What do you do when an employee simply refuses to do what they are employed to do? A recent example what an employee actually refusing to do something his boss had asked him to do, by saying: “I don’t do reconciliations on Tuesdays.”
Often, the Manager is in shock and walks away wondering if they have actually heard correctly. And it’s partially this shock and subsequent inaction that the intransigent employee relies on.
In some cases, there is a good reason why the “reconciliations” (replace with whatever activity applies in your situation) shouldn’t get done. Perhaps it is a timing issue, perhaps there are other things that need to happen first. Perhaps there is an urgent piece of work that needs to be done. But often, it is work that the employee simply doesn’t like doing.
Of course, by ignoring it, the situation snowballs and then it becomes an issue that needs to be addressing.
There are a couple of ways to avoid or minimise this.
- Firstly, being clear in the recruitment process what the requirements of the role are, and then following that up with a clear job description.
- Having regular one to ones, where you talk about what is working and what is not, and how the employee is finding the job is a good way of opening the discussion up.
- Or asking if there are any aspects of the job that the employee thinks need to change or be done differently.
- Having this discussion in a transparent manner but also without the agenda of a performance related discussion can sometimes create the space for an employee to disclose if there are aspects of a job that they really don’t like doing, or don’t have the skills to do, or lack appropriate resources.
Having done all that though, if an employee is still refusing, then it becomes time to have one of those clear conversations about the role and what it entails.
Doing nothing ultimately doesn’t help anyone, as it gives the employee confusing messages (a tacit agreement that it is ok not to do the task) and it means the job doesn’t get done.
Until next week, happy reading.
