Controlling

• Monitoring Performance

• Addressing Problems

• Counseling and Discipline

Timesavers

1. Effective Phrases for Performance Appraisals: A Guide to Successful Evaluations, James E. Neal, 2003
   Over 2000 phrases you can use to describe job performance.

2. Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews : Hundreds of Ready-to-Use Phrases That Describe Your Employees' Performance, Douglas Max, 2002
   Phrases that you can use to describe employee performance, provide directions for improvement, and more.

3. Performance Appraisal Phrase Book: The Best Words, Phrases, and Techniques for Performance Reviews, Corey Sandler, 2003

4. The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book: A Survival Guide for Managers, Richard C. Grote, 2002
   140 of the most common and most difficult performance appraisal questions with easy to understand and easy to implement advice.

5. 101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems, Paul Falcone, 1998
   101 disciplinary write-ups (Microsoft Word format) to escape the headaches, anxiety, and potential legal trouble of performance review or counseling sessions.  Eliminate the worries about what to do and how to say it.

Monitoring Performance 

Employees are trained step-by-step to perform a task.  Review with the employee to confirm that the employee understands the steps.  Monitor the employee's performance to insure that tasks are accomplished as prescribed and in a manner consistent with the organization's policies and standards of behavior.  Performance is monitored to insure that problems are dealt with proactively.

Keys

• How can a supervisor monitor performance if employees don't know what is expected of them and the supervisor doesn't know what should be monitored?  Setting performance expectations and providing employees with feedback on their performance are essential.

• What gets measured, gets done.

Addressing Problems

Potential problems exist when processes and employees don't perform as desired.  Problems need to be identified and addressed before the organization's desired results are impacted.  Addressing problems goes beyond employee discipline.  Addressing problems involves making the necessary process or procedural adjustments to prevent future occurrences of the problem.

Keys

• A supervisor should be careful to make the distinction between symptoms and problems.  Address the problem, not the symptoms.

Supervision Solution 

How do I?  What do I say?  Management and supervision solutions to the most frequent and most difficult supervisory issues and problems on addressing problems with employees. 

1. How do I apply discipline?

2. How do I apply the right discipline?

3. How do I give a direct order?

Problem Solvers

1. Dealing with Difficult People, (Essential Managers Series), Christina Osborne, 2002
   Identify and understand difficult people with tips on anticipating problems, obtaining cooperation, and applying solutions.

2. Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed To Do and What To Do About It, Ferdinand F. Fournies, 1999 
   Straightforward methods to avoid or handle people in difficult situations.

Counseling and Discipline

A supervisor should address employee behavior problems proactively.  Counseling is used to address potential problems by having the employee correct his/her own behavior.  A supervisor uses discipline to correct the employee's behavior. 

Keys

• Counseling doesn't necessarily have to be provided by the supervisor.  If your organization has an Employee Assistance Program or EAP, use the EAP for issues that arise from the employee's personal life or personality conflicts  between employees.  

• Counseling and discipline should always occur in private.

• The goal of discipline is not to punish the employee, but to correct an employee's undesirable behavior. 

• Progressive discipline means that with each recurrence of an undesirable behavior, the discipline becomes more severe.  The typical progression is an oral warning, written notice, suspension and termination.

Supervision Solution 

How do I?  What do I say?  Management and supervision solutions to the most frequent and most difficult supervisory issues and problems on counseling and disciplining employees.   

1. While you are away from the office, two of your employees engage in an altercation.  The details are unclear, but the situation is clearly escalating as each employee takes advantage of every opportunity to chide the other.  What should I do?

2. Your employee has been assigned to clean the area around his work area on a daily basis.  The employee has failed to clean the area for two days and the area is a safety hazard. 

3. What will you do if your most reliable employee starts to constantly report for work late?

4. How do I document a discipline?