‘Can I actually say that?’ It’s a question many managers ask when faced with difficult conversations about sickness absence, performance or employee behaviour. Even with clear HR policies and procedures in place, managers can find themselves worrying about saying the wrong thing.
So how can we help leaders feel more confident having those tricky conversations, whilst ensuring they’re handling them fairly, sensitively and effectively?
So how can we help leaders feel more confident having those tricky conversations, whilst ensuring they’re handling them fairly, sensitively and effectively?
A couple of recent conversations with HR professionals raised a common issue this week around a dilemma experienced by managers at all levels.
What you can and can’t say in a work-based conversation.
The question of “Can I say that?” is usually asked in relation to something like managing sickness absence. A classic example is that managers don’t think they’re entitled to ask the reason for the person’s sickness absence.
(SPOILER ALERT! Yes, then can, but with limitations…)
They can for example, reasonably ask:
(SPOILER ALERT! Yes, then can, but with limitations…)
They can for example, reasonably ask:
- The reason for the absence – e.g. whether the employee is experiencing an illness, injury or other health-related issue.
- How long they expect to be absent – To help plan workloads and cover.
- Whether they have sought medical advice – Particularly if the absence is likely to be prolonged.
- Whether the illness affects their ability to work – Including whether adjustments might help them return.
- Whether the absence might be work-related – For example, stress, workload or a workplace injury.
What they can’t reasonably ask, is the person’s full medical history, or go into unnecessary detail about the sickness or the person’s personal circumstances.
This is relatively easy to resolve by ensuring your setting or organisation has clear, concise policies and procedures. Well written ones give everyone guidance and confidence, whether they’re dealing with sickness absence, managing a sexual harassment complaint or managing performance issues.
In my experience however, this is usually a 2-fold issue:
This is relatively easy to resolve by ensuring your setting or organisation has clear, concise policies and procedures. Well written ones give everyone guidance and confidence, whether they’re dealing with sickness absence, managing a sexual harassment complaint or managing performance issues.
In my experience however, this is usually a 2-fold issue:
- Managers need clear and practical policies and procedures to refer to.
- Managers need the confidence, vocabulary and toolkit to initiate and manage the conversation well.
The problem is that getting the first part right doesn’t automatically solve the second. We can have beautiful, compliant, word-perfect policies that any HR team would be proud of, but still have leaders who lack the confidence and skills to put them into practice.
This lack of confidence leaves leaders and managers at all levels feeling a sense of jeopardy in their role. Like they’re walking a virtual tightrope when it comes to managing performance in their teams.
This can result in:
- A decline in performance within staff teams.
- A lack of understanding about what ‘good’ looks like and what to do if standards aren’t met.
- A reduction in trust at all levels, resulting in increased conflict and behaviour issues within teams.
- Increased stress for leaders who don’t know how to fix the problem.
- Pressures on budgets from staff turnover and sickness absence.
So the answer isn’t so much ‘WHAT’ you can say, but more ‘HOW’ you should say it – AND what you say or do next.
It’s one thing to be able to tell line managers they can and should ask the reason for someone’s sickness, or account for why they acted in a certain way. It’s entirely another to start that conversation and do so in a way that gets a good result and leaves everyone feeling OK afterwards.
It’s impossible to provide leaders with a script for every eventuality. Even if we could, there are many reasons I’d never advise this, including that this depersonalises the issue and results in a lack of trust.
That’s why I advise my clients they can’t really plan or control a conversation beyond the opening sentence. People are unpredictable. If you ask a question, you can’t know for sure what the answer will be or how the person will respond. The fear of the unknown here is often what prevents a manager or leader from even starting the conversation.
It’s impossible to provide leaders with a script for every eventuality. Even if we could, there are many reasons I’d never advise this, including that this depersonalises the issue and results in a lack of trust.
That’s why I advise my clients they can’t really plan or control a conversation beyond the opening sentence. People are unpredictable. If you ask a question, you can’t know for sure what the answer will be or how the person will respond. The fear of the unknown here is often what prevents a manager or leader from even starting the conversation.
So what can you do?
In order to get the best outcome from a situation, we should employ a somewhat counter-intuitive approach, which is where possible to take a coaching approach to the conversation.
This means:
This means:
- Being clear about the purpose and desired outcome from the conversation.
- Asking questions to find out more.
- Listening to the answers – I mean really listening, so you understand.
- Taking a problem-solving approach to fix the situation.
To finish, here’s a coaching question:
On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being ‘not at all’ and 10 being ‘always’) how often do you implement the above four points in your conversations? What about the other leaders in your setting or organisation – at all levels?
By Karen Amos – Founder and Executive Coach – BrightBird Coaching & Training
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