I periodically hear from owners or managers that they always come across exceptionally low-quality staff.
Moreover, the assessment is based on personal qualities: “probably, his brain is somehow wrongly arranged”, “it is not given to her, she is such a person, she needs to be changed.”
Surprisingly, this is not about the employees, but about the owner himself. Especially if he talks like that about 95 percent of his employees.
Here are some questions to help clarify where the problem lies:
- What do I expect from an employee in this position?
- Do my expectations relate to the tasks in this position? Is the employee aware of what I expect from him? Can I communicate my expectations in a calm, constructive, and inspiring way, or do I mostly lash out with criticism so that the employee either just blacks out or goes numb in horror?
- If the task is completely new, have I checked that the employee will have enough time to develop new skills and strength to do it, taking into account his main workload? If not, can I give him additional resources, for example by convening a working group?
- I drew for myself the profile of an employee in this position - is this really what I want? What results will this bring to my company? How much does such an employee cost in the market and am I ready to pay that much? Do I have before my eyes examples of such employees? What is cheaper for me now - to grow this employee, to grow another, or to find it on the market?
- How many examples of successful employee growth do I have in my company? What were the conditions for this? What happens more often - do we hire new ones and they are not suitable, or do we grow our own and they become successful and get the opportunity to develop within the company?
- What in our process is set up so that every time I have to doubt the ability of employees to solve what I think are standard tasks? Or are these non-standard tasks and then what should be the process for them?
- If a client is dissatisfied with an employee, what do I do? Protecting a client from an employee? Or vice versa? How is the process of managing customer expectations built? If we are asked to build a spaceship in a day, do we immediately agree? And if they couldn’t, then change the staff?