Question

STEP 1: In your own words define problem employees and the categories they may fall into. For the second or last paragraph provide your opinion on which employee type is the most difficult.

DEFINITION : I think that "problem employees" are employees that either directly or indirectly hinder the organization's mission or vision, and break down into roughly four categories.

In general, problem employees can be classified into two broad categories - employees creating problems for the organization and employees having problems which cause a deficiency in performance. Examples of the first category of employees are employees creating hindrance of other employees work or causing indiscipline (e.g., early leaving/ late coming/ system abuse/ workplace quarrel) in the workplace. In the second category, employees are troubled by one or more problems in their personal or professional life (e.g., poor health, mental illness, hostile work environment, assault) and hence are unable to perform as per the expectation of the organization.

In my opinion, the first category is more difficult to manage because employees in this category create problems which not only affect a single employee but an entire group of employees. The problems created by the employees provoke other employees to break the rules or become indiscipline. Therefore, for a supervisor, it becomes difficult to take control of the situation. The second group of employees is troubled by individual problems, and one person is affected by one problem, and there is no rippling effect. Supervisors can quickly identify the problems of the employee and try to resolve the same without hurting any other employee's morale.

STEP 2: Provide a strategy for each of the problem employee categories that you created in last week's discussion. Ensure you provide your opinion and thoughts on how each strategy might or might not be effective.

In my first discussion post, I mentioned two categories employees might fall into: The first category of employees are employees creating hindrance of other employees work or causing indiscipline (e.g., early leaving/ late coming/ system abuse/ workplace quarrel) in the workplace. In the second category, employees are troubled by one or more problems in their personal or professional life (e.g., poor health, mental illness, hostile work environment, assault) and hence are unable to perform as per the expectation of the organization.

For Category 1 of problem employees:

employees who create hindrance of other employees work, and cause indiscipline in the workplace are the most difficult to manage. Because not only do problem employees affect the work of an individual employee but also affect the total efficiency and productivity of the group which will affect the organization's productivity in general. I believe that such employees needed to be adequately trained and warned about the possible consequences if the organization feels affected. Employees may encourage other employees to break rules which may affect the total mass. For such employees the few strategies which can be adopted are explained as below:

• Set consequences of following problematic behavior: The organization should enforce strict disciplinary actions for violating any of the rules and norms of the organization. Also, workshops and other means of creating awareness for the employees towards these disciplinary norms should be implemented.

• Intervene at the earliest without being ignorant: The organization, especially the misbehaving employee’s immediate supervisor should intervene at the earliest signs of visibility of problems by the employee. Intervening will ensure that the problem can be sorted out before the matter gets out of hand.

• Termination of the employee when all else fails: The organization should ensure to terminate the employment of the problematic employee when he does not show any signs of improvement. Such actions can also induce fear in other employees who might be misbehaving.

For Category 2 of problem employees:

As mentioned in the case, these employees end up causing problems in the workplace due to their personal life. The employees who fall into the second category is simple to manage because their problems are personal and may also be temporary in most of the cases and these do not encourage other members of the group. Personal efficiency and productivity are affected, but this does not affect the group to a large extent. In such cases, the management can understand the issue and may offer the person leave for at least some days so that the issue is solved, and the person restore peace. For dealing with such employees, below strategies can be adopted:

• Provide counseling facilities: If the organization has a qualified counselor at the workplace whom the employees can approach to discuss their issues, counseling would be helpful to both the employee and the organization. If required, an organization can also implement anonymous chat sessions with the counselor to protect the privacy of the employee.

• Listen effectively and provide adequate support: The supervisors and peers should be open and willing to listen to the problems of the employee, provided he or she be willing to talk. Any minor adjustments which when made by rest of the employees which would help the troubled employee as well as the organization, can be implemented.

Task: What is your strategy to handle this situation? Spell out the steps you will take and why based on what you have learned so far from the course. Feel free to make and state assumptions in your discussion posts on the situation. ( WHICH IS SHOWN IN STEP 1& 2)

This discussion post is your high level analysis of the situation and the steps (if any) you will take.

Scenario Part 1: Workplace unrest

Environment: You are the Director of a team of employees that do various PA duties. The team consists of 15 employees that are assigned duties in different building locations and collocated with other PA personnel from other directorates in a matrix type set up. Three of your personnel provide project IT (Information Technology) engineering support to another PA program. Your three employees are intra mingled (cubicle environment where each person has a workstation) with four other employees that are not under your control. Most of the employees both those under your control and not under your control have work together for at about five years. The workload is fairly steady but there are times when program deadlines can stress the team. Your boss, the Executive Director, works in Washington DC so you are depended upon to handle all work and personnel-related matters. However, your boss and HR have to approve higher level personnel actions such as promotions and dismissals.

