One of my consulting clients in California called me yesterday to discuss a situation he was having with an important staff member. While this situation exists for many caterers, it may not be something you yourself are facing.
In this case, the culinary staff person in question was becoming somewhat difficult to manage plus less willing to work at a “proper” pace in the kitchen. In addition, they were pushing the owner to lessen their hours while still getting the same salary they were now getting. The owner called me just to bounce off the situation with me before he took action to either neutralize, eliminate, or overcome the changes overtaking this staffer’s work.
We got a plan together which was based on the fact that the company’s business was not back to prerecession levels and that management needed staff that realized that “having” a job in this economy with benefits was very special. Therefore, causing waves and lessening one’s efforts and passion for the tasks at hand was ill advised.
In essence, the owner needed to communicate to the staff person that their change of attitude was not appreciated and that management might need to make changes with respect to his employment, position, or pay. At the same time, the owner offered any assistance they could to understand any personal situations that the worker might be faced with that was causing his attitude and work habit changes. My client is a caterer doing $450,000 in annual sales and doesn’t have an HR department. Obviously, in larger companies with HR departments, the situation would be handled somewhat differently.
It is important to note that my client has given me permission to share this information with our Roman’s Opinion Blog readers. Also, whenever consulting is done, the clients have an amount of no charge phone time with me for follow-up after the consulting is finished.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteSo many times there may be outside issues affecting our employees. As an employer we can only exert our influence on these employees for a limited time. A full time employee is only under your guidance less than 40% of their life in any given week. 60% of the time they are guided by someone/something else.
For me it is always a disappointment when an employee's attitude/performance changes. I do what I can to revive the employee and restore the relationship, but in most of these situations a change has to be made to preserve the rest of the staff.
In a small operation there is no room for anything less than complete commitment from all of the employees. Otherwise the result of "1 bad apple" could have devastating effects.