Both, theory and practice have shown that we cannot communicate, apply the same strategies, pressures and similar to all staff at the same way. Good results have never been given and the most common situation is in which those who work well will continue to work without disagreements and those who stay fit as an inferior part of the well working team. In short path that can be an illusion of good business and results. In the long run we have situations as follows:
- Hard workers are frustrated due to common and general criticism and pressure. Do not receive praise or satisfaction they deserve because of the quality and scope of work. All this can result with their leaving or drop in quality of their work.
- Bad workers fit as part of a group (a satisfactory average). Work as much as they think they should, constantly complain and find excuses for their poor performance. If they are not warned properly in time they do not improve results. They are trying to get (not earn) as much good salaries possible.
As seen, all that brings occasion of having bad workers who cannot, will not or do not want to work they need to. The worst form of this situation I expressed as “The Curse of the good and the blessing of the bad worker”. A hard worker works trying to give his best for the organization. With time we consider it as a standard i.e. as expected value. Should “slow down” happens or, (Gosh), to make mistake, everyone will notice, criticize and disapprove. A bad worker works as much as he should (or less), has no special results. Very often they are very noisy and complain a lot about working conditions. If he (usually periodically) wakes up and do something more than we’re used to, everybody praise him, all are delighted with what he did, putting him on the throne.
I believe not any serious organization wish to have such situation and therefore very important is to treat employees upon their merit. In my opinion that would be a basic supervising strategy. It offers only two options such as a Punishment – an Award. To have these supervising strategies properly applied, they must be divided into 3 main groups:
- Hard workers ( “right hands”) – someone who has good results, to whom you can rely on and who is very reliable, someone who will help you in supervising and improving other workers
- Good workers (or less good) – someone who has bad results but you know he has potential, wish and will to change; that is someone who needs right orientation, mentoring and training; someone who could with all this become a hard worker
- Bad workers – someone who does not have good results, someone whom opportunities and chances were given but improvement failed, someone who shows no desire to improve; a special kind of bad workers are those whose behavior and negative attitudes destroys authority and have negative impact to the morale of the others in collective.
These are three main groups with many subgroups. What strategies should be applied for which group and how to deal with it:
| Group | Kind of supervising |
| Hard | The wind in the back should be given to such workers. Their efforts should be recognized and therefore praise and awards should be given. They should be allowed of being in charge of certain tasks. They should know that you notice and value their work and effort. Although they are good, constant monitoring and observing of their work is needed. |
| Good | Since this is in most cases the largest group it needs most of efforts. It is necessary to get to the source of bad results. Provide any necessary additional training. Provide mentoring and constant communication. Set goals with the closing deadline. Monitor progress and modify goals if needed. The main goal of many workers in this group is to pass to a group of “Hard”. |
| Bad | A situation here is mostly very clear and simple. If someone has already been stuck in this group, means every chance, all the tools and the support were given to him, but he did not improve the results. Sometimes can happen that bad one is not “a bad man”. Unfortunately, evolution is so ruthless and only those who can survive –stay put. Those people should leave organization without further prolonging of the agony. |
The goal of any organization is to have as much hard workers possible. Unfortunately, reality is that most workers we have are in category of “Good”. The greatest movement to down or up took place in that category. The task of any manager is to try to:
- Keep and motivate all the hard workers
- Guide and give opportunity to all good workers
- Get all bad workers fired
It is very important to have classification of workers in these three groups for real. Saying this I mean that the manager makes a classification in order to apply proposed tools. This classification should be regularly updated, following an impact of each tool on the above-mentioned tasks. Tactics and tools should be modified as needed and adapted to given situations, but basically they are the same.
