3 Effective Ways To Reprimand Employees Without Causing Conflict

When managing a team of individuals, supervisors are the ones responsible for making sure that employees are conducting themselves professionally, and working efficiently and ethically. When staff members act accordingly and follow all the rules, managers may praise them and reward them.

However, when employees are not working to the best of their capabilities, or showing poor attitude,managers need to reprimand those individuals. Bringing up something negative to an employee is neverpleasant, but there are effective ways of doing so that can actually provide positive results. Read thetips below to learn more.

Immediate Action – Some supervisors abhor providing employees with negative feedback. Therefore, they will stall and hope that things will get better without their intervention. This is never a good idea. If an employee is doing something not to your satisfaction, he or she will not know it unless you make that obvious. Or, even if that person knows he or she is not working up to par, without your confirmation of the fact, that individual will continue doing so. Due to this, it is always advised to nip the nail in the bud and confront the staff member right away. This is also beneficial, because when reprimanding employees, you will mention that they did not do something correctly one time, versus waiting, and then saying that their mistake has been spanning a period of months.

Be Specific – Prepare for the meeting with the employee beforehand so that you are ready to focus on specifics. Don’t sway off topic, or start discussing various issues because you feel uncomfortable. Make a list of the information to be covered, and stick to it. The last thing you want to do is confuse the member of your team with conflicting information. The more direct you are about your feedback, the more constructive the criticism will be.

Offer Help – Letting an individual know that they need to correct something about their work or behaviour is one step of the process, but the second step is aiding him or her in making the change. As the leader of your group, you need to provide direction on how the person can actually improve. Do the employees need to take a course or a training in working with others, anger management, or harassment to correct their inappropriate behaviour? Or, do they require help in learning new software or a new system you have implemented at work? Whatever the issue is, don’t simply verbalise it to your employees; make them feel certain that you will help them every step of the way.
Although it is nerve wrecking to have to reprimand an employee, think of it in a positive way. You will help an individual improve in a certain way, and will play a role in that person becoming a better employee, and possibly a better person.

Many Thanks

Mark Williams

Head of Training and Development

MTD Training