Deciding if and when employees should be terminated
Turnover is the number one cost to most companies. However, there is a good kind of turnover. How much does it cost to keep an employee that is an emotional drain on the system?
By emotional drain I mean the employee who is never happy, frequently complains, starts rumors, triangulates, talks behind your back – you get the idea. We’ve all known one, hopefully that one is not you!
Companies will retain these employees because on the surface, it appears they are doing their job. Simply completing the tasks of one’s job is not adequate in today’s competitive market place.
There are actually two components of every job – the “content” part and the “process” part. The content part consists of the tasks such as completing paperwork, running the press machine, giving the injection or whatever type of content/tasks one is hired to do. The process part is the relationship piece. This is the ability to get along with peers and supervisors. To be appropriately assertive, optimistic, confront relational discord head-on and simply getting along with others. We sometimes refer to this as playing nice in the sandbox.
To be effective, employees must “do” both content and process. Unfortunately, often times companies overlook the process problem because of content/skill expertise. Think back on a situation where you worked with an employee or supervisor that was a “content expert,” and a “process problem,” how did it feel? I have a hunch you were not a happy employee.
Everyone knows that happy employees are good and productive employees. So when an employee is a process problem, I recommend you “show them the door.” Just as you would if an employee did not possess the skill to do the content part of their job.
In summary: employees who cannot or choose not to play nice in the sandbox cost the organization money because they create an unhappy, unsettled and discontent environment. Unfortunately, fellow employees are not immune from their negative influence. Good employees leave when they find themselves in a work environment like this. I would venture a guess that a lot of good employees leave good jobs because a process problem co-worker was not held accountable for their behaviors.
We all want to work in a positive environment. Translation: Positive environments can only occur when we work with content experts that are also positive-process employees.
Dress Code…for who?…for what?
What are we doing when we create a dress code? What I generally hear is, “it shows respect for the client, it shows professionalism, it shows the community that we are professional.” Dress code policies include words like: image; regulations; hygiene; grooming. They also may include words such as: you shall; mandatory; should be; prohibited; compliance; must. And then backed-up with phrases such as, “failure to follow policy will lead to disciplinary action or termination.”
So back to the original question. For who? For what? I propose that dress code policies are not about the employees, or even the organization. They are about the attempt to control employees, while bypassing the true issue – the lack of a strong relationship between supervisor’s and their employees. The reality is that there is no way to control employees choice of dress, because some will choose to be an individual in a way that breaks the policy, whether indirect or directly, regardless of policies.
I am not saying that organizations do not benefit from dress code guidelines, they do. What I am saying is, “do we want our employees to be motivated to promote a professional image on their own, or to dress a certain way because a policy mandates it?”
Here is an example, “Policy states no more that two ear ring holes per ear.” I have witnessed, and worked with employees who then wore bright, non-matching socks, obtained a strategically placed visible tattoo, wore bright colored shoes, or wore outlandish outfits. Do you see where I am going? Because then the policy-writing team has to revise the policy to control the new, previously unaddressed “unprofessional appearance” issues.
I contend that the less rigid a dress code policy is, and the stronger the alliance and relationship is with the supervisor, the more apt employees will dress for success for themselves as well as for the organization.
Dress code policies create a power struggle between employees and management. The loser is the organization, because it takes time, energy and money to write, re-write, revise and police the dress code policy. As a supervisor I have much better things to do with my time. When I see attire that may not be appropriate, I can speak with that person and motivate them to dress differently.
Remember, employees work and are productive because they are motivated to do so, not because they are mandated to do so.
Stay tuned for a blog on how to motivate employees to “dress for success” versus “mandated dress code policies.”
What about employees who don’t want to change?
We frequently get questions about this, particularly during the planning of a leadership development program or culture change process. Resistance to change comes in a variety of forms, and if not managed well, can sabotage the best-intended efforts. One goal of our work with clients is to help clarify what behaviors and attitudes are incompatible with positive growth, and then to develop effective strategies to deal with those behaviors. Read more at our blog post Setting Free Your Corporate Prisoners.