53
Vary Your Tactics

Sometimes a supervisor’s answer to entrenched personnel problems is surrender. That creates a class of employees the company VitalSmarts calls “untouchables.” In a recent poll, the training company found that 93 percent of employees work with an “untouchable.” These are colleagues who are able to retain their jobs despite their bad behavior or underperformance.

In tightly run companies, an underperforming product is repositioned or dropped. If you’re not yet ready to cut your losses with an underperformer or a bully, then you have to keep working with the employee until the problem goes away. Otherwise, you’ll send the message that mediocrity is tolerated. If stern talks didn’t nudge the employee to meet deadlines or if forcing him or to keep a work log doesn’t help, maybe pairing the person with a mentor will make the problem disappear. The answer is out there and until it’s “You’re fired” you have to keep searching for it.