Gee, I never knew that. Where does it say I was supposed to do that?
Aren't those the quintessential responses whenever employees are called to the carpet? Let's put a stop to that right now—here are some things that supervisors should say to employees.
1) These are our policies.
Your employees should be familiar with policies that pertain to them. The policies probably range from work rules on gambling, fighting, and drugs to how to apply for FMLA leave and report harassment.
Go over them at meetings, orientation sessions, whenever you can fit it in, and get employees to sign off that they understand what the policies say.
2) These are my expectations for you.
Make it clear to individual employees what your expectations are.
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3) Here's how you are doing.
Talk to people about how they are doing at meeting the expectations. Don't wait for formally mandated annual review time—talk regularly so employees have a chance to improve.
When talking about performance, be honest. There are few things more pathetic than a manager trying to explain how a terminated employee's performance could have been "so poor we had to fire him" when his appraisals show all “Satisfactory” or "Meets Expectations" ratings.
Dealing with untrained supervisors—a challenge for sure, but certainly not your only challenge. In HR, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. Like FMLA intermittent leave, overtime hassles, ADA accommodation, and then on top of that whatever the agencies and courts throw in your way.
Find out what the buzz is all about. Take a no-cost look at HR.BLR.com, solve your top problem, and get a complimentary gift.
You need a go-to resource, and our editors recommend the “everything-HR-in-one website,” HR.BLR.com. As an example of what you will find, here are some policy recommendations concerning e-mail, excerpted from a sample policy on the website:
Privacy. The director of information services can override any individual password and thus has access to all e-mail messages in order to ensure compliance with company policy. This means that employees do not have an expectation of privacy in their company e-mail or any other information stored or accessed on company computers.
E-mail review. All e-mail is subject to review by management. Your use of the e-mail system grants consent to the review of any of the messages to or from you in the system in printed form or in any other medium.
Solicitation. In line with our general non-solicitation policy, e-mail must not be used to solicit for outside business ventures, personal parties, social meetings, charities, membership in any organization, political causes, religious causes, or other matters not connected to the company’s business.
We should point out that this is just one of hundreds of sample policies on the site. (You’ll also find analysis of laws and issues, job descriptions, and complete training materials for hundreds of HR topics.)
You can examine the entire HR.BLR.com program free of any cost or commitment. It’s quite remarkable—30 years of accumulated HR knowledge, tools, and skills gathered in one place and accessible at the click of a mouse.
What’s more, we’ll supply a free downloadable copy of our special report, Critical HR Recordkeeping—From Hiring to Termination, just for looking at HR.BLR.com. If you’d like to try it at absolutely no cost or obligation to continue (and get the special report, no matter what you decide), go here.
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