Delivering Bad News Tactfully and Effectively

“You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services.  You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service.  One of your employees, who has been with the company for two years, is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers.  In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment.  You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

In a situation like this it is important to think of the well being of your company. In order to do this you must have productive and happy employees. To start, I would ask the employee to come to my office for a meeting. I would make sure to be direct. Sitting the employee down and letting him or her know my concerns and the complaints would be first on my agenda. I expect that the employee will get defensive and possibly blameful. I would let them know that we hired them for a reason and want to keep them with the company for that same reason, but some changes will need to be made. It is important to not just point out the negative. It can be detrimental to their self esteem and lead to further issues. Letting the employee know that If they want to continue working for the company they will need to go back to the place they started and revive those skills is an important aspect of the problem resolution. I would ask the employee to work on their interpersonal skills with the other employees because customer service outside of the company is only half the battle. In situations when you are “criticizing” or giving bad news it is important to try and give solutions to the problem. Some techniques I would use to keep the peace would be keeping my tone low and optimistic, use me and we statements instead of you, and being empathetic. I feel that doing these thing could result in an optimal outcome.