Manager helps an employee go from problem child to princess

I interview managers all over Canada, whenever I can.

Christy is one of the managers I interviewed recently. I asked Christy if she had a great example of helping someone go from very poor performance to really great performance on the job. She thought about it for a while, then exclaimed “oh my god yes!”

A trouble Employee turns into a Superstar!

Loren was super negative. Nobody wanted to work with her. Loren was on her last legs working in a small group doing some very traditional work for the company. The other employees in her house wanted her gone. Loren was very high energy and came across as very negative and constantly critical of others.

During a reshuffling in the organization, Christy saw the opportunity to move Loren into a much different role. In this new role, Loren made no more money, but was more independent. In her new role her high standards could only be applied to herself. This made all the difference in the world. Loren went from dragging her co-workers down, to moving ahead a new program incredibly well. It turns out she was very frustrated by working in a low change, steady state, environment where her ideas, high standards, energy and desire to make things better was not appreciated and often did more harm than good. In her new role she got along much better with others, Christy thinks because Loren now felt good at something and appreciated for who she was.

This could easily have turned out differently if Christy had not seen the potential in Loren and taken a chance. It turns out that what was a weakness in one role was a strength in another.

IBEX Payroll extends our profound respect and immeasurable gratitude to all the ancestors and keepers of the land on whose traditional territories our work takes place. We acknowledge that we are on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional gathering place of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene people and the traditional homeland of the Métis people. This land is sacred, historical, and significant.

Every time we acknowledge this truth, we have an invitation and an opportunity to reflect on the wrongs of the past, what we do in the present, and what we can do to continually honour the people whose lands and water we benefit from today.

This statement only acts as a first step in honouring the land we reside on and its peoples, and must be paired with education, understanding and informed action.