Cave-Dwellers? How Get Poor Performers Out of Their Cave

The most challenging 10% of your employees cause 80% of the stress and aggravation you experience as a manager. Progressive discipline can be used to coax these employees out of their cave and then only positive reinforcement can help them become positive contributors in the workgroup.

Cave-Dwellers, Angels and the Middlers

Think about the most challenging employees you have in your organization. A challenging employee is usually someone who is unpleasant, negative about the company, is aggressive towards others, barely keeps up with the expected workload and difficult to confront. In most organizations, the number of challenging employees seems larger than it really is. Less than 10% of employees can be labeled as challenging. In workshops and keynotes, I call these people the cave-dwellers.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are your angel employees. They do whatever you ask of them and more. They come to work early and they stay late. They are self-motivated and have a great work ethic. They are positive and supportive of the company, achieve above average results personally and help others to succeed. In most organizations they make up 10-20% of the workforce, often outnumbering the cave-dwellers 2 to 1.

The bulk of the workforce is neither an angel or a cave-dweller. Often the middle 70-80% of the workforce will fall on a spectrum between the cave-dweller and the angel employees. Their behavior day-to-day will be dependant on where the leader (manager or supervisor) puts his or her emphasis. If the leader is focused on catching mistakes, then the middle group will shift toward cave-dweller behavior. If the leader focuses on the positive, the behavior of the middle group will shift to be more angel-like.

Converting Your Cavedwellers

I asked a recent client, who had been complaining about problem employees, to rank those employees in terms of the absolute worst and slightly better. They identified three really difficult employees out of a workforce of approximately 80 workers. Of the three, one was definitely the absolute worst in terms of behaviour. The other two showed occasional signs of promise.

Using my recommendation, the HR manager and the production supervisor met with the worst employee, discussed the behavior that was unacceptable and what was required and the consequences of the bad behavior continuing.

They saw an immediate improvement in the worst employee. They then used positive reinforcement to acknowledge the improvement. The other two "less bad" employees saw that there were consequences and improved their behavior.

The production manager noticed occasional relapses of the bad behavior, often linked to personal problems the employee was experiencing in their family. By lending a sympathetic ear, and emphasizing the need for appropriate behavior, he is continuing to notice improvements.

Poke Them With A Stick, Then Praise Them

The strategy to get bad employees to improve behavior is to confront them about their behavior, apply consequences if the behavior continues, and then as improvements are made, give the person positive feedback about the changes you are seeing.

Aren't we Giving Too Much Attention To Bad Employees?

Leaders should dedicate ten times as much attention to the things that are going well than they spend dealing with mistakes, problems and bad behavior. If the only time employees hear from the boss is when they screw up, they will tend to screw up more to get the boss' attention.

Confront the cavedwellers and make sure that a majority of time is spent telling people what they are doing that is good.

Need to Train Your Leaders to be More Positive and Proactive?

Call us to discuss how our leadership training for managers, supervisors and lead hands can increase performance, productivity and reduce management aggravation from handling people problems.

Call 1-866-700-9043

Email: info@uniquedevelopment.com

Web: www.UniqueDevelopment.com