Much discussion with the public sector focuses on redundancies or adjusting pay or pensions.
Whilst these issues are important one of the key issues within the public sector is the management of the poor performer.
Why? Because organisations cannot afford redundancy payments. There is pressure to avoid paying these out and a consequence focusing on performance is key to managing staff.
But if you are human resource manager how do you deal with the poor perfomer. What are the key mediation skills which can enable you to deal with the poor performer?
Typically, this will manifest in the appraisal but can be applied within any conflict situation with the worker.
1. Focus on yourself - How do you feel about confronting the poor performer about his or her work? Preparation is key. Are good are you in a conflict situation? Are do you honestly feel about this situation? Do you go into this situation with clean hands? Is there anything which makes you defensive?
2. Have an overall plan. A good mediator has a long term plan for conducting a mediation. Do you have a plan for dealing with the employee? What happens if performance does not improve? Will you leave it? Delegate to the lawyers?
3. Do you have grounds to focus on poor performance? To be of value, performance indicators should help you measure the things that matter the most, and not merely those that are easy to measure. Are you on solid ground to focus on the poor performance of the employee?
4. Have you worked on your 1st 60 seconds with the worker? When entering a conflict situation it is critical how the first 60 seconds goes when starting. If you set off well in a conflict situation you are more likely to make a success of the meeting.
5 Try to learn from the poor performer. When you are in a conflict position, there is also an opportunity for you to learn as well. You get the opportunity to pick things up from the worker. Try to use the opportunity to learn as well and to genuinely feedback.
Justin Patten, Trainer.