Lecture 7: The Really, Really Hard Stuff (like Discipline)

Discipline: a learning experience for both the supervisor and the employee

Dr. Feehan did a wonderful presentation explaining that discipline doesn't have to be negative and that it is a part of coaching. This slide she used was humorous and hit home about the different personalities one deals with.

Good discipline is

• follow-up coaching
• clearly establishing the policies & procedures and keeping communication about them open. Know that it is okay to change a policy if properly approached.
• being able to really explain the reasons behind policy and know that it may not be understood until people have had a chance to use the policy on the job
• a declaration that things have to change, said in a nice way

We tend to think of discipline as negative. But keeping a few things in mind can help to avoid the conflict associated with discipline: 

• when seen as punishment and coached in negative tone or language, people will react negatively. However, when delivering ANY discipline you must expect unpredicted reactions.
• as an “I vs. You” confrontation is the wrong approach
• too late. Don’t wait until so much time has passed that the discipline feels like it is coming out of nowhere. The delay sends the message that the bad behavior is acceptable or not even noticed.
• taking a non-progressive approach, meaning a “problem”-solving discussion without a “solution”-solving portion, is bad.
• missing root causes have to be spelled out if the person you are discipling doesn’t see any problem or disagrees a solution is needed.
• documentation or proof of the bad practices/behavior needs to be handy.

Communication and progressive discipline build on solutions that will pay off big in the long-term. If you apply discipline through negative-colored-glasses, then it is more likely to see it as punishment. However, avoiding conflict is one of the biggest sins and progressive discipline helps this avoidance. 

Progressive Discipline

• Give several chances
• Informal discussions
• Oral warning
• Written warning
• People know that termination is coming if progressive
• discipline has been used all along.

Email etiquette counts and can be useful for good HR practices involving consistent documentation (for good behavior and bad) -- if it's part of the regular process it's a lot easier to get things done discipline-wise when you need to. It helps, too, with allowing the problem to be OWNED and opens up discussion about solutions.

Termination

The Care and Control Approach

• Show you care about what is happening
• Remain in control bc someone has to be the adult
• Manage your own feelings
• Criticize the performance not the person
• Help employee retain dignity and tell them about assistance available to them
• Help them retain regard for the library, present it as an opportunity for them to make a change, give an exit interview
• The remaining employees form their regard for the library based on how terminated employees are treated
• Document the termination mtg and plan it beforehand
• Think of the reputation being built when employee is being terminated

     The necessary "nasty-gram".  In my previous "life" (before library school) I managed residence halls on college campuses. I would sometimes have as many as 30 people working directly for me, so I had a lot of experience with management and discipline in this setting. One particular experience has stuck out for me, because of the impact that it has had on my leadership style: 

     I employed several students to work at a desk in a small building during the early evening hours. Because they were not residents of that building I did not see them often, and so tended to have group communications handled via email instead of holding more formal staff meetings. At the end of the year, everyone had to return their keys, and I had given a deadline for this to be completed. However, the day before this deadline, my office manager called to say that only one person (out of 10) had already returned their keys. 

     So, I sent an email. During the week that the residence halls close, I was very busy, and I wrote this email hastily. It did not threaten, but did 'remind' students of the consequences for not turning in their keys.  Because I wrote the email quickly, I did not really think about tone, just about communicating the information in a way that would ensure the desired result. 

     Well, I got the desired result--all keys were returned within hours. However, I got a lot of negative feedback. One student pointed out that I had not used what we usually ask our students to use--professional email etiquette (using a professional salutation and closing, etc.). Another student called my tone 'praetorian' (I had to look this up, it means dictatorial) and questioned its place in a learning institution. 

     This email gave me a lot of pause. On the one hand, I had gotten the result I wanted in a VERY prompt fashion. On the other hand, I had not represented myself in what everyone could consider to be a professional and caring manner.  I think this is a dilemma many supervisors face daily--the amount of time you spend on a task to ensure everyone is happy about how things are handled, versus 'just getting the job done.'

~ Katie

     The importance of documentation struck me as really important, because of the experience we had at Great River.  My branch manager, Carol, does not like conflict, so she ignored an ongoing situation with a staff member who was not meeting the expectations of the job.  One problem that causes this situation to drag on was related to documentation, because in performance reviews Carol did not address the problems that had arisen with one of our library aides.  Instead, she gave her a satisfactory review, so when things got progressively worse with this aide we were hit with a potential lawsuit. 

     The aide was a staff member for five years, and three of those were spent fighting a lawsuit. Carol started documentation of tardiness, incidents where the aide would violate policies and procedures concerning patron privacy, rude behavior towards staff and patrons, and insubordination.  Unfortunately, by this time the aide had decided she didn't have to follow the rules and could do things her own way.  When confronted with the issues, she denied them and then determined it was due to a disability that we had never been made aware of, so we then had to accommodate.  

     After three years, we were able to document complaints, incidents where, even with accommodations, she was not doing the job.  It was a very sad situation, but it also created a very stressful situation for all of the staff members, especially when we were trying so hard to help her do her job.  We were creating special lists, giving her small task lists, and other things to help her, but she continued to read magazines instead of shelving them, and showing up for work 10-15 minutes late.  Finally, with enough documentation we were able to demonstrate that it was indeed a deeper problem than just needing the accommodations. 

~ Tina 

     Telling someone once a year, or only during performance reviews, about their unacceptable performance is a bad approach. My personal example of this is a supervisor I had who exactly followed a performance review checklist as written, during my 3 month probationary review. I asked about several other items and she said, “those aren’t on the performance list”. 

     Nine months later at the yearly review, she mentioned several things I was doing incorrectly. I asked if she had noticed me doing them since my 3 month review and she said she hadn’t really paid attention until she was preparing my yearly review. I thought this was odd...especially considering that we had weekly staff meetings and her office was within the circulation workroom where she saw us every day. I think she got so emotional about conflict that she couldn’t address problems until she had to.

~ Amy