My subordinate has worked with me for 6 years. Overall, her performance is very strong and she handles most of her responsibilities in a timely and thorough manner. However, due to the small size of the organization, there’s no real opportunity for growth here. As a result, her attitude has started to decline over the past two years– very gradually, but now other departments and staff members are starting to comment on it. The truth is, I think it’s time for her to go. Really, she’s gotten all she can out of this job and she does not appear to be enjoying work anymore.
But as I said to start, her performance is great. It’s just her attitude that stinks.
I did tell her last year that her attitude was changing and she needed to really think about whether or not she wanted to stay. I believe (am not sure) she actually looked for other work about a year ago and didn’t find it. She chose to stay and did try to work on the attitude, but overall, not much has changed since this time last year.
It’s time for another performance evaluation… any suggestions? I’d love for her to make the decision to leave on her own rather than firing her, but I don’t know how to even broach this with her.
The Team Doc Says…
Please don’t tell me you talked to her about her attitude a year ago and haven’t discussed it since. That is not the appropriate way to deal with an employee who has an issue that is impacting your business — or with any employee for that matter.
To begin with, communicating and providing feedback to employees is a daily or at least (minimally) a weekly activity. If you’re not doing that, you need to start right now.
I have concern with your message: “My subordinate…” I haven’t heard that term in years. Take a look at yourself first and see if there isn’t some bias here before you sit down and talk to her.
If you mean promotion when you speak of growth, make sure that’s what she wants. There are plenty of ways to help a person continue to grow in an organization by leveraging their strengths and giving them opportunities to improve their weaknesses.
OK, so where do you start? Set up a meeting with this employee. Plan for the meeting by identifying what you want to discuss, what possible action plans might be and what you expect to have accomplished when the meeting is over. When the meeting occurs don’t just talk. Listen. Listen very carefully to what she has to say. Ask probing questions. Depending what takes place in the discussion, create an action plan together to either improve her behavior of set growth goals or advise her of the next course of action. If your choice is to let her go, you have an obligation to be the leader that you are and deliver the ultimatum or let her go.
Best regards,
Denise O’Berry
aka ‘Team Doc’
Note: Subsequent to this posting, the questioner advised me that he had in fact been providing daily feedback. My advice? Determine the best outcome, create an action plan and make it happen.
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