Dealing with Nightmare Employees

Has one of your employees become a nightmare? This can happen to all of us. In my career, I've had some rockstar employees. But for every rock star, you have some employees that really need to improve. So how do we deal with those?

The best way to go about that is putting your employee on an improvement plan. Either a 60 day improvement plan or a 90 day improvement plan. Here are five things you can do to create a great improvement plan and start right away. Number one. Define what improvement means. Give them a picture of what improvement looks like so they're really clear about what they're working toward. Number two, set clear expectations. Your employee must know what's expected of them so they can work on developing and improving. Number three, establish weekly check ins. Set aside 5 to 10 minutes to sit down with the employee. He or she might have questions, and you're going to be there to be able to answer them and then guide them through the improvement process. Number four, communicate accountabilities. Your employee must understand what's going to happen at the end of the term or if they don't meet any goals along the way and you have to be disciplined enough to hold them accountable and finally make sure they agree to the terms of the improvement plan and sign the agreement stating so.

In the end, one of two things are going to happen. Either they're going to rehabilitate themselves, improve and likely become one of your better employees, or they're going to find themselves. So often I've seen where people just quit. They don't they don't want to be an improvement plan. They don't want to work hard and get out of that, and they end up just quitting on their own.

If you have any other questions about how to create an improvement plan, comment below and I'll be happy to get back with you. You often hear me say, as you grow, your company grows. But today I think it's really important to hear as your employees grow, your company grows, keep growing!