Assignment Week 3

Conflict Resolution Options

Premise:

“You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services. You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service. One of your employees, who has been with the company for two years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers. In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment. You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

Before meeting with the employee, I would first gather all the facts that are available: How many complaints and what type of complaints from both customers and coworkers; the timeframe when these complaints started to happen; what has been done to address this behavior so far; what actions has the employee taken to make the other workers perceive a hostile work environment. If there are any prior performance evaluations I would become familiar with them. Then, together with a representative from the Human Resources department, I would formulate a plan of action: immediate behavior changes and short and long term expectations. When finally meeting with the employee, using fractionation may be a good way to address whatever issues exist. “Fractionation is a matter of breaking down the problem into its smallest pieces and then dealing with each piece one at a time.” (Cahn, Abigail, 2011).

The start of the employee’s shift may be the best time to have the meeting. The employee is not tired from a long work day, and no new issues have yet occurred. The manager must stay courteous and professional at all times. Emotional outbursts from the employee may be expected, but must never be allowed to escalate into a physical confrontation. I would clearly explain why this meeting is taking place (poor performance, customer complaints, facts! etc.), and then ask the employee his or her point of view. “However, never allow the employee to use his explanation to justify bad performance or blame co-workers.” (Richason, n.d.). Next, I would clearly state my expectations. “Create and share benchmarks for the employee. Bad performance may be the result of many factors like poor time management; bad priority management; inability to fully understand the task, job, or assignment; and inefficient or insufficient co-worker involvement.” (Richarson, n.d.). At this point, the employee must understand that it is he or she who has to make a choice: willingness to make immediate improvements, or choose dismissal. If the decision is to work with the company, then a clearly defined incremental plan of improvement is shared with the employee, including improvement steps, due dates, and measurable expectations. It is imperative that the employee understands each improvement step, and also understands the consequences of not achieving the desired goal.

In order to close the meeting on a positive note, I would assure the employee of my personal assistance as far as I can give it, and that I have confidence in him or her to improvement performance, as evidenced by his or her willingness to agree to the terms of the improvement plan. If at all possible, I would give the employee the rest of the day off, in order to go home and think over this discussion.        

References

Abigail, R., Cahn, D. (2011). Managing conflict through communication; 4^th edition. Pearson Education, Inc.

Richason IV, O. (n.d.). How do I deal with bad employee performance? Downloaded on July 22, 2012 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/deal-bad-employee-performance-1954.html