Conflict: What I would DO

Conflict Resolution

Heres the Scenario

“You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services.  You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service.  One of your employees, who has been with the company for two years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers.  In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment.  You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

The first thing that I would approach when I get together with this employee is bring to light what has been going on. I would let the employee know that there have been complaints about him not only by customers but also fellow employees; and that his confrontational behavior cannot be tolerated. After that I would ask him “how are things in his personal life?” A lot of times things that are happening at home can affect our performance at work. I would then tell a story about how some of my personal issues in the past have made things at work difficult as well; it is important to let him know that I am approaching him as human being with my own issues as well. This allows the employee to see me as a normal person and not just his department manager. I would then tell him a technique that I used when I was having a tough time emotionally from things that were happening outside of work. I anticipate that this will be his response since he has been here for two years and has shown that he is capable of doing the position. What I would tell him is to take an imaginary bag and take his worries and grab them out of his head and put them in this imaginary bag. Then he should fold the bag to close it and set on the curb to wait for him when he gets off work. I used this technique before and what it does is acknowledge that there is a problem going on outside of work, but it is not fair to other employees and customers for you to be in a bad mood because of something that is affecting you outside of work. Other people at work have their own issues as well and they don’t let it affect their performance at work.

After making sure that the employee knew that I was trying to help I would then deliver the ultimatum. I would tell him that we value him as an employee but his actions recently have created a hostile work environment. I would also let him know that his current performance with customers has not been meeting company standards. I would also recommend any services that we offer as a company to assist him with any personal issues he is going through. Then I would set forth a corrective action plan and tell him we will meet again in two weeks to see how progress is coming along. I would tell him that if his performance does not show some improvements in the next two weeks that the next step in the termination process will take place. It is much easier to try and get a current employee back into a place where he or she can be affective as an employee than to start over with someone else. This will let him know that his services are appreciated but his behavior recently isn’t something that is adding to an affective workplace environment.