After warnings, written warnings and clear feedback on the need for change, why don’t you just change? How hard can it be? As a manager you can feel the frustration inside like a steam boiler under pressure. Why do you have to keep doing this destructive behavior? IT IS GOING TO COST YOU YOUR JOB!

If you have these employees in your staff, fire them, fire them at once. They will only grow like weed in a garden if you let them keep doing what you actually tell them not to do, being not following routines, arriving late to work or pissing of customers.

Sometimes it happens, your top performer have a hiccup in the overall performance, she arrives late all the time, you have been giving hints, trying to talk to her in a polite manner and even given a written warning. And still no change! What the.. is it really possible? If you fire her production will drop by 10 % it will be noticed in your overall results. And maybe you just like this person as well.

You got a dilemma on your hands

If you fire her, the results will drop, if you let her stay, she wins, and learn that a written warning can be used as a paper plane. She is a star performer, always create happy customers and always answer more calls than the rest. Why can she not get her act together and come in early.

What can be wrong

She might not be motivated? But of course you have already talked about this. The pay might be to low? But you can’t change that. Sleeping disorders? You probably read about this up and down, and tried talking about it? Is the rush hour to heavy? Can she wake up a bit earlier? Get a new alarm clock? (I once had a manager that gave alarm clocks as a “price” to those who came late, as a symbolic warning, of course it was preset) Nothing seems to work.

Do not do this under any possible circumstance

Do not reward people for arriving on time; do not reward behavior that is expected in the first place. I once tried to put all the names on a white board. As they arrived late they had to remove their own name from the board. The last one standing would get a price. This only resulted in me knowing the group of people that never arrives late for work, and I learned never ever to do this again. The boss – The employees 0-1.

Do not back down from a written warning, even if it is the star player that can’t obey the rules. If they fail within the quarantine, get them out of the building as fast as possible.

Be preventive

When you first meet your employees, within the first couple of days you should hold a meeting and tell them what you like, and what you do not like, so they can get a chance to get to know how to act around you. Give them a clear answer to what will happen if they break the rules.

Talk with them about the problem before a written warning is issued. I once had an employee with sleeping disorder and he was always late for dayshift. He was of course also a star player. We came up with a solution that he worked only the evening shift, worked for him, worked for me, and worked for the people that traded away the evening shift with a dayshift.

If you have employees that for some reason have trouble following routines, find someone that suffers because of this. Get the person to sit next to the “victim” so they can see for themselves what their unfinished work results in, maybe they learn to follow the routines if they know what it leads to.

Do you have employees that do not seem to manage to deliver the required amount of work? Are you sure that they understand what to do? I have had employees that can handle a bunch of tasks as long as they are explained and put on their desk, but if I do not do this, he is out of work fast. I had to teach him how to refill. He also needed a very clear job description.

Have monthly follow up talks. These talks should have a predesigned agenda. This is where you talk about results and motivation. If there is something that is wrong you will be able to spot it fast, and put it down in writing. Remember this provides an obligation for both, for him/her to improve and for you to make it possible to improve.

So it all failed, huh?

Did all your efforts end up in tragedy? Well there is really just one thing to do. Fire them; do not hesitate on this decision, because otherwise it will come back to haunt you. With the current economical times, there are a lot of available employees on the market that want a job, no reason to wait.