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Anonymous
07/31/20 at 11:13PM UTC
in
Career

How to handle negative influencers?

I have 3 employees on a team, 2 are in roles covered by the collective bargaining agreement, they have each been with the company 25+ years and have very poor attitudes, low performance and frankly should be terminated. The CBA prevents us from doing that. Meanwhile the third person is young, just out of school, and is heavily influenced by these two and has now taken on the attitude “I am going to do the minimum I can because I can”. This person has been asked to help another team because there is not enough work for his primary team, in the era of COVID most of us would say “gee thanks for any opportunity to be employed” but working with the two other employees has given him this sense of entitlement. HR and I met with him over zoom today to remind him he is supposed to be helping out this other team and he is not doing what is needed, he is not completing his tasks for team B. He had a bit of an attitude with HR which surprised me but I know this is his first job out of school and he only has the two bad apples as role models. HR didn’t want to write him up because he has a lot of potential and they couldn’t reference the other two team members for liability reasons so this is considered a verbal warning. What can I do to encourage him to fully engage with team B and his best chance of making it through the fall lay-off (he doesn’t know we will be having a staff reduction) is to do the things team B needs?

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Brittany Cyran, MPH (she/her)
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34
Customer Success & Public Health Professional
08/09/20 at 9:23PM UTC
I'm wondering if you could engage in career/professional development conversations with all 3 team members (this could be part of your annual or mid-year review if it's coming up). I feel that these kinds of conversations can be a great way to pull up out of the weeds and understand the employees' larger goals. For your 3rd employee, this could be an opportunity for you to tie their current performance to future success. And by having ongoing conversations on this topic with all three employees, it's more equitable than just focusing on the one employee.
Estephania Solis
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70
Follow me on IG @alkehmia
08/07/20 at 5:48PM UTC
Have you tried building a relationship with him? I ask because perhaps these are the only two people he has had exposure to in terms of work ethic and values. I'm wondering if engaging him from the perspective of a mentor could change his association to work and the environment that is being cultivated. It does take longer however, because relationships needs to be built first but the outcome has a longer lasting impact.
Anonymous
08/07/20 at 9:25PM UTC
I have and initially it was good, Covid has put a wrench in things since we can’t physically work together now. I was also accused of favoring him by the 2 other employees when he started.
Estephania Solis
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70
Follow me on IG @alkehmia
08/13/20 at 12:55AM UTC
It is a bit tricky now that work is remote for the most part. It seems you've done what you can based on the situation. Especially when there is influence coming from both management and the union. Perhaps the individual is looking at this from a shorter term perspective than long term. You've done what you can but if HR isn't being clear with him either on what their expectations are of him, then you can only do so much.
Laura McCann
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325
Driving results through people engagement
08/05/20 at 4:27PM UTC
I am surprised that HR would not write him up because of "potential". As an HR professional of many years, I find that ridiculous. If the situation merits a write-up, it's a write-up. There can be coaching, additional feedback sessions that will help him to mix his potential with his job performance. But I am not a fan of forfeiting discipline for someone with "potential"
Pragathi Balasubramanian
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94
Senior PM
08/05/20 at 4:25AM UTC
It sounds like there's a lack of trust. Has your team tried rebuilding trust with him? In any system, people will default to doing what comes easiest. So I totally see your point that he's taking the lead from the folks that have job security and is essentially hurting himself in the process. Here are some questions that come to mind that can lead to ideas: - Is there anyway to bring him into a system where he sees benefits for himself when he helps out team B? where helping team B *becomes* the easier thing for him to do? - What are his incentives? What does he want from his career? What does he believe you and the company are doing to help him achieve them? - Does he have space to practice candor on the team? Perhaps even suggest improvements and act upon them? - What are areas that he feels powerless in? Are they the drivers for his lack of trust and dissatisfaction? Perhaps validating them and helping redirect him to things he has more control can help him. - HR said they saw a lot of potential in him. Do you agree with that assessment? Does he agree with this assessment? Sometimes people are pegged as "having potential" that's orthogonal to what they actually want to build in their career.

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