Supervisor Tips: Learning to Handle Difficult Staff

By Dianne Shaddock

The reality is that when you are charged with supervising employees, you must take on the responsibility of dealing with difficult employees and workplace issues.

When you manage employees, it’s the most important part of your job. Ignoring problems has far reaching business impact.

I’ve consulted with both new and seasoned supervisors over time and the one thing that has always been consistent with most supervisors has been a fear of directly addressing workplace conflict.

Clashing with employees for any reason is not easy for most managers. We want to be liked and we care about what others’ opinions. Who wants to be labeled a “bully” boss?

Sticking your head in the sand and turning a blind eye to workplace issues will only:

* Issues doesn’t go away and can actually become even more complicated and harder to tackle.

* Your staff’s “team spirit” is adversely damaged.

* Top staff feel hampered and unhappy, and it’s likely that they’ll never share that with you.

* Mass exodus of staff. (Even the loss of one strong staff member can have a huge impact).

* Work does not get done as efficiently or as quickly as in the past.

* Your employees begin to question your leadership skills.

The first step is to make the decision that you will address problems when the issue occurs and that you won’t shy away from delivering difficult messages.

Tips On Dealing With Difficult Workplace Issues

Develop a process by which you won’t be so intimidated when faced with workplace issues. Using the issue of the chronically late for work employee as an example, write down on a notepad:

* The problem or issue.

* Your observations of how often they are late for work including the number of days late in a week or month.

* How their lateness affects the work: (How it may impact clients or co-workers).

* Steps that they need to take to ensure that they are not late again.

Now, when you have your discussion with your late employee, you have a clear set of talking points.

Let’s face it, we all need a little help with how to handle difficult situations. I’m working on ways to help managers by developing a step by step resource on how to handle these difficult employee situations including what to say and when to say it.

You can act right now by pledging to not look the other way when your staff create issues in the workplace.

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Tags: Blogging, business advice, Dealing with difficult employees, Entreprenuers, human resources, learning to manage, Management, managers, managing employees, New Supervisors, Small Business, small business owners

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