You know who they are.
You dread reading their emails or getting stuck with them in the break room after everyone else has left. They are the ones who take up more than their share of time and attention. The ones who are always in crisis or at the center of a disagreement. Those who require constant reassurance. The ones who consistently ask for an extension to the deadline or an exception to the rule.
They are the high maintenance employees. The 20% of your team that takes up 80% of your time.
They are often also high-performance employees. The ones who have invaluable skills, a wealth of institutional knowledge, a list of important contacts on speed dial, and great work products. You don’t want to let them go. You just want them to turn down the volume a little.
As a manager, it’s your job to make sure that the ratio of required attention to positive performance is close to 50-50, with only occasional moments when things fall out of balance.
High maintenance behaviors are most often the result of an employee’s unmet needs, either personal or professional. When you can identify the reason behind the high maintenance requirement, you can use the right strategy for dealing with the behavior.
Generally, an employee who is high maintenance is lacking one of these four things:
Competence – When an employee lacks competence, it shows up in poor performance or no performance. It may be that they need additional training or mentoring. Additional information or practice might be useful to help the employee to master a particular skill. Perhaps there is another job that suits their skills better.
The primary strategy to address competence issues is support.
Confidence – An employee with low confidence may be looking for encouragement or validation that they are performing as expected. Providing recognition and giving them an opportunity to shine in areas where they perform well may reduce their need to seek attention at other times or in inappropriate ways.
The most effective strategy for building confidence is recognition and validation.
Clarity – You may have an employee who constantly bombards you with questions, slows down group discussions, or does things in bits and pieces, requiring a nudge at every stage. This person may need clarification about expectations, timeframes, or internal workflow. Providing information in writing can reduce repetitive questions and delays in completing assigned tasks.
For issues with clarity, communication is the strategy most likely to address the issue.
Comfort – When an employee is uncomfortable, it can show up in a variety of ways. They may withdraw or remain silent, even when their participation is desired. This may be because they are a poor fit for your organization or for their team. For some, it may be that they feel unsafe or have not yet developed a sense of trust with co-workers or supervisors. It may also be that they are struggling with outside issues that are affecting their work behavior. It’s important to recognize when problems can and should be solved in the workplace and when they need to be solved outside of the workplace.
The best strategy for addressing comfort issues is connection. Work to build good relationships at both the peer and supervisory levels. Demonstrate compassion for the discomfort and engage the employee in suggesting solutions. If the issue requires outside assistance, connect the employee with appropriate external resources.
Every employee will need a bit of extra attention from time to time. Managers find themselves juggling these needs along with the needs of the organization. When you observe and address the underlying need behind high maintenance behavior, you reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to extinguish the behavior and eliminate its negative impact on your team and their performance.
Sadly, sometimes an employee’s needs put too great a demand on your time and energy or on other employees. If you’ve tried too many strategies without any results, it may be time to use the final strategy – the exit strategy. Use this strategy only as a last resort when the threat to team or organizational stability is too great.
Keep things in balance by turning high maintenance employees into highly satisfied employees.
That way, everyone wins.