Unpleasant as it may be, this has happened for sure to a lot of you. You have a colleague not doing his job and sometimes your work depends on his. Not nice, right? What to do then? Go to the manager? Eventually yes, but you don't want to. You don't want them to see you complaining or you want to go there with some solutions, not only the problem...Here are a few more things you can do in the meantime...
-Organize informal team buildings (evenings or week-ends out in the city, out of the city somewhere or even during a break at the office)- invite everybody in the team, including the colleague we are talking about and try to talk about the job and personal life if they are willing to share; see what he tells the rest - if he didn't perform well at all, maybe he lacks training and he needs help from the rest of you (some people are shy or a bit vain and refuse to admit that they need help); if his performance changed in time, maybe he has a personal problem, maybe he has motivation issues, maybe he no longer likes the job or no longer feels professional satisfaction doing it; just talk to each other and find out what's wrong; there may be something that can be fixed without the help of the manager;
Here's what you can find out as a result:
- A personal problem is involved, try to help if possible; if not, try to understand for a while longer;
- A job problem is involved - see if you, your colleagues or your manager can help - if yes, propose to your colleagues or your manager trainings, help, meetings or whatever necessary;
- Your colleague is just lazy...then...
- Talk to him directly in a private meeting; tell him how this is affecting your work and this is not fair; your results and the team results depend on his performance; keep a professional approach; if this doesn't work...
- Talk to him directly in a public environment; involve some of your other colleagues and remind him how his job is connected to the team's and how his performance can affect all of you; give him examples of work not done; keep a professional approach; if this still doesn't work...
- Display his lack of performance publicly; see if there's a project both of you can split; do your part, present it publicly and let him embarrasse himself in front of the others; instead or after this you can...
- Go to the manager; this should work in the end or if you prefer this as your first and only step, go ahead; your manager should know what to do - training, meetings, assisning a mentor or simply disciplinary action.
Thanks and I hope you have as little colleagues of this kind as possible.
Take care,
Geo