6 Ways to Deal with Team Members Who Don’t Want to Work

When you have team members who don’t want to work on your team it is painful, frustrating and problematic for the whole team.  And worse, team members and your boss are looking at you to deal with the employee who is not pulling their weight.  There can be lots of reasons why your team member doesn’t want to work:1.      Personal Problems outside of work2.      Problems within work3.      Unrealistic expectations4.      Actions or comments that have impacted their outlook and motivation5.      They are lazy and want to do as little as possible The first step is to work out exactly what situation you are dealing with. There may be an easy solution that will fix the poor work attitude quickly. Ask the team member what the issues are and listen. Setting out your expectations clearly is a vital step. After all, how can a person meet or beat your expectations if they are not sure what they are. If the employee’s performance is an issue, then by setting expectations, you are laying the groundwork for performance management actions.  Give them the confidence – through your actions and support – to share their problems with you. When you know what they are and understand how they came about you are in a much better place to fix them. Other Employees need to be told what is in it for them. Spell this out to help motivate them. There are lots of different motivators and we all respond to  a different combination.  Assess if your team members have the right skills and the right skill level to do what is asked of them. If they don’t, then help them increase their skills or move them into a role better suited to them.  And finally, for employees who are just plain lazy, disruptive, difficult or toxic, consider moving them out of the business. These team members don’t help the team and can do a lot of damage to the team.  Take action, and don’t procrastinate. Good luck!

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