[Histonet] My boss won't manage a terrible employee

[Terri Braud]

As a long time supervisor, I wanted to respond to the article about handling a terrible employee and add a few observations.
Let me state, I am very process oriented, so I wanted to make a few observations.  I try not to see a "terrible employee".  To me, that adds a personal connotation that might make one less inclined to improve their performance.  Performance has to be a measurable event.  I would see an employee not meeting minimum standards of performance.
With that in mind, I would bring the employee in for counseling as part of a performance improvement with a conversation to go something like this.
"It has come to my attention that the date matching that you are responsible for, is not being done correctly, or in a timely fashion.  Can you tell me what is happening?"
Then LISTEN.  Sometimes the hardest part of a manager's job. 
"I want to try and help you succeed at this task, do you have any suggestions on how you might do this?"
Usually, they will respond somewhere along the lines of "try harder"
"I know that you are trying, but that doesn't seem to be working.  How about we change the process?  I was thinking along the lines of a notebook to write down the correct date for each case you check that you have to correct.  Once a week, we can meet to insure you have not missed any corrections until you have it down 100%.  Is this something you could do?
Then decide on a date and stick to it.
Let's say they fail miserably first week and have a failure rate of 20%.  At the weekly meeting, point out the percentage, ask if they have any ideas on how to improve that number and suggest a target goal of less than 3% errors for the next week and let them know the time frame that they need to reach that goal.  Let's say 4 weeks.
Each week, point out the target goal, and their achievement, recognize improvements, but always ask for more until you get where you need to be.  There are the cases where that won't happen. So after 3 weeks of failing to reach goal, the conversation should be something like this.  
"I'm concerned that you are not close to reaching goal and if you don't show major improvement, I will have to escalate this to the manager.  Is there anything that I can do to help you achieve this goal?"
Then if the goal is still not met, make an appointment with the manager, point out your written performance improvement and the employee's performance.  If your manager is derelict and refuses to do anything, then you will have to stand up for yourself and say that you can't be responsible for someone's performance without the authority for a failure of performance to have consequences.  
The entire time, keep up your weekly meetings, encourage the employee, try different approaches to help them achieve a better performance. And document, document, document.  Every meeting, every goal and every measurable performance.  Keep it non-personal, performance based.
Just my 2 cents - Terri

Terri L. Braud, HT(ASCP)
Anatomic Pathology Supervisor
HNL Labs, Holy Redeemer Hospital
1648 Huntingdon Pike
Meadowbrook, PA 19046
ph: 215-938-3689
fax: 215-938-3874
Care, Comfort, and Heal
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2021 11:13:55 -0500
From: "Pam Barker" <relia1 at earthlink.net>
To: "Histopeeps Histonet" <histonet at lists.utsouthwestern.edu>

And That's not all!
Here is a great article that I found online!  If you have time to read it I
would love to know what you think!
https://www.askamanager.org/2021/02/my-boss-wont-manage-a-terrible-employee-
my-coworker-scream-yawns-and-more.html