As A Manager, How Do You Manage An Incompetent Employee?

[Rachael]

The title or portfolio of a Manager is easy to bear and connotes a place of respect and authority but the tasks and duties accompanied with it is actually demanding. As a Manager, there are some decisions you would have to take for the overall benefit and effective productivity of the organization which should be devoid of sentiments. For instance, when you notice some tardiness, lack of interest, frequent absenteeism and some other lackadaisical attitude of your employee, and perhaps you have done your part by paying salaries on time and other staff compensation and perhaps you have complained and notified the staff to improve yet there is no positive change of behavior, what is the next step you will take to avoid the spread of such behavior which can affect total workers productivity?

 

[Alexandoy]

Let me share my personal experience with a housemaid. We hired her on the recommendation of a friend that she is trustworthy. I can agree that our housemaid is honest and trustworthy so that is not an issue. But she is very incompetent and forgetful. There are chores in our house that has do be done regularly like turning on the light in the front yard and backyard (as a protection against burglars) but she often forgets. We had a hard time in teaching her to do the house chores properly. However, we value her honesty and good character so we persevered. Now she has been with us for 5 years and we really consider her as part of our family. Although she still makes minor mistakes but those are tolerable as long as she does the most important part of her duty which is to take good care of our 2 dogs.

 

[sincerem]

After reading @Alexandoy post I really got lots of positives due to how he explained his now experience with a housemaid. Definitely, their are things we can simply tolerate as humans provided they aren't affecting much of our job or project. I love to work with honest people and not people who are very toxic and dishonest. Honesty should be one of the good qualities of an employee, and not just coming to work and lacking zero honesty in him or her. Simply trying every means to cheat, which isn't right I'm any way. Such kind of dishonest, lazy workers, and late comers to work makes it hard for the business or company to grow. That's why the administrator of the company should simply give a strict and loving guidelines for all workers to stay and abide by it. If anyone fails to abide by such rules, he or she should be fined or ousted if the incident becomes much and unable to tolerate anymore.

 

[Abigael]

A manager should be someone who is so upright with making the employees to follow the rules. That is why it is best for them not to get attached to the employees as it makes it harder to authorize them.

I am sure the company has set rules that guides the manager on what to do next after giving warnings and chances for the employee to change. For many companies, the next thing would be demotion. So the manager should brace themselves well and fire the incompetent or indisciplined employees.

As a manager, you have been trained on all the areas of management. That includes the ability to execute the punishments set for any consequences of wrong doings in the workplace. Therefore, it is just your duty to do what you were trained for and given responsibility by the owner of the company.

 

[Kendy]

As a competent Manager, you need to look for flexible ways in dealing with an incompetent employee and one of those ways would be to ensure that the individually is psychologically balanced and is motivated by his job. My point is, there are times where the incompetency of employees can be borne out through lack of motivation at work. In organisations where, the workers do not feel motivated due to lack or crippled payment methods, lack of promotion, compensation and fringe benefits and lack of appreciation from the employers, this can inflict on their productivity level. The Manager should ensure that the factors affecting the level of incompetency is not associated within the internal organisation and when this fact is established, the Manager should caution the staff but if the act continues, then it might be that the worker is no more motivated with the line of the job and in order to curtail such influence in spreading to other employees, it would be pertinent to offer a dismissal letter to the workers as the case may be. Incompetency cannot be tolerated for long because the effect will result to low productivity which will in turn cripple the development of the organization.

 

[Caramelle]

A manager should be able to handle people and motivate them. Being a people manager goes beyond pointing out employees' inefficiencies or failures. An effective manager should be able to bring out the best from his subordinates. One common approach is to try to understand the reasons why the employee is misbehaving or performing below expectations. A manager can sit down for a heart-to-heart talk with the employee to discuss the situation and possibly obtain a commitment from the employee to improve his/her performance or attitude. Some skills training may also benefit incompetent employees by upgrading their skillset and uplifting their morale. Take note that employees usually go through a rigorous screening process prior to employment to ensure that they possess the basic competencies for their positions. Thus, a manager would normally be interested to know what has gone wrong and what can be done to improve the work conditions.​

 

[Yhubee]

Incompetency can be due to several factors.When an interview was done on such employee he might not have been incompetent and even as he or she started but along the line, incompetence set in, this can be due to some personal factors affecting the employee. If this is the case, the business owner can communicate with the employee on it and see if those issues can be resolved but if it persists and nothing can be done about it, the employee can be relieved of the job because productivity is important in business and without that, the business will be affected.
Sometimes the employee can be very intellectual but is lazy , and works really slow which can end up affecting the business. Personally, I would give such employee a query and he or she will be on probation for a particular period to check for improvement. If there is no improvement, then the employee will be replaced with a other who is ready to work.
In other cases, the incompetence may be due to lack of encouragement from the organization,it could be that salaries are not paid on time and the working environment is not conducive enough for the employee.