Don’t be afraid of tough conversations!

Posted January 3rd, 2024

Eather Recruitment Employment Agency shock

If you are like the majority of Managers, providing feedback, often to reduce or eliminate negative behaviours can appear as an overwhelming task. Many of us have trepidations and palpitations! How do you provide feedback that will strengthen your staff’s good points and highlight areas for development is such a way that they actually modify their behaviour and become better employess?

Tough call! however, this is a highly valuable skill that can not only improve your communication capital, but also help your employee/s to address areas of concern.  So how do you commence the “tough conversation”?

Here are some 6 simple tips to start …

1) be courageous ! don’t pike out on your management responsibilities!! .. talk early and talk often! as soon as you witness any dysfunction or mistake, address it immediately! dont let it fester or assume it wont happen again!

2) set up regular, one on one meetings, find out how your employees are going in their job and their lives… build a strong, firm but friendly climate so that they feel comfortable coming to you with any issues

3) Recognise the good and reward them! this can be a simple reward – but ensure you are genuine and sincere with your praise

4) treat all your staff with equal compassion and time

5) research the best methods to provide feedback – you can utilise a number of them! one in particular is the CRC method – Compliment or Commendation, Recommend and then leave them on a high note with a lasting Commendation.  Some may know this also the “sandwich method”. It is a simple skeleton to follow, and there is so much literature and information available for managers…. use a method that works for you!

6) lastly, follow up!!! dont leave this without further action and review – set up another meeting to see how things are tracking and set definite, specific improvement plans, for example,  “answer phone after 3 rings” or ” arrive to work on time”… monitor the behaviour and stomp on poor behaviour immediately as well as thank them if their behaviour has improved!

These conversations MUST occurr or you will find that assumptions will take over and when you do actually have the serious conversation it is way too late!

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://www.eatherrecruitment.com.au/about-us/our-team/[/author_image] [author_info]Ivana Agapiou General Manager Eather Recruitment Pty Ltd[/author_info] [/author]