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Stop Tolerating Poor Employees - The Team Impact of Bad Employees · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Stop tolerating poor employees.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how nervous you feel about taking action with bad employees or how difficult taking action might be, the consequences of not taking effective action are a lot worse for you personally, the team and the business.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: The team impact of bad employees is huge in my view.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have step changed the performance of multiple underperforming teams in my career.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: As a result, I have personally seen the impact of tolerating bad employees on those teams and worse, their managers.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: To encourage you to stop tolerating poor employees and to highlight the team impact of bad employees, I am covering.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, the manager's purpose is team performance.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, poor employees are anchors.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Third, the corruption effect of poor employees.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, how inaction destroys trust.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, the creation of vicious spirals, and then sixth, how bad employees sideline careers.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: A better understanding of the impact of bad employees will mean you take better action sooner, which gives you and your management career a lot of benefits, including, if firstly, a stronger reputation, secondly, a lot more trust in your ability to manage others well, third, faster career progress, fourth, a lot less stress and frustration, and fifth, a higher performing team.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Very few managers are taught how to take the effective action by their companies.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Way too many managers are left to figure out what to do by themselves, which creates another big barrier to managers taking sensible, effective action.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Visit us at enhanced.training and sign up to our free webinars on how to manage poor employees.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've had a 20-year management career working in amazing companies like Innocent Drinks, EY, Williams Lee, and many others.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new to this podcast, Enhanced.training shares people management expertise, resources and courses so you can become a better manager quicker and help your team deliver a lot more.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do visit us at enhance.training and use the free resources and the free webinars to quicker develop your authentic management approach, build your skills and deliver more from a motivated and happy team.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you find this podcast useful, please share it with friends and colleagues.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Before we dive into the impacts on teams of bad employees, I want to highlight to you the central role managers have to play in tackling poor employees and why it can define or sideline your management career.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: In my view, a manager's job exists to, as a minimum, maintain team performance, but really to improve team performance.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Companies need improved performance to succeed ahead of their competitors.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Research used by McKinsey's demonstrates that managers in the top 5% create around eight times more value for the business than average managers.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Eight times is a huge difference.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: At least 80% of managers have the scope to significantly step change their team's performance.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is people that make the decisions every day in a company.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is people that turn ideas into reality.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is people that keep all the activities and projects going in a company to create the outputs of that company.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Employees make or break companies.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Companies need managers to get the very best from the teams they manage.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Companies assess a manager's performance primarily on the performance of the team they manage.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that reduces the performance of a team is a bad thing for the manager and for the company.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Having bad employees, the cost of ignoring the problem quickly becomes bigger than you think, and worse, the negative impact keeps growing.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is 110% in the manager's best interests to stop tolerating bad employees and take effective action quickly.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen many managers' careers stall when they tolerated poor employees, or even worse, lost their jobs because of it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: The impact of bad employees on managers' careers are big and even bigger on the team and the business.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the impact of bad team members and why these impacts hit team performance hard.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The first team impact of poor employees is they are performance anchors.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: A bad employee typically doesn't produce as much as an average team member.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Poor employees often cause knock-on problems for other team members in terms of missed deadlines and reworking low quality output.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is just the start of the team impact of bad employees.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine when you join a team and you look around to see how each of your colleagues is performing.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You work to make sure that you are not at the bottom, and some of you'll work harder to try to be at the top.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Most are happy being in the middle.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: A poor employee lowers the bottom of the range of acceptable performance.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: The middle is a bigger place, and slightly lower performance is now perfectly okay for most.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The team impact of poor employees is a much bigger drop in team performance than their personal work creates.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine being a manager of the team.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to set higher expectations by setting goals, talking about what is acceptable, etc.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: The team look at the bad employee and know that they are not meeting the standards being set out, yet there is no obvious consequence.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: How can the manager raise expectations when a glaring example of lower expectations is present every day?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Bad employees anchor or stop management's efforts to raise expectations because the lack of action speaks louder than words.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Next, imagine what the team manager's boss, peers, and colleagues around the business might start thinking if the manager's team's performance drops compared to the teams around the business.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: The impact of bad employees is bigger than you think.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Stop tolerating poor employees.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: The second team impact: the corruption effect of poor employees.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is amazing how one bad employee can corrupt a whole team.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: The speed at which corruption can happen is also scary.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, particularly when the poor employee is socially influential.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Harvard Business Review undertook research to understand the impact of bad behaviour on colleagues.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Their conclusions were misconduct by an employee increases the chances of misconduct in colleagues by 59%.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is a pretty huge increase.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Poorly behaving or underperforming employees often actively encourage their colleagues to act poorly or underperform.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: If lowering other team members' performance reduces the risk to your job, negatively impacting others can be very tempting.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: This peer effect can quickly become poisonous to the team culture and motivation, and in turn, if no actions are taken by the manager, team performance is pretty much guaranteed to drop.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: As more and more of the team's behaviour or performance drops, the social pressure on those performing to drop their performance increases.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: The corruption effect increases with time, in my experience.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: As a manager, take action quickly to set very clear expectations and then enforce these expectations through using performance improvement plans and a disciplinary process as needed.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Take steps to stop tolerating poor employees quickly and reduce the risk of dropping team performance.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The third impact of bad employees: how inaction destroys trust.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Trust is a requirement for teamwork.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: The more trust a team builds, the better the team will perform.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: A team outperforms a collection of individual hands down.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Think about all the people that trust you to do your job as a manager well.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your team members trust you to look after them personally, to look after their careers, to develop them and to create a positive atmosphere to work in.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: All team members are personally better off when they have a manager that creates opportunities and improves team performance.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your boss trusts you to look after your team, to encourage your team members to work their best, to meet and beat team targets, and to reduce the pressures and the issues your boss is faced with.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: All other colleagues and managers in the business trust you to ensure your team pulls their weight and positively contributes to the success of the company.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: This improves job security, increases career opportunities, bonuses, etc.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that comes with working in a successful company.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what happens when you tolerate poor employees in your team?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: When the team impact of bad employees becomes noticeable, when your team misses their targets, when your team is no longer pulling their weight for the company.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, trust in you personally drops, as everything colleagues look to you to protect gets worse.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your trust in your ability as a manager also drops.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as trust in you drops, teamwork drops, and this compounds the negative impact of poor performers further.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as your team's performance starts dropping, trust in you starts dropping.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Managers stop tolerating poor employees, take action or lose the trust of those around you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Your reputation and job is on the line.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: The impact of bad employees is serious for everyone.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth team impact: the creation of vicious spirals.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you I am sure have worked out that the many impacts of poor employees have a compounding effect.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Once the problems start, they usually only get worse as each problem makes neighbouring problems, if you like, worse.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the erosion of expectations makes it easier for problematic employees to actively encourage poor behaviours in others, which in turn damages trust in the manager and on it goes.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: The environment in which everyone works gets worse.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Team enjoyment and motivation drop.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Trust and teamwork drop.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Then team performance starts to go down.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Other teams look a nicer place to work with better development opportunities.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: The best employees are the first to leave because getting another job elsewhere is easier for them.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: The problems suddenly become worse.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: A vicious spiral quickly builds if left unchecked.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: A change of manager is a common way to break this spiral.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Taking action as early as possible makes sorting out the problems quicker and easier.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: The longer you leave taking action as a manager, the harder it becomes to take action.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I, like many managers, learnt the hard way not to tolerate poor employees.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: The actions you take will also be judged by all around you.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Keeping the trust of your team, your manager and other stakeholders through the actions you take are even more important than taking action.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on creating clear expectations and constantly reinforcing those expectations.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you see any evidence of poor performance or bad behaviour, prepare well so you can drive change with that person.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And finally use a set of escalating actions with the problem employee so your actions are seen as fair and give the problem and person a chance to change without letting them off the hook.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I personally have met quite a few managers that lost their jobs because they tolerated bad employees too long.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've sat in plenty of meetings with leadership teams discussing which managers should get promoted and why.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not able to effectively and fairly manage problem team members so that you can remove the problem, but not necessarily the person, and do so in a way that keeps the trust of your team and boss, then your management career is likely to be sidelined, i.e., you won't be given more people to manage or get promoted.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Businesses face intense competition at all times.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: 95% plus of businesses simply can't afford to employ managers that don't at least maintain team performance.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Those managers that can consistently improve team performance are highly sought after and promoted quickly.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Practice and get confident in spotting and then taking effective action with problem employees.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So in summary, poor employees, underperformers, those with poor behaviour or those that don't add much value to the team or business can easily cause a lot of problems for their manager.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So in summary, poor employees, underperformers, those with poor behaviour and those that don't add much value to the team or business can easily cause a lot of problems for their manager if not handled in the right way.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you currently have bad employees, please stop tolerating poor employees.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: The team impact of bad employees is too big to ignore and will keep growing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: To highlight the team impact of poor employees we have covered, firstly, the manager's purpose is team performance.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, poor employees are anchors, thirdly, the corruption effect of poor employees, fourth, how inaction destroys trust, fifth the creation of vicious spirals, and then sixth, how bad employees sideline careers.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions on stop tolerating poor employees, the team impact of bad employees, please email me at support at enhance.training and I will get back to you.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.