How to Deal with Problem Staff

Are certain people making life difficult for other people at work? SME Academy offers a solution.

Problem behaviour at work affects everyone. It affects the people on the receiving end and it also affects those who are bullying and argumentative in the first place.

But how do you deal with it?

The first step is to take a pro-active stance, take command and control it in a positive way. It used to be that punishment was the only way forward and indeed some form of disciplinary action may be required. But prevention and support should also be provided, along with a strong and positive management style that will go a long way towards preventing such occurrences happening in the future.

Both coaching and mentoring have led to positive changes in such individuals, as they are offered practical and supportive solutions to change the behaviour that has so affected them and their colleagues. While it will take time to get back to a workplace which is more positive in nature, if you can provide leadership that everyone looks to for advice and support you will be setting the stage for that to gradually evolve.

It can be a tricky balance to present a face of management that is both firm yet supportive in the right ways, but it is vital to do so. You should also keep a close eye on how things are progressing and be prepared to meet with members of staff who have concerns or issues about any kind of detrimental behaviour they are experiencing at work.

Many businesses are now turning to neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) to produce better results over both the short and the long term. NLP is designed to help you understand the behaviours of others from both audio and visual signs, and can therefore help in two ways. Firstly the offending member of staff will learn how their behaviour affects others in a detrimental way, and secondly they will also learn how to make positive changes that will help to eradicate the problem behaviour altogether.

As far as your role as a manager is concerned it is vital to ensure that you learn to identify problem behaviour as soon as it arises, rather than finding out about it from staff members. By providing a hands on management style you can learn more about how your team works and thus get to know your team a lot better than perhaps you do now.

By looking at long term solutions to problem behaviour rather than quick fixes, you will find that your team works in a more harmonious way as a result.

SME Academy offers a range of Coaching and Mentoring packages that can be adapted to your needs. Call us on 020 7939 9910 or click here for more information about coaching

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2010

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Google Latitude: A way to track employees?

For some time Google has been developing products and applications which can be used with mobile devices. Their latest application Google Latitude also being described as the ‘Google people tracker’ allows you to ‘see where your friends are in real time’.

Essentially what this means is that once the application has been enabled on your mobile device, e.g. your BlackBerry, other people can track your movements and view your status.

Already this application has got people worried, for example the BBC News website said: “The service has raised a number of security concerns, as many users may not be aware that it is enabled.” They continue: “privacy watchdog Privacy International argues that there are opportunities for abuse of the system for those who may not know that their phone is broadcasting its location.”

Google’s blogsite for this service states that the service is available on a strictly 100% opt-in basis, but this has got us wondering what it means for businesses who employ staff. Afterall, often the company owns the mobile phone, pays the bills and supplies the phone to staff to use for business purposes. So do you need to tell the user of the phone if the service has been enabled?

Google Latitude has been designed so that a notifaction pops up telling the user that their location is being shared, but in an interview with the BBC, Google “admits that the notification service is currently only available for BlackBerry users”.

Could this service help employers to cut sickness absences and keep an eye on staff who are out of the office on extended ‘client meetings’? If an employee knows that their movements may be tracked by their employer via their phone are they less likely to take a ‘sickie’ or does it mean that they’ll simply turn off their phone when they leave the building? If you have a large salesforce or need to track drivers, this could offer a very effective solution for improving efficiencies by ensuring that the right person is sent to the appointment or the job and to give customers a more accurate estimated time of arrival.

Before you get excited, take note. Users of this service can manually set their location. So when you check in on a sick employee and see that according to their phone they are tucked up in bed, they could be down the pub!

What are your thoughts? Would you insist on this feature being installed on your company phones or do you see it as an invasion of privacy?

© Copyright SME Academy 2009

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