Business

“Max has been offering Life Coaching sessions throughout 2009 to 2 members of staff. At the beginning of the year, both members of staff had raised concerns about their work/life balance and career paths. This was reflected in their attitudes towards other members of staff and management.

Subsequent to the Life Coaching, they have both become more confident in themselves and have been communicating with other staff in a much more constructive way. They have identified and articulated how they can improve their career paths and seem to be much happier in the workplace. They enjoyed the time that they spent with Max and felt it to be positive and useful to their work and personal lives.

I would have no hesitation to recommend Max’s services to other employers as we have undoubtedly benefited from higher productivity I am confident that he has extended the period of time that these staff will stay with Dailys.  I am happy to discuss this in more detail if required.”

Rebecca Lewis

Co-Managing Director – Dailys Ltd

Disgruntled or Under Performing Employees?

If you have employees who are disgruntled or not performing to the best of their ability instead of ignoring them, sacking them or dismissing them, try rehabilitating them with professional employee specific training and coaching.

Quite often employees bring their home problems to work, or it could be related to low self esteem, communication problems, time and stress management issues, any number of soft skills that standard business training does not adequately provide.

You want them to improve and do their job well but they are underperforming because of family problems and home life issues and you don’t want to sack them or make them redundant, a much cheaper alternative to dismissal and re-employing someone new – an alternative is an attempt to resolve the personal problems that are the root of the problems at work.

Think of the cost that you have to go through in dismissing someone and employing someone new.

If an employee is underperforming or creating difficulties, there are often personal conflicts between employees that are causing the slipping performance.

• Do you have someone who used to perform at work but who’s performance is slipping?
• Someone who after an event at work or in their personal life has started to be more aggressive at work or not to perform in the way that they used to?
• Someone who is in a conflict at work with their manager?
• A manager who is having difficulty with those working under them?

From a legal perspective in order to dismiss such employees there are two roots to go down that are often intertwined.

• The first is to dismiss them for lack of capability.
• The second is to dismiss them for misconduct.

Both of these routes take time and risk the possibility of an unfair dismissal claim and an expensive pay out (not to mention the cost of re-employing a new member of staff – the actual cost of which is addressed later (advertising, taking the time of interviewing and its resultant detriment on the core business at hand.

You want to be able to focus on your core business not spend time in litigation, advertising a new post and interviewing, then the time it takes for that person to be trained and time for them to settle into the organisation.

Lets chose dismissing someone for incompetence as an example. As you can see there are numerous hurdles to surmount:

• you must be able to demonstrate that you have a genuine belief that s/he is incompetent
• you must give them the opportunity to improve by:

1.    explaining what they are doing wrong,
2.    give them a written warning,
3.    give them time to improve,

• after having given them an opportunity to improve you must have formed the view that they are not likely to improve
• if they have improved only a little way short of the desired goals then you must extend the monitoring period and you cannot dismiss them
• if they have not improved then:

1.    you must arrange a meeting
2.    consider the alternatives
3.    let him/her put their case

• you must be sure that it is not reasonable to offer him/her another job by:

1.    considering alternative employment
2.    and if you decide that there is no suitable alternative work for him/her then you have to dismiss them by following the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedure by:

(a)    inviting him/her to a disciplinary meeting setting out the reasons for the meeting
(b)    hold the meeting and offer a right to appeal
(c)    hold the appeal, and maybe more than one depending on your disciplinary procedures
after all of the above, you may still face the possibility of an unfair dismissal case, having to pay lawyers hundreds of pounds per hour, only to lose on a technicality and have to pay the useless good for nothing employee as well as the lawyer who told you, you had a case.

• Going through the above process takes time.
• During that time you have to pay that person wages.
• During that time you are loosing potential productivity and income because of the person’s underperformance.
• Going through these steps results in you not focussing on your core business
• The corrolory of that is that you yourself and/or your HR team are less productive and there is potentially a loss of income
• This process can go on for a long time – magnifying all of the above consequences
• During this time you may have to consult a lawyer to advise you on the correct procedures and merits of a dismissal.
• And can result in a claim in an Employment Tribunal
• If the claim does not reach Tribunal then you are going to have to pay a settlement
• If it goes to Tribunal you will have to take time off work along with other members of staff who are witnesses – even if you win, this is not a cost you can re-coup
• Besides the time spent in Tribunal – during the time leading up to Tribunal your and the witnesses focus on their job may slip
• Cost to lawyers – are non-recoupable in Employment Tribunals
• The reality of many cases is that businesses take a “commercial” view and settle. So imagine the cost in time and opportunity costs of going through the procedure and then at the end settling the claim. Surely there is a better way?

Business coaching is a proven way to get support for you and your business.
Coaching will shift you from working hard and using lots of time and energy, to producing results with less effort as you become more effective.

Business Coaching will change the way you work on your business, helping you to focus on growth and improvement rather than just working in it, producing your product or service.

Business coaching is facilitative one-to-one coaching with business managers and owners. The coaching is focused on the success of the business and is likely to include a mixture of short and long term objectives.
Our coaching brings out the best in your managers and staff. Helping them to channel their passion and motivation, whilst giving them the practical tools and ongoing support to implement their personal and professional goals.

This 360 degree coaching style addresses the key issues of: motivation, real communication, productivity, stress reduction, authentic confidence, fear and the mapping of future success.

So call Max today on 07877 315 216