First things first.  Whatever the Arizona Chamber of Commerce says, there is just no such thing as a “Dry Heat”.  I’m here in Scottsdale doing a series of employee engagement speeches for one of my corporate speaking clients, P2 Energy Solutions.  They are the same ones who were nice enough to send me to Calgary in July.  It’s 108 in the shade today, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow.  It’s hot.  Dry or not…  When it’s 108 degrees, everything is dry ’cause nothing stays wet. 

Anyway….

During a break in my speeches, a manager of one of the attending companies asked me my opinion about a “supervisor” issue she was facing.  To make a long story short, she was struggling with how to deal with a couple of employees with “bad attitudes”.  The hard part?  Both employees played important roles in the organization, and the manager was hesitant to let either (or both) go.  P2 is in the oil/gas industry as are their clients, and kids are not coming out of college in droves to jump into this industry.  Employees are hard to find, experienced ones even harder.

So the issue came down to Attitude vs. Skill.  Do you keep an employee who meets (and sometimes exceeds) the requirements of the job, but has an attitude that can be somewhat poisonous to the other members of the team?  Or, do you put more weight on an employee who has the appropriate attitude, but perhaps is missing some skills?  In this case, my answer was a little different than it normally is, due to the difficulty this company (and industry) has in finding and keeping good employees.

I suggested that the supervisor conduct a series of 360 evaluations for the employees in the group.  The 360 allows for each employee to rate themselves on a number of dimensions, have their boss rate them, and receive ratings from peers.  Although much of the information that would be uncovered has already been talked about in hallways, the lunchroom, and in private conversations among staff, the ability of seeing this information in a quantitative report can make all the difference in the world.

What gets measured gets managed.  Once armed with the 360 data, the supervisor can sit down with the employee and go over the evaluation results in a non-threatening environment.  When the data bears out what is “heard on the street” the supervisor can set up a performance management approach to change these attitudes, along with a deadline for expected improvement.  In this way, the 360 can do what it is designed to do; give management tools to continue to develop their employees. 

Attitude vs. skill.  What do your policies and procedures say about what your organization values, and how are your employees affected?  Drop me a line and let me know.

OK, time to get into the air-conditioning…  Talk to you soon!