The players:

Jack: Jack has been with the organization for about eight years and is known as a highly competent worker known for his expertise in Agile methodologies. Last year, you made Jack the team lead for personnel that are located in his building. You have known Jack for about 10 years and have a great working relationship but little off work interactions. Jack just turned 40 and has a wife plus two children. Jack can be a little overly aggressive personality wise and is very passionate about his job. He has an outstanding reputation with coworkers and especially customers.

Jill: Jill has been on your team right at one year. When a vacancy came open, Jack recommend her and you hired Jill. Jill is known to be a competent IT engineer. With two children fresh out of college, Jill and her husband just became empty nesters and love to travel. She is not overly satisfied with her this job as her last job involved hands-on IT development work where the current job only involves reviewing development by other developers or IT engineers. Your interactions with Jill have been cordial and positive in nature. If you were to categorize her personality, she is not being overly type A nor passive like a type B.

Tami: Tami has worked in the organization and this section for about six years. She is fairly close to Jack and their families occasionally socialize. Tami provides program management and financial expertise to the IT systems. She is a no-nonsense type worker (does not joke around much) and is very competent. Tami does not like conflict in her personal or professional life. Tami’s husband just retired and she’s a year maybe two behind him.

Situation: You are getting ready to head home from work on Friday when you receive a call from HR. The HR representative states that Jill has filed a complaint against Jack for bullying. HR received a phone call from Jill on how to file a complaint and the HR representative took a verbal statement from Jill.

The HR representative stated to you over the phone that Jill feels she is not challenged job wise and her and Jack were not getting along. She considered herself bullied and had enough earlier in the month after returning from vacation where people thought she was sick as she was coughing and blowing her nose a lot. She said she was not sick and Jack wanted to send her home and wouldn’t let up. Jack ordered her into the conference room to discuss the matter in private, which she did not want to do. She also stated that her working relationship with Jack continues to decline and she is not going to put up with his ordering her around demeanor in the work center or meetings. Jill was not sure what to do so she called HR. HR stated that she did not want to come to you first because you are too close to Jack. HR is handling this situation off to you to handle at your level but you are to follow up with a formal report back to HR. They want to know your initial plan by mid-week. Jill is working next week but Jack is on vacation.

Contents at a Glance : THESE ARE SOME OF THE CHAPTERS COVERED IN THE TEXT

Part 1:

You Can’t Smack ’Em—Manage Them Instead 1 1 Don’t Just Sit and Suffer 3 Recognizing that difficult people are costly in several ways and learning to take action to manage difficult people to reduce costs and increase benefits. 2 The Magical Manipulative Ways of the Difficult 17 The importance of focusing on detecting and dealing with difficult behavior, not on labeling people as difficult. 3 What Makes Difficult People Tick … and Tick … 31 Understanding why people are difficult and how to use reinforcement to manage difficult behaviors. 4 Why Me, Lord, Why Me?—The Manager’s Burden 43 Realizing that difficult behavior may not be aimed at you, recognizing how you might be contributing to behavior problems, and reducing the damage by taking responsibility. 5 Keeping Your Feet on the Ground with Difficult People 53 How to stay calm, think rationally, focus on positive outcomes, change your self-talk, and avoid reacting in negative ways.

Part 2:

Managing Garden-Variety Employees 65 6 Identifying the Garden-Variety Difficult Employee 67 What you can do to manage common difficult behavior through interpersonal skills, good communication, power or authority, and establishing norms. 7 Providing Feedback to Difficult Employees 77 How to help people understand that their behavior is difficult by letting them know, directly or indirectly, and by giving positive feedback to reinforce good behavior. 8 Parrying the Difficult Thrusts 89 Developing an approach to assess the damage caused by difficult behavior, using empathy to better understand the other person, and using returning responsibility and group pressure to resolve problems. 9 Using Performance Management to Help 101 How performance management, including performance planning and ongoing communication, can be an effective informal and formal tool for managing difficult people. 10 Monkey in the Middle: Mediation and Arbitration 115 Intervening in conflicts: assessing the cost of inaction, using mediation and arbitration. 00 3709 FM 5/8/00 8:19 AM Page iv

Part 3:

Managing the Venomous Difficult Employees 127 11 Identifying the Venomous Difficult Employee 129 Identifying intentionally harmful behaviors and dealing with those employees to ensure a safe and healthy work environment. 12 Can You Create Win-Win with These Folks? And How! 143 How to achieve a win-win situation with difficult people: assessing your chances of success, using the right initial approach, working with skill and self-discipline, and keeping the focus on problems, not personalities. 13 I Fought the Law and …? 155 Knowing the legalities of your situation and ensuring a safe and healthy work environment by establishing and maintaining policies, providing training, and using progressive discipline. 14 Worry About the Other Shoe Dropping—Violence 167 Ways to detect and deal with the potential for violence in the workplace.

