What To Do About Personal Drama In An Agency – Job Performance
You’ve probably been in this situation at your agency before: someone is going through a personal drama, and they’ve brought it into work. It’s one thing to share personal information with one another in a healthy and pleasant way in an agency, but it’s another thing when a personal drama takes away from work.
“Personal matters should not and cannot impact an agency in that way, especially when it comes to goals. And so, as an agency owner, as someone in an agency, a manager or something to that effect, I think we need to focus and concentrate on performance, over personal matters.”
Today’s topic is all about how this sort of personal drama can impact job performance in an agency.
When someone is going through a divorce, family illness, death in the family, or something with their kids, it can be a lot for someone to deal with. But ultimately, it can also clog up an agency’s performance, and it could be something that causes the agency not to perform at its highest level.
While life can be tough, personal matters should not and cannot be impacting an agency in this way, especially when it comes to goals and metrics.
Performance Over Personal Matters
We get it: it can be difficult when someone is going through something. But how do we know when an employee is simply bringing too much of their personal drama into the workplace?
When it starts to impact performance.
That’s right. As an agency owner, manager, or other leaders, we all need to focus on performance over personal matters.
Let’s look at it this way: we’re all going to go through something at one point or another. But we need to learn to check our personal matters at the door.
It’s the same thing with our kids. If they have drama at school or something else, and they have a bad attitude when they come to the dinner table, you can encourage them to leave their matters at the door, and pick it back up later. We don’t need that attitude right now at dinner, and we can handle it another time.
The Difficult Realities
Of course, we know checking your drama at the door can be difficult, and easier said than done sometimes. That’s especially the case when people feel like their work is their “family” in a sense, and that when they get to work, they have an opportunity to get it all out.
The thing is, work really is not the time to air that laundry and talk about those things. That’s what lunch breaks are for, what happy hours are for, and other places like that.
The reality of life is that it can be difficult, and your people might be tempted to take those difficulties to work with them. But managers and leaders need to be directing those people in these situations.
There’s also the option for a day off. This might be the best option if someone really needs to take care of their personal business, such as going to court, the hospital, or taking care of something with the kids.
But either way, these can be tough conversations to have with your people. What’s the best way you can handle it?
By using metrics to back up your argument.
The Power of Performance
When you have an employee going through a personal drama, it can be a very delicate situation to deal with. But the best way to take care of it, with no feelings involved and no emotions as a manager, is to use metrics to show people what’s going on.
You can sit your employee down and say: “Hey, it looks like you’re pretty backlogged on your activities.”
Or: “I see your email count is going up, have you noticed this happening?”
When everything is in the management system, you can draw on that during your conversations.
If performance is suffering, then that personal drama becomes a big work issue. And if an employee going through something is always in the hallway talking at the water cooler, and their work is suffering, then this situation definitely needs to be addressed.
As leaders, we should be keeping track of goals. And if one employee who was previously crushing their goals is now experiencing a personal matter, and their work is suffering, you can sit that persona down and remind them of their goals.
You can say; “Hey listen, there’s an incentive at the end of this goal. You set this goal for yourself, let’s make sure we stay focused on it and leave those personal matters at the door.”
Work as a Healthy Escape
If you notice one of your employees is really struggling with a personal drama, you can remind them that there is actually a huge upside to leaving their drama at the door.
They can use work as an escape from their struggle, as a break from the drama.
Try saying this if you find yourself in this situation with an employee:
“Hey, let’s get away from the personal matters. Let’s come in, let’s dive into work, and really focus on taking care of our customers first. Let’s make sure we get this task done.”
Because it’s true. When we’re going through a bad situation or a struggle in our personal lives, focusing on work isn’t only good for performance. It’s also good for taking a mental break from the intensity.
For eight hours during the workday, someone can simply be focused at work, instead of what’s going on at home.
Redirecting Your People
It’s never easy to go through a personal drama, and of course, they can be very traumatic and difficult. But if your agency’s performance is suffering, something needs to change.
Managers also might find themselves in more of a “therapist” role, where people come in and dump their problems on them.
While this can be difficult, leaders need to set their boundaries and redirect their people to the right resources.
For example, maybe that employee should really be talking to a counselor, therapist, or spiritual mentor.
At the end of the day, personal matters shouldn’t be impacting performance, and metrics are the best way of showing your people just how much their work is suffering.
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