock'n'awe therapy is your last chance to seize control back. Expect and plan for some collateral damage. Pick your targets carefully and execute.

Zabadak

Well I personally would love to find a job so if there is anything going give me a shout

DubTony

J.Biz wrote:

We even outsourced some work which was done a lot cheaper and 100% accurately, so their jobs are on the line.

I'd be looking at this very seriously. Obviously we don't know how much of the work can be outsourced, but if it's a lot, my personal preference would be to clear out the department and outsource as much of the work as possible. Leave the work outsourced for a while and then consider if it would be better or not to bring it back in-house with a new crew.

Obviously the cost of redundancy is a factor, and redundancy has challenges in that [I think] you're supposed to try to relocate people into other departments.

With a cost of 2 weeks per year (plus one more week), it may not cost as much as you think. Employees have been there for between 4 and 8 years, so if we take an average of 6 years, at 1200 each per year (that's assuming they all earn over €600 a week - if not it would be less) the redundancy would be 7200 each + 1 weeks salary. So a ballpark figure of 8k each isn't unrealistic.

The higher the salaries of these employees are, the sooner you'll have made that saving. So if you've people on 40k a year, you'll see the redundancy cost recouped pretty quickly (obviously I'm not considering the cost of outsourcing the work here). If you decide to go down this route you'll need some good HR advice, but it might certainly be worth considering.

As an aside, I have to commend you on the efforts you've made to date. I've never had a situation where employees became ineffective after years of employment with me, so this situation never arose. The information you've provided here has been great, and allows all of us to consider what we might do in a similar situation. I'm quite headstrong and in these circumstances, my first instinct is to get rid of the trouble whatever way I can, and deal with any consequences later. Your patience and what I'd call self control is admirable. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.

Robroy36

Make them all redundant. Kick them to the kerb then stamp on their throats. They do not deserve you - you have been far too nice. Outsource it - it will send a strong message to the rest of your work force and you won't end up in the same situation in 3/4 years time.

ANXIOUS

Two things I would do, introduce a system where they have to write down all the things they work on. Ie 1 hour working on boards request 1 hour lunch and so on. You can introduce this as a means to improve billing. Then you will see the disparity of time it takes the individual employees to do a task.

Introduce peer reviewing. They produce a piece of work it gets checked by another member of staff and that way it'll highlight the week people. Just be sure that they understand the onus is on them to get it right first.

Sadderday

Long and Short of it...

I would give my left arm for a new job... and give my other arm to have you as a boss... so would 1000 people in this country.

If your staff are lax, if their work load or attiutudes are below par then you should consider that there are plenty of people out there willing to put in the effort to benefit a company.

neris

Some good advice given but do not what ever you do just fire staff or you,ll have more serious issues. If you can do it take on a HR advisory company who have legal back up. 1 or 2 of the big firms will be able to advise you on everything from appraisals to being your reps in the labour court should you ever end up there.

We had staff issues a few years ago with settled staff. The easiest thing we did was worked them out of the business. It takes times and most of the staff we identified as the ones we wanted out left. We only have 2 of about 8 that were identified left and their work performance has dramatically improved. A few whinger's & moaners can have a serious effect on what would be normally sane rational hard working employees.

Unfortunately its your business and this is one the many crap aspects of being a business owner that you have to deal with. At some stage if things are going well you do get the benefits whether its satisfaction, joy, a new car, a pay rise or somthing that makes you happy