Inconsiderate employee leads to fuming customers

DEAR MARIANN: I am a salon owner with sev­eral styl­ists and am proud of the rep­u­ta­tion I have built with an estab­lished clien­tele. One of my staff has become lax in work ethic, often run­ning behind sched­ule and keep­ing cus­tomers wait­ing. How do I approach this with­out alien­at­ing this employee?

MARIANN’S RESPONSE: The joys of being a small busi­ness owner can be few and far between at times and this seems to be one of those occa­sions. My first thought in approach­ing this sit­u­a­tion is to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the styl­ist, pos­si­bly away from the salon at lunch where you are both on “neu­tral” ground. If the dis­cus­sion occurs at your place of busi­ness, it might be awk­ward, espe­cially if any cus­tomers arrive early dur­ing the midst of this dialogue.

Start the intended con­ver­sa­tion with a com­pli­ment or men­tion some­thing that the employee is doing well. The Rev. Philip Wilden of Asbury Methodist Church made an excel­lent com­men­tary dur­ing this past Sun­day ser­mon that we as indi­vid­u­als are “pro­fes­sion­als at crit­i­cism but ama­teurs when it comes to praise.” Even though it might be dif­fi­cult, start­ing the con­ver­sa­tion on a pos­i­tive tone will be ben­e­fi­cial and address­ing those issues that you men­tioned above pos­si­bly will be taken less defensively.

How­ever, you also must be firm and state that for the suc­cess of your busi­ness, every­one needs to work as a team and share in the respon­si­bil­ity of cour­tesy to cus­tomers. The poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills she has with the salon’s clien­tele could jeop­ar­dize your busi­ness future. Ask­ing her to be more sen­si­tive to the needs of cus­tomers is essen­tial and should be stated clearly and with­out hesitation.

Recent research has been forth­com­ing as to the issue of adult Atten­tion Defi­cient Dis­or­der (ADD), which was addressed sev­eral weeks ago in this col­umn. Habit­u­ally run­ning late is a fun­da­men­tal issue for so many middle-age strug­gling with ADD. Dur­ing later years, ADD is more often diag­nosed in women ver­sus the young adult male of the typ­i­cal ADD stereo­type. Ask­ing her if “run­ning late” is a chal­leng­ing issue in her per­sonal life, along with pro­fes­sion­ally, might be the key to deter­min­ing whether this issue could be the fun­da­men­tal cause. If you are able to dis­cuss this sub­ject, sug­gest­ing that she see her pri­mary care physi­cian might be help­ful as to a poten­tial diag­no­sis and med­ical treatment.

Next, ask­ing that your employee give upcom­ing clients a quick call or text once she starts run­ning behind to avoid “the snow­ball effect,” might save much frus­tra­tion with cus­tomers ver­sus their timely arrival, only to be kept wait­ing with­out prior notice. Is there some­thing you might do to assist when this sit­u­a­tion occurs? Could you notify her next two or three clients and let them know? Some adults with ADD become so over­whelmed by “the snow­ball effect” that their pri­or­i­tiz­ing skills sim­ply evap­o­rate, lead­ing to a sense of anx­i­ety of a sit­u­a­tion that is man­age­able for most but sim­ply out-of-control to those strug­gling with this ADD issue.

Are there some weeks she does worse than oth­ers? Is there any cor­re­la­tion with other aspects of her life? Is she car­ing for an elderly par­ent, a sick child, have cus­tody of chil­dren, or does she have a prob­lem­atic spouse? Is she com­fort­able com­mu­ni­cat­ing with you when her per­sonal life is chaotic? Even though too much infor­ma­tion about your employ­ees’ per­sonal lives might be con­flict­ing and time-consuming, show­ing that you care as an employer is of immea­sur­able value in this high-pressure, finan­cially chal­leng­ing, quota-driven busi­ness cli­mate we are presently encountering.

If all else fails, stat­ing clearly that you expect work site improve­ment, might be the last alter­na­tive. Doc­u­ment­ing her time of arrival at the salon each day she is sched­uled could be nec­es­sary, along with how much time cus­tomers spend wait­ing. Meet­ing with this employee weekly to dis­cuss time­li­ness is essential.

And finally, don’t let this employee play “the vic­tim” card of over­sen­si­tiv­ity. It is easy to fall into this trap and back-off when the defense mech­a­nisms are trig­gered. Those who are “over­sen­si­tive” or “thin skinned” are poor in being recep­tive to sug­ges­tions, no mat­ter how con­struc­tive. Some peo­ple just do not have the emo­tional for­ti­tude for any level of crit­i­cism. Hope­fully this is not your employee, or, if it is, my sin­cere apolo­gies at the “eggshells” you must walk, espe­cially as “the boss.” If all else fails, reduc­ing their hours or plac­ing them on notice might be your last option before end­ing this employee’s tenure with your salon.

Mar­i­ann Main is a Licensed Coun­selor and a Delaware native. Her col­umn appears weekly on Sat­ur­days. To sub­mit a ques­tion and have Mar­i­ann answer it anony­mously, visit delgazette.com/life-questions-with-local-answers or send mail to the Delaware Gazette office, 40 N. San­dusky St., suite 203, Delaware, OH 43015.

Posted by Mariann Main on Nov 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.