Part 4:

When the Difficult Person Is Your Boss 181 15 The Nutso Boss 183 How to recognize whether your boss is crazy, to understand why, and to decide whether to fight it, live with it, or get away from it. 16 Fighting Fire with Water—Your Difficult Boss Options 195 Your choices for dealing with a difficult boss, from best to worst, and ways to make your decision and go with it. 17 Silly Boss Behaviors—Specific Situations 209 Tactics for coping with bosses who steal credit for accomplishments or who make excessive demands—and realizing that sometimes you can’t improve your situation. 18 Is Your Boss Doing Something Illegal? 221 What to do if your boss is breaking or bending laws or violating company policy and how to protect yourself.

Part 5:

If It Wasn’t for My Difficult Co-Workers 231 19 Difficult Colleagues 233 When the difficult people are your colleagues, ways to change your reactions and to deal with work killers, directly or indirectly, without getting personal or blaming. 20 Real Conflict and What to Do About It 249 Learn about two types of conflict, about good conflicts and conflicts that turn ugly, and five ways to address conflict. 00 3709 FM 5/8/00 8:19 AM Page v 21 Getting Help from Others, Including the Boss 263 How to build a good relationship with the boss, just in case you need some help from above, and how to involve other managers in dealing with difficult situations. 22 Knowing Your Communication Media 275 Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of the several means of communicating in the workplace, choosing the best medium for the situation, and then using it carefully for the best results.

Part 6:

I Confess, I’m Difficult (Help for the Guilty) 287 23 We’re All Difficult Sometimes—Are You Difficult Too Much? 289 Dealing with a harsh reality—even you can be a difficult person!—and using various means to understand how others perceive you and how you can become less difficult. 24 Getting Less Difficult—Words and Deeds 301 How to change your behavior and become less difficult and more trustworthy through greater consistency and congruence of words and actions. 25 Getting Less Difficult—The Words, Ma’am, Just the Words 311 The difference between confrontational and cooperative language—and ways to replace confrontational language with cooperative language.

Answer 1

Worker self-esteem and confidence, efficiency and consumer service levels are at their utmost when workers work efficiently as a group and put into practice basic code of belief of good manners and admiration for each other. However unfortunately this is not always the case when workers exhibit improper and disrupting behaviors.

Behavior which are not steady with fundamental mutually respectful and proficient prospects can consequence in significant pessimistic consequences for the business and individuals and can indeed enhance a companies’ probable rule & regulation problem and burden.

The brunt of disruptive behaviors in a business are far ranging as it can indeed reduce efficiency, performance, worker dedication and loyalty and overall can have a major impact on business character that can have an effect on the basic structure and increase the labor turnover and legal expenditures.

Administrators have a moral and legal responsibility to look into grievances and substantial proofs on bad behavior and to put a stop on its reoccurrence by taking quick and correct counteractive steps and measures. However if organization pays no attention to the crisis then it can face the danger of acknowledging unethical and immoral behavior which indeed can turn out to be more vulnerable to probable legal liability.

The most crucial element in administering complex or troublesome workers is to differentiate the individual from his behaviors by letting the worker know about the behaviors being undesirable, offensive and objectionable however it’s important to ensure not to put together any individual assault on the worker and it’s significant employee appreciate and comprehends the kind of behavior and performance that is anticipated of him in the near future.

Conflict resolution in the workplace can be broken down into steps to simplify the procedure thus by doing so HR and business administrators can ensure more effective communication and efficient conflict resolution procedure.

Thus it’s important to make it clear what the disagreement is actually about which normally involves getting to the heart of the conflict. The main objective is to get both parties to have the same opinion on what the disagreement is all about and for this you need to talk about what requirements are not being met on both sides of the conflict and make sure there is a mutual understanding from both sides.

During the procedure get hold of as much information as possible from each side’s point of view. Persist to ask as many questions as possible to get an in depth view about the conflict and you should be convinced that all concerned parties recognize and comprehend the concerned matter and thus eventually try to find a common path where both the concerned parties agree to final outcome in order to amicably resolve the conflict.

As employees in an organization it’s important and very significant to eventually learn to enthusiastically listen to others’ ideas and cooperate when those thought process conflict with their own interests.

Thus a worker in an organization is expected to acknowledge and understand his duties and responsibilities and accordingly perform while functioning in a group environment as other members in the group anticipates him to honestly perform his commitment in order to attain the business objectives and maintain high quality standards.