Attempting to work in a disruptive workspace is probably one of the most annoying things to experience throughout a workday. Especially if you are a manager that is wanting to increase your team’s performance levels and boost employee motivation at the same time.
As a manager, it is expected of you to be able to set performance standards for the team members that work directly underneath you and that sometimes the workspace can become disruptive to everyone’s performance.
So, if you’ve ever found yourself struggling to manage performance issues inside of a disruptive workspace, this article is for you.
Disruptive Workspaces
Several things can be considered disruptions to your work environment.
The problem is that as you know, some of these issues can’t be fixed as a one-and-done solution forever, some of these disruptive issues require constant management and some can only be fixed with employee termination.
Let’s go over just a few examples of what things can cause disruptive workspaces that affect work performance.
- Habitual Tardiness and Absenteeism
This one tops the list simply because we all know just how frustrating and disruptive it can be to the overall flow of productivity.
When people are habitually late or absent it causes other team members to have to not only keep up on their job duties but also pick up the slack of those that are constantly gone or late.
If the employees make it a habit to be late or absent in an excessive manner, these performance issues need to be addressed quickly, if it isn’t the morale and performance of the rest of the team will begin to break down.
- Inappropriate and Gossip Talk
While there is nothing wrong with your employees getting to know each other and talking with each other throughout the day whether on their breaks or during their tasks, there is something wrong with inappropriate comments and gossip.
If you have employees that are constantly trying to be funny by making inappropriate comments or jokes, it’s your job to remind them that that kind of talk doesn’t belong in the workplace. Not only does it not belong, but it can also get them in trouble with HR and potentially cost them their jobs.
Gossip in the workplace can be just as disruptive as it causes divisions and rifts between coworkers that might not even be based on facts. It is never harmless and gossip will always give birth to a toxic work environment that will harm those involved along with overall team performance issues.
- Increasing Personal Issues
We all have bad days at work because of something in our personal lives that is affecting us negatively, that’s not the problem in this instance though.
The problem arises and becomes disruptive to work performance when these personal issues become sources of chronic issues that ruin your work focus and bleed over into your work performance.
There are better ways to deal with these disruptions though instead of reverting to talking down to the person and telling them to get their life together otherwise they are fired, that should never be the first solution you think of concerning this particular disruption.
We are confident that you can make a list longer than this one if you were to take a minute and reflect on what your work environment looks like when it gets disrupted by something.
However, as important as it is to be able to discern what is causing the performance disruptions it is also important to know how to best handle these disruptions and boost performance and employee motivation as a result.
Ways to Manage Performance in Disruptive Workspaces
You should note that every disruptive situation that arises should be handled in a case-by-case style. Sometimes depending on an employee’s situation, you might have to make some exceptions concerning discipline.
Your employees are people just like you and sometimes they just need some extra help or a quick listening ear before any performance judgments are made.
When it comes to the disruptive issues of gossip, inappropriate comments, and interruptive conversations, the best thing that you can do to manage these performance disruptions is to work with your HR department to create fair and justified means of discipline depending on the severity of the disruptions. Sometimes it might be a warning with a corrective conversation, other times it might be best to consider employee termination.
Regardless of the disruption, make sure to document everything whenever these disruptions occur in the workspace, for your safety and your employee’s safety as well.
- Providing guidance training courses might be necessary as they provide great ways to not only have disruptive employees sign and document any corrections and discipline required but it also gives them the means to correct their actions so it doesn’t happen again.
- Saying it once again just so it doesn’t get forgotten, document everything. From the initial occurrence of the disruption to the corrective action decided upon in the months following the incident showing whether or not the disruptive employee has changed or not.
- Provide counseling options to employees who are struggling with their personal life issues that are bleeding over into their work performance. This may be more beneficial for them and for the company in the long term rather than just giving some sort of discouraging warning of possible termination.
Disruptions happen all the time in the workplace and they can easily affect everyone’s performance levels. It’s your job to be able to discern the severity of the disruptions and to manage them in the best way possible which results in better employee motivation which will increase their performance and still allows them to get their monthly paystubs.
