Employee counseling can be one of the most difficult aspects of being a good manager. The employee counseling process can be an uncomfortable process for both employees and managers.
There can be unknowns when you walk into a counseling meeting, such as the employee might be in denial, the employee’s response to the counseling may be defensive, the employee may get upset, walk off the job or quit.
Common Mistakes
A common mistake would be assuming that just because a person is a manager means they have experience with employee counseling. There’s a good chance that the manager may not have a lot of experience dealing with conflict or with issuing counseling documents and meetings.
Another mistake is not keeping the counseling confidential. This is a critical part of employee counseling. You want to make sure you have your counseling meetings in a confidential area without distractions. Managers shouldn’t counsel employees or give corrective action to an employee with others listening.
Accusing an employee before learning all the facts of a situation is another common mistake managers make. For example, if an employee behavioral problem involves more than one employee, it’s important to not have a counseling document pre-written going into the meeting, especially if the purpose of the meeting is fact-finding. If you do this, employees may draw conclusions, such as the manager doesn’t care about finding out the facts or doesn’t want to hear both sides of the story. Get the facts—who, what, where, when, why—and be open to further fact finding if necessary.
Not being objective is another pitfall for managers. It can sometimes be hard to remain neutral, but in an employee counseling situation, you want to focus on being as objective as possible.
Other common mistakes managers make include:
- Not being adequately prepared for the counseling process
- Not being consistent in how counseling is administered
- Ignoring a problem and hoping it will go away
- Not addressing issues as they arise
- Not being a good listener
- Interrogating employees—you want to make sure to ask open-ended questions
- Lack of follow-up with employee
- Lack of recognition for improvement by the employee
In my next Insight, I’ll give steps companies can take to ensure managers are providing effective employee counseling.