Having difficult conversations with employees
Having difficult conversations with employees is one of the hardest parts of being a manager. When 70% of managers are willing to avoid these conversations and will ignore problems in the hope that they disappear, it’s a sign that managers need support to address their avoidance tactics and initiate these difficult conversations.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through some simple tips that will help with the next difficult conversation at work. Plus, we’ll look at why we find these situations so tricky in the first place so we can help address the root cause.
Of course, we can’t fix the problem in one blog. Gaining the skills to tackle difficult conversations at work takes skills and training. It also means addressing the real reasons you avoid conflict.
For now, let’s look at some ways we can better approach these conversations.
Techniques for managing difficult conversations
1. Preparation
As with anything important in work, you need to fully prepare for the conversation. Make sure you have documents of what’s been happening and when. You’ll need to think about how best to approach the issue to reduce the chances of your employee becoming upset and defensive. Plus, you should have an idea about what outcomes you want from the meeting.
This means looking at what actions you want the person to take, what timeframe you want them to take action in, and how you will follow up with them.
For example, if you have an employee consistently turning up late for work, you will want to first find out why they are no longer logging in on time. You may discover an issue at home or with transport that you need to work around. Or it may be that they think no one is noticing what time they start working each day.
You will want the action to be immediate and for the employee to understand the consequences if their behaviour doesn’t change. You will also want to review their timekeeping skills. This may mean monitoring them until their next appraisal, or depending on when the appraisal takes place, reviewing it in three- or six-months’ time.
If you go in prepared for what you want the outcomes to be, you are less likely to be met with conflict or avoidance.
2. Keep it professional
When you work closely with your team, it can be hard not to see their difficult conversations as being personal. For your staff member, it may feel like a personal attack on them. For you, it may be an emotional process because you have a working relationship with that employee.
No one likes delivering bad news. This is why it’s important that you keep the conversation calm, professional and to the facts. This is especially true when the conversation involves others within the company.
Your employee may become defensive when you explain why you’re having the conversation. It can be easy to get dragged into the minutiae and lose track of the key points you want to get across. It’s your job to guide the conversation away from arguments and to keep it within the facts.
If your employee becomes emotional, make sure they have time to calm down before going onto the next stage of the conversation.
Get them talking. Use an open question to get them to explain why they are doing what they are doing. This will get you more information and help determine your approach and decisions.
3. Listen well
To help you keep the conversation professional, you must listen well to your team member. Make sure they feel heard, especially if they disagree with the evidence that you’re presenting to them. Giving them time to talk through their feelings and perspectives can help diffuse a situation that might become explosive.
When they’ve finished, you can show you’ve heard them and then work through the plan to move forward.
4. Deal with the issue immediately
The more you ignore a problem, the worse it will be. As a manager, it is crucial that you broach the subject of unacceptable behaviours as soon as you notice them happening.
This doesn’t mean diving straight in the moment someone is a bit late for work. Instead, if you start seeing a pattern of behaviour, it’s time to start planning how you’ll approach the subject with your employee. This means not waiting until their next review to bring the matter up and instead, blocking out time in the diary to discuss it in the next few days.
Tackling issues head-on allows your staff to address what needs to change and prevents any escalation. Having a clear approach to difficult conversations at work means you ultimately reduce the risk of long-term absences, grievances and tribunals.
Reasons that difficult conversations crop up
While many situations could result in a difficult conversation, according to ACAS there are six key areas that tend to trigger action.
These are:
Poor performance and conduct
Personal issues
Complaints and grievances
Redundancies
Personality clashes
Flexible work and annual leave requests
You need to deal with these areas sensitively to reduce the risk of further grievance action.
Why you need to deal with difficult staff at work
Sometimes being a manager can feel a bit like firefighting issues. As soon as one challenge is resolved, another one pops up. This is why having a strong approach to difficult conversations is so important.
2021 academic research found that one disruptive member of staff can increase negative feelings and behaviours in others. This is greater when there is direct contact with the disgruntled employee, but non-direct contacts are also influenced by negative attitudes.
When research suggests around a fifth of the UK workforce is unhappy in their jobs it’s more important than ever that difficult conversations are managed well to prevent low productivity across the whole business. Gallup research finds that when an organisation has higher productivity, it reduces absence and accidents by around 22% and increases productivity by around 9%.
Importantly, pay is only one part of the picture as to why employees are engaged at work. Work feels intrinsically engaging when people like the work they do, like the people they are around, and see the meaning and purpose in their efforts.
So, taking action to reduce conflict and negative behaviours at work is good for the person in question but also good for all employees and the company’s bottom line. Ultimately, stepping up to handle a situation that is less than ideal could help retain the talent in your workforce in the long term.
Need support?
We run specific training courses to train your managers in the art of having difficult conversations. Get in touch here.