Sometimes you can't fix everything...

There are three types of organizations. Those where the needs of those served are met, those that meet the needs of the person in power and those that meet the needs of a dysfunctional system. In the October 2008 issue of American Libraries the story, Cruel to Be Kind, discusses what libraries can do to deal with less-then productive employees. Not surprisingly employee performance weighs heavily on the ability of those in management positions to manage. If you have not gotten a chance to read the article here are a few main points presented by the author Miriam Pollack.

The first step for library directors and those in management positions is to deal with conflict and be able to have those “essential conversations” with their employees.

Unpleasant situations and people exist and training managers on how to hire appropriate employees in the first place is only the beginning.

Of course, these types of situations are not unique to libraries. Not all issues an employee is having will be work related. Library directors and managers are not psychologists or social workers and referrals to appropriate individuals seem to be an obvious suggestion for those types of situations. But how do you get an existing under-productive employee into a productive position or out of the organization? Is the latter necessary or not? Sometimes these employees still lack the ability to recognize that they are not performing their jobs well and/or causing problems for other co-workers. The article suggests coaching and the training of management in the giving of constructive criticism. Having a trained manager capable of understanding the skills and positive contributions of each employee and the ability to motivate staff to deliver the best they can is a necessity.

The demonstration of single-loop and double-loop learning is evident in this article. Employees who in the past have gotten away with underperformance, if you will, are now being held accountable for their actions by management. Single-loop learning involves learning from consequences of previous behavior. If an employee has consistently done below the bare minimum required and kept their job then clearly what transpired does not affect their job, or co-workers enough to warrant removal from the situation. But is this really helping the organization or just the employee? Adapting workers to their environment seems a bit odd in a patron-focused world.

That is where double-loop learning occurs and how this is tied back to the article. In double-loop not only does learning take place after consequences but also appropriate behavior is determined. Managers have a responsibility not only to the organization but also to the stakeholders.

Patrons deserve to have friendly helpful staff available.

If employees are not meeting the standards set for customer service the answer might not be to move that employee to another position. The answer might be to find that applicant who has the same type of qualities the organizations desires, but that might not be enough.

While not all organizations are the same, many deal with the same issues on the employee front the same way. A change in not just how employee situations are handled but also how organizations are run needs to occur. Organizations are focusing on patrons and customer service now more than ever before and learning what patrons expect and delivering that in the same way that services are delivered will do nothing but help improve patron experiences. Learning what is expected and how to achieve those goals will assist managers in keeping good employees and weeding out those who cannot rise to the expectations.