Following on from last week, this week’s blog looks at how to deal with Sally if she reacts badly to you approaching her about her lazy behaviour at work, or any other issue for that matter. You really don’t want the situation to escalate out of control, so it’s best to have a strategy in place before you approach the problem.
First, you may want to try and discover if there is a reason why Sally is acting the way she is, especially if she us normally a good worker. If you feel like you are able, you could ask her if there’s a reason why she’s not performing to the best of her ability. You could point out that usually she’s a great worker, but lately you’ve noticed a decline in the standard of her work. Maybe there’s something external going on that’s bothering her, which could explain her current behaviour. Maybe you could even help – a problem shared is a problem halved, so the saying goes.
If you don’t feel comfortable asking Sally about her personal life or she’s been lazy the whole time you’ve worked together, you may have to adopt another approach.
It is best not to come across as being critical of Sally, as this usually elicits a negative response and may make her simply defend herself without realising there’s a real problem. Explain that you are trying to help her, as well as yourself. It maybe that your colleague just doesn’t realise that the way they act upsets other people or that it impacts on the quality of other people’s work. You could explain that you prefer to speak to her first, but others may not be so kind and could report her to senior members of staff without even discussing it with her.
Offer to help. Perhaps the reason for Sally’s lazy behaviour is because she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. Sometimes people who are unsure of what they’re doing don’t want to say so because they are afraid of looking silly in front of work colleagues or senior members of staff. If you think this may be the case, you could resolve the situation easily by offering to help.
If you feel you are getting nowhere speaking to Sally by yourself, you can ask another colleague to mediate a meeting between the two of you. This may make communication easier as a third person could help dissipate any tension that builds and can offer an objective view of the situation.
If everything you try fails, it’s time to think about speaking to your managers. If you resort to this, you should try to remain as calm and objective as possible. Don’t exaggerate or be dramatic about the situation, relay it in an accurate way so that your manager understands it’s not a personal issue between you and Sally. But this really should be a last resort, if you can resolve the issue with Sally yourself that’s a much better solution.
You can find more help on dealing with difficult colleagues here:
