How To Handle That Lazy Employee

A Collection of Articles About Handling A Lazy Employee

This post focuses on tips and insights that you can use to deal with lazy employees. I have selected a collection of hand-picked articles written by a variety of authors to give you an overview of the steps you can take to motivate employees, but first, a few brief points of my own.

A lazy employee sets a bad example for others in the workplace by being at work and doing nothing; it costs the business time and money, as well as a loss in productivity.

Here Are A Few Tips About Dealing With Lazy Employees:

Observe Your Employees Behaviour

When you document the issues for a few days, it will give you a better understanding of what’s going on.

For example, they may be hesitant to do one task but get right to work when you give them a different task. Keep clear notes for a few days; then, you can decide on what action to take.

Determine If The Person Is Lazy or If There Is Something Else Going On

Sometimes the employee isn’t lazy but avoiding the task because they can’t do it, or they strongly dislike the job.

If they can’t do it, find out why. Is it because they don’t have the knowledge to do it? Or do they just need some refresher training, or did they not understand how to do it at all. This fix can be as simple as providing better training.

Keep Them Busy

Some people are not self-starters if they finish a task, and nothing else is planned for them; they sit around. Try giving them a series of tasks to complete, and they might improve their work ethics.

Make Issues Urgent

Sometimes if you put a deadline in place, your employee may meet the deadline. With no timeline in place, they may think, “I’ll get to it when I get to it.”

With a deadline in place, your employee knows it must be done by a specific time. Put a timeline in place, and check in on them at regular intervals to see how the progress is coming along.

Supervise Your Employee

Some employees don’t need any supervision, while others will slack off with no supervision.

It doesn’t make any sense to dedicate a supervisor to fix the problem. Instead, try moving the employee to work in an area that is already under supervision.

Give them another job

Sometimes the employee isn’t a good fit for the job, but they may be a good fit for another job. You could get them to perform another job that might be a better fit for them and the company.

Disciplinary Action

If all else fails, then the only other thing to do is to take disciplinary action against the employee.

Keep writing them up for not working. If that doesn’t solve the situation, then you may need to terminate the employee.

For more tips, see the resources, I have selected below to get different points of view from various authors.