Are You An Effective Counselor?
By Phil Varnak
Monday, February 25, 2008
(Editor's Note: This is Part One of a two-part article.)
If you are like most managers and supervisors, you are confident that the majority of employees work hard and want to do a good job. While that is true, a 'majority' is not the same as 'all' employees.
Some employees cut corners and barely get to work on a regular basis or have developed habits under previous supervisors and managers who did not expect the same levels of conduct and performance that you do. Remember the old supervisory adage, "5% of your employees take 95 % of your time."
In many situations, these employees will test you to see what they can "get by with" and how much you will tolerate before requiring them to meet your expectations. The old adage, "a new broom sweeps clean" is applicable to the work of a new manager. When you enter a new management position, you may face situations that the previous manager did not want to address, could not address, addressed and lost, or have recently developed.
Acceptance of conduct and/or performance that does not meet expectations becomes your tacit approval of that less-than-satisfactory conduct or performance. Failure to address performance and conduct issues tells that employee, and others, that you are approving the unacceptable conduct or performance. Conduct and performance issues are handled in different ways within the federal sector since these issues fall under the coverage of different parts of the statutes and regulations.
When a situation advances to the level of a case, the employee relations specialists will often reference it as either a 752 or 432 action. These are the sections of the Civil Service Reform Act under which the procedures were developed, 752 for conduct cases and 432 for performance cases. This article will continually differentiate between the requirements of these sections and provide guidance based upon the content of the applicable laws and regulations.
The Need For Counseling
Counseling is an ongoing process. When it is performed properly, counseling can result in early correction of the situation. Many supervisors are reluctant to address issues early, because the supervisor has never been trained in effective counseling procedures. Many training courses on the subject of "Conduct and Performance" spend time covering counseling procedures. This information is usually rated high by course participants because it is important to them.
Employees should be counseled on issues that become a concern to you as a manager. The principle of 'shared concern' should be followed in these situations. If the matter becomes a concern to you, share it with the person who caused the concern. It will never be resolved if you keep it to yourself -- confront it as soon as it arises. I personally like to call these situations "gut-burners." Gut-burners are situations that are causing the manager some degree of discomfort -- discomfort that may be eased a great deal when it is shared with the employee who is causing it.
Counseling Truths
Counseling is hard work and it takes time to adequately prepare if you want the counseling to be effective. Depending upon your approach (which will be discussed later), counseling takes more skill than most other parts of managerial assignments. Many supervisors have said that it is easier to discipline an employee than to counsel. However, counseling usually prevents the need for discipline.
Every situation is unique -- each has distinct facts and different employees involved.
Accordingly, every situation must have tailored and planned techniques and approaches to get the maximum benefit from your efforts. You must decide ahead of time on the objectives you wish to achieve and develop a counseling plan that will help you stay on track during the counseling session.
Counseling will not correct every situation.
You will correct the majority of issues with one or two counseling sessions, but you will not be successful in all cases. Some cases will progress to disciplinary action or a performance-improvement period before you get the employee's attention. In other more rare cases, the employee will have to experience an adverse action before improving conduct or being shown the exit door to his/her Federal employment.
Conduct counseling takes time and patience, but performance-based counseling is even more difficult. The differences in approaches will be discussed later in this article. A well-executed counseling session occurs because the manager has taken the time to plan the session and conduct it. Unless the session is extremely directive, it will take time to discuss all issues in your counseling plan and give the employee an opportunity to respond. After the session, documentation is essential.
CHANGE should be the primary objective of each counseling session. The manager wants change in the employees' performance or conduct, which is the purpose of counseling. If change is not the primary objective of the session, there is no reason to counsel. If the desired change is not achieved, the documentation prepared at the end of the session can be used to support a future personnel action and will show that you attempted to help the employee improve before initiating a formal corrective action.
Performance and conduct counseling require different approaches and follow-up procedures. Counseling to improve performance is more difficult, takes more time, and requires a higher level of counseling skills by the manager. Conduct and performance checklists are available later in this article.
Counseling Approach
A counseling session must be planned and organized. Your approach is one of the primary issues to consider. The approach you take to counseling will generally fall somewhere on a continuum between extremely directive and extremely non-directive. The continuum looks something like this:
Extremely Directive : Extremely Non-Directive
As a manager, you must choose the approach you will take in each counseling session. There are a number of factors to consider including the objective of the session, whether the session is for conduct or performance, and the personality of the employee. However, the objective to be achieved is the primary determinant in planning the counseling.
In part two of this article, I will address the different approaches a supervisor can use in a counseling session.
© 2008 Phil Varnak. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without express written consent from Phil Varnak.
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