Employee Training: How To Effectively Handle Your Rule Breakers

According to the research center Gallup, only about 30 percent of employees are fully engaged at work. Unengaged employees results in low productivity levels, poor customer service, and even inappropriate behavior. In fact, unengaged employees are more likely to break the rules and cause problems at work. Keep reading to learn how employee training will help you to effectively handle your rule breakers and keep your staff involved.

Helpful Management Techniques

Forbes magazine recommends certain management techniques and practices to help deal with problem employees. For example, supervisors should take the time to patiently listen, understand the situation, and discern if there are legitimate concerns. However, the supervisor should give clear feedback with specific behavioral guidelines.

For example, merely telling a problem employee to stop texting or visiting social media sites will be ineffective. Instead, supervisors should explain that failure to comply with the no mobile phone policy will result in disciplinary actions, up to and including termination.

In order for this to work, the supervisor must be consistent with all employees. If a supervisor only holds certain employees accountable, rule breakers will be encouraged to disregard company rules and policies. Make sure you clearly communicate with all employees that company rules are unbendable. Supervisors should adhere to the rules and follow the structured path of disciplinary action in all instances.

Employee Training

One of the best ways to deal with a rule breaker, who is also a poor performer, is to establish required performance improvements. That is, supervisors should quantify specific employee behaviors that must change in order to maintain employment. For example, the supervisor could tell a rule breaking, poor performing sales person they must meet a certain sales quota that is normal within the industry. On the other hand, a manufacturing supervisor could set standard quality control metrics that would force the unengaged rule breaker to improve their performance. Keep in mind that rule breakers often disengage from work or ignore their tasks because there is no effective monitoring and measurement system.

If necessary, the supervisor can offer additional training opportunities as an opportunity for maintaining employment. When disciplining rule breaking employees, many companies often incorporate employee training mandates into disciplinary documentation. For instance, a security supervisor could include required Global Learning Systems training as part of the disciplinary process, which would force the rule breaker to re-take a basic security training class. In the end, employee training is excellent documentation that the company offered improvement opportunities to the target employee.

Overall, management tools and employee training are the two best ways to deal with unengaged, poor performing employees. Your rule breaking employees need to be provided with employee training opportunities as part of the disciplinary process.