Supervisory Intervention: The Do's and Don'ts
The following list of "Dos" and "Don'ts" may be helpful to you as a supervisor when you conduct both formal and informal meeting about an employee's workplace behavior problems.
DON'T:
- Don't go into depth with the employee about personal problems
- Don't try to become the employee's counselor
- Don't try to diagnose the employee's problem
- Don't ask "why" the employee is performing a certain way-this leads to excuse making
- Don't take responsibility for solving the employee's problems
- Don't get hooked into the employee's feelings and start to feel them yourself (e.g., If employee is angry and irritable, you do not need to become angry.)
DO:
- Be calm and direct in your approach
- Stick to conversations about job performance
- Take care to protect the employee's confidentiality by meeting in a private place
- Administer standard personnel procedure in accordance with policy
- Remind the employee of the availability of services through EAP whenever appropriate or necessary