Are you secretly hoping for a resignation?

If you received a resignation from one of your team members today, how would you feel? Is there someone on your team that you’d actually feel happy to see go? If the answer is yes, you're not alone. Almost all business leaders have felt this way.

I am currently in a position that I haven’t been in before. I would feel truly disappointed if any member of my teams at Kelly Services across Australia unexpectedly resigned. In my experience, being so happy with all team members is rare, and realistically my feelings may change in time.

I am not going to lie, early in my career, I managed some team members that I didn’t feel this way about. It got to the point that I was always hoping that they would quit, which was incongruous for me as quitting is not part of my DNA.  Why would I expect someone to quit when this is not a trait that I would want from an employee?

I was looking for the easy way out. I wanted to develop an elite team, but I didn’t want to have difficult performance management discussions. I didn’t want to go through HR or run an official performance improvement plan. I hoped I would avoid the confrontation and that the employee would either start performing to standard or leave. I learnt that when you are dealing with people, their pride and their livelihoods, it is not that simple.  

A well-respected CEO I worked with told me once that if I wanted to be an elite leader, I needed to get one area right over all others - my people. I will never forget her saying to me “if you are hoping for anyone in your team to resign, then you are not doing your job. Get on the front foot, and if they won’t improve or don’t improve, sack them!”

While it sounds harsh, I see so many managers who simply accept mediocrity - from poor performance to unhealthy behaviours or bad attitudes. This same CEO taught me that “Hope is not a strategy.” And this is especially true when it comes to managing the performance of your people. If you want your people to improve, you have to plan, not hope, for that to happen.

This advice is simple, but it isn’t easy. It does, however, remain with me every day both in my own career and as I work to develop and maintain an elite team. Not everyone in your team will be MR or MRS PERFECT, and you need to tolerate that, but you should certainly do something about anyone in your team that is causing you grief. 

Problems with employees usually come down to one of two things:

1.      Attitude

Your employee has a bad attitude with behaviours that are outside of what you and your business value, regardless of their performance on the job.

2.      Performance

Your employee is not producing what is required of them in their role, regardless of their attitude towards the job.

I often talk to emerging leaders about the difference between tolerating and accepting poor attitude, performance or behaviours. Tolerating means you are working on changing things. Accepting means you have given up on any change at all. Giving up is quitting and great leaders don’t quit on their people.

Top performers want attention from management

If you hope that people problems will magically disappear, then you’re in for a very long and unproductive road ahead. Not only will your productivity levels be low, but your top performers will be dragged down. Worse still, as a high-performing staff member sees their leader accepting low standards by ignoring an employee who is causing problems, they themselves become demotivated and could even leave the organisation. High performing employees rarely leave high performing leaders. Most managers that I know struggle between the need to give extra attention to poor performers and the want to invest greater amounts of time with elite performers. Keep in mind that a 10% improvement in a poor performer is nowhere near as valuable as a 10% improvement in an elite performer.

Ideally, prevention is the best tactic, and every leader should be hiring with the goal of bringing in elite performers in the first place. Engaging the experts for identifying and attracting the best candidates as opposed to the best candidate applying for jobs at that week can save a lot of grief down the track. Then, once talent is attracted, I simplify my objectives when interviewing by maintaining the following three questions at the forefront of my mind;

1)     Can they do the job?

2)     Will they love the job?

3)     Am I going to be able to tolerate working with them?

From time to time everyone gets it wrong, and even when we get it right, things can change over time. It is essential to review your employees over time with regular reviews asking yourself the following questions about each member of your team;

1)     Can they do the job as it is today? (jobs evolve, sometimes people do not)

2)     Do they still love their job? (if you don’t know – then talk to them)

3)     Can you tolerate working with them in the current environment? (Relationships do change over time).

If you haven’t answered yes to all three questions, are you secretly hoping for a resignation?

So if you are hoping for a resignation, what should you do?

First, as soon as a new employee is on board, arrange continuous and regular performance reviews. This two-way feedback, if done well, prevents the hope of a resignation by promoting honest, current and meaningful dialogue.

If you’re already hoping for a resignation, there are things you should first do.

• Seek to understand

If there is an issue, you have to attempt to find out why. Have you sat down professionally and asked your staff how they are feeling about their work?

• Provide feedback

Remove assumptions. Have you advised them of your concerns? Are they aware of the problems? If they’re not aware, they won’t fix them.

• Ask for feedback

Be willing to change what you are doing yourself - ask for feedback and make a decision about whether or not this is something for which you can adjust your leadership style.

• Get rid of the annual performance review

Annual performance reviews are things of the past (though still better than no review at all). Things move too quickly these days and elite teams need constant feedback. Quarterly is the new annually.

• Innovate

Try new things, but only with KPI’s and timeframes attached to these.

• Ask for help

If you have an internal HR department, then engage with them on the issues. If not, seek external HR help or legal advice – any money invested now will save you in the long run.

• Plan

Hope is not a strategy so put a clearly defined, measurable and documented performance improvement plan in place to set expectations and support the lift in skills, attitude and results.

Through frequent dialogue and proactively addressing the issues, you’ll stop hoping for a resignation and start planning for either a high performer or a termination through the correct performance management channels. It may even result in a self-selected resignation, where both parties are comfortable with the result.

Everyone leaves a company at some point, however, if you are hoping for a resignation from one of your team members – stop hoping and start planning! From my own experience, leaving it does nothing for them or you.