 Every manager hates having bad staff members in their team. You have the double whammy of the extra stress and pressure plus underperforming employees or disruptive staff reducing team performance. Taking any action is difficult enough and no one likes all those difficult conversations with the boss, with HR and the bad staff member. Even worse is that the action you take is going to impact your team's trust, motivation and performance. We all want that impact to be positive, yet so often action taken by managers impacts the team negatively, which leads to a loss of trust, motivation and performance. I'm sharing five actions for bad staff members at work to build trust, not fear. For each, I'm explaining why taking fair and effective action is so important and giving you practical tips of how to take action that builds trust in you with all the team members and colleagues watching what happens. My name is Jess Coles and if you're new here, enhance.training shares, people management expertise, resources and courses for you to manage your team with integrity and fairness and get outstanding team results. I've included links to additional videos and resources in the description below as well as a video timestamp, so do take a look at these. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. Firstly, when you have bad team members at work, action is a must. Assume of course that you want to do well and have your team do well. It is in everyone's best interests that you take action, including more often than not, the bad staff member. If the bad team member is negatively impacting the team or other team members, then those team members will be expecting you to do something to help them. If you don't take action, you lose some of their trust and respect at best through to outright anger at you and staff members leaving the team. If you don't take action, you will be left with the weaker team members, a team others don't really want to join and little chance of promotion at this company. Very few managers find this appealing. You must take action. There are many negative actions that you need to avoid taking to maintain or improve the trust the team have in you. Some examples of poor actions include publicly complaining about the bad staff member, secondly taking sudden or drastic actions such as firing them on the spot, third engaging in unreasonable or unprofessional behaviour towards the problem employee, or fourth getting revenge by giving them all the boring tasks or trying to make their life difficult in the hope they'll leave. I've seen managers afraid to have the difficult conversations and be honest with the problem team member. Frustration, anger and resentment build until they suddenly take drastic action. Apparent sudden action creates uncertainty and fear in the team. The team will be thinking, if I make a mistake, would I be fired? Risk taking and learning then drops followed by team performance. To maintain or improve trust, the action you take must be perceived to be fair. I think that you also need to escalate the action you take in a step-by-step approach, which sets out clearly what you expect at each stage and gives the bad staff member lots of opportunity to improve. Secondly, when confronted by a bad staff member at work, be clear why you're taking action. Ask yourself, is the action you plan to take fair and reasonable for the situation? If you're taking action to help the person and help the overall team, then few could argue that your action is not reasonable. Why you're taking action will build trust or damage trust. The fairest and most effective approach or mindset in my experience is when you genuinely want to help the individual to improve so that the team's overall motivation and performance is improved. This is the best outcome for everyone and the least painful overall. The bad staff member will be a lot more receptive to you when you have an approach that's primarily focused on helping them. In exchange, you're asking them to change and improve. This approach builds a lot of trust with the bad employee and with your wider team. If your mindset is on revenge, retaliation, using your position to get back at them, or because you don't like them on a personal level, then team members will realise or find out about this. If people talk, the bad team member could easily complain to their colleagues for instance. The team's trust in you will be seriously damaged. Be honest with yourself and only take action if you have the team's best interest in mind. Taking this step will make building support for the action within the business much easier and improve your reputation and the trust extended to you by your team, your manager and HR. Thirdly, when taking action, make it easy for the bad staff member to improve. In my view, the best outcome is for the bad staff member to improve to the average standard of your team or better. This outcome firstly reduces company legal and reputation risk by removing a bad team member. Secondly, it sends a strong positive message of support and caring about staff, two team members and colleagues which increases team motivation and loyalty. Third, it removes the need to recruit a new team member of staff which is expensive in terms of time, money and lost output. Fourth, it improves the culture and motivation of the team and fifth, it is quicker and easier than a protracted disciplinary process. For these reasons, I view booking in weekly, coaching and mentoring sessions with a bad employee a necessary use of time which the majority of the time leads to improvements in the performance behaviour and attitude of the person. In these weekly sessions, you are equipping the staff member with knowledge and skills of how to improve. This is a very positive action for the person in question and for the team observing. Undertake it in the right way and you will build better relationship with the problem team member. Few people want to let down a person that is genuinely trying to help them. If other staff members outside the team are able to help, then organise them to hold separate one-on-one meetings. Give the problematic employee every chance to improve. This is in your best interests. And of course, if the bad team member doesn't show any signs of improvement, then increase the pressure by taking the process into a disciplinary process. You are putting in the time and effort to help the bad team member. In exchange, you are expecting them to work hard at improving. Fourth, when taking action with the bad staff member at work, remember fairness builds support. It is rare that you can take staffing decisions on your own. You usually need permission to recruit new staff members, for instance. Permission to undertake formal corrective action is also needed because there is a potential risk to the company, you know, legal and reputational, if the planned action is not fair, reasonable or being undertaken for the good of the team. To take formal action, you need the support and permission of your manager and HR. Both will need to, firstly, be satisfied that you want to take action for the right reasons, i.e. the good of the team and the business. Secondly, your planned action is reasonable and fair. Third, your planned action has a good chance of resolving the issues. Fourth, be satisfied that the planned action will not create legal or reputational risks for the company. Creating a fair performance improvement plan with clear objectives, timeframes and a support process will make it easy for your manager and HR to support your plan of action. If you're experiencing resistance, then go back to your plan and check if it is fair and reasonable and your actions are being undertaken for the good of the team and the business. If the action you have planned is fair and perceived to be fair, then your team will increase their trust in you. The message you are sending is that I will help team members to achieve the standards expected to a point. You'll have plenty of warning and opportunity to improve before you risk losing your job. This builds the feeling of psychological safety and trust in the team. Remember, fairness makes building support a lot easier, which makes taking action also a lot easier. Fifth, when taking action with a bad staff member at work, make sure the team wins. When you take action for bad staff members at work, the outcome must be that the team overall is better off and as a result will perform better and deliver more for the business. There are two ways this happens. First, if the bad staff member permanently improves to at least the average of the team, which in my view is the best option. Or, secondly, the person leaves and you will recruit a person that will strengthen the team. Taking action for a bad staff member at work will suck up a lot of time and effort on your part. You absolutely want to ensure that the team is better off after you've put in all this effort. Being a manager that works to ensure that the team overall is better off, in itself will build trust and goodwill with all team members. A bad staff member will be affecting everyone in the team, so everyone will be better off with the improvement of the bad staff member or their removal. To build and improve team trust, in you as a manager, take action to help the bad staff member and make sure this action is fair, reasonable and with the team's best interest in mind. Make sure the team wins from the action you take. In summary, when you have a bad staff member at work, you must take action to help that person improve. Taking action will require a significant investment of time and effort on your part. Not taking action is a lot, lot worse. When you do take action for bad staff members at work, make sure your action is fair, reasonable and focused on ensuring that the team is better off overall. Take action in a fair way and you will build trust and have a fair reputation with your team, your manager and HR. As a reminder, we've been through. First, action is a must. Be fair and escalate in steps. Secondly, be clear why you are taking action. Third, make it easy for the bad staff member to improve. Fourth, fairness builds trust. And fifth, make sure the team wins. Take a look at the resources and videos in the description below for more help. If you have any questions on the five actions for bad staff members at work to build trust, please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.