| When it comes to difficult conversations with employees, which ones cause the most angst for managers? Firings? Nope. Explaining why someone didn’t get a raise? Guess again.
The most dreaded conversation: Telling an employee that he or she smells!
And the easiest conversation? Confronting an employee about having inappropriate photos on his or her computer.
In fact, managers don’t mind giving an employee bad news if he or she deserves it. But they squirm when things aren’t so cut and dry, says the survey by HR News Update and Communications Update of more than 900 managers and HR professionals. The managers were asked to each of 19 difficult conversations on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the least difficult conversation and 5 being the most difficult.
The 5 Most Difficult Conversations
(Total percentage those giving ratings of 4 or 5)
- Telling an employee that he or she smells or has a hygiene problem (78.9 percent)
- Telling an employee the company is downsizing and he or she will no longer have a job (73.8 percent)
- Informing an employee that he or she is being demoted (68.4 percent)
- Telling a hard working, valuable employee (but who doesn’t have tremendous talent) that he or she isn’t likely to rise any higher in the organization (67.6 percent)
- Explaining to an employee this his or her spouse’s behavior at a company event was unacceptable (53.4 percent)
The 9 Least Difficult Conversations
(Total percentage those giving ratings of 1 or 2)
- Confronting an employee who has porn on his or her computer (77.9 percent)
- Confronting someone who is spending too much time on MySpace.com, etc. (74.9 percent)
- Talking to an employee about begin tardy or missing work (72.9 percent)
- Confronting an employee who is job hunting on company time (70.7 percent)
- Confronting someone who has stolen from the organization (70.0 percent)
- Confronting someone for sending inappropriate email (68.7 percent)
- Confronting an employee who’s blatantly lied (65.5 percent)
- Firing an employee for cause (63.7 percent)
- Confronting someone who is spending too much time on the phone (60.3 percent)
And the 5 Conversations with average ratings:
- Explaining to an employee why he or she didn’t get a promotion
- Firing an employee for performance
- Explaining to an employee that his or her clothing is inappropriate for the office
- Telling a normally excellent employee his or her work is not up to par
- Explaining to an employee why he or she didn’t get a raise
|
