Problem Solving For Performance Issues

What are the most common yet challenging problems for managers to address? It's not material shortages, as-built discrepancies or even weld defects. It's not even customer complaints. The most common and challenging problems faced by foremen, supervisors and managers are employee performance problems. Everyone tries to hire the best employees, but many times these seemingly good employees mess up!

There are countless performance problems in any company, and the construction industry seems to be blessed with an extra serving. Examples include: not doing a material take-off correctly; not getting the payroll out on time; showing up late for work and productivity going way down.

How do we deal with performance problems? Usually we handle them too late and very poorly! Most managers avoid the problem, hoping it will resolve itself. Finally, it festers above the level of pain, and then action happens.

If the employee is a collective bargaining employee covered under some defined procedure, we follow that procedure and work to rid ourselves of this nightmare. If the employee is not union, we usually free up their future as soon as possible and begin the search for a replacement.

Many times we get caught in a vicious cycle. We work hard to hire good employees. They seem to perform OK for a while, and then problems start. Eventually we let him or her go, and the cycle starts again.

Dr. W. Edwards Deming often said most problems are not caused by employees but are due to poor processes and systems.

The following approach is useful for dealing with employee problems. Try it out on your next problem. It is based on the assumption that people want to perform and need some guidance and support. It also assumes that the employee and manager need to work together to address the problem. The manager may need to provide additional training or reexamine policies. The employee will need to commit to a plan to improve. Here are the guidelines:

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