8 Chapter 8: Corporate Policy and Practice
Speaking to employees and being spoken to as an employee can be difficult. There are many things that work in these types of technical communication. There are high stakes exchanges in which we expect everyone to adhere to the institution’s set hierarchy, but which can be challenging, especially when you have just graduated from or are still enrolled in university.
In this chapter and in the corresponding assignment we want to practice delivering difficult news to employees. This is the type of difficult news which needs to be delivered verbally and which hopefully will help you to set up a better relationship with the employee for the future. These are not the types of situations at which an employee is fired. Those employment ending conversations are indeed very important – however the stakes are not nearly as high because in a speech when an employee is to be fired the result is already set. At the end of the speech, they will no longer be employed by the organization. In this chapter and assignment, we have given you trickier situations in which the employee has broken a regulation in your organization. They may have been tardy to work or have been making jokes that make people feel uncomfortable. They have been breaking the dress codes and turning in their assignments late. All of these situations require corrective action. It is important when delivering that corrective action that you speak in a way that lets the employee understand the seriousness of their violation while also inspires them to improve their behavior.
One way to deliver this type of feedback is known as the sandwich method. In this method you want to deliver good news or established goodwill with the individual. You then provide critical feedback – perhaps the thing that they’ve done wrong. The difficulty at this moment is calmly describing the behavior that you have seen or that has been reported to you. You might also include information about why the employee needs to improve at this particular moment. This reasoning could be that there’s a promotion coming up, that layoffs are looming, or that other employees have complained. Whatever the case might be, highlight that they can and should improve their behavior and work. Then end with a positive note complete the sandwich by indicating that you look forward to working with them in the future. Make sure to emphasize that you’re glad that you were able to talk. If possible, end with an individual connection such as mentioning an upcoming event or wishing the employee a nice weekend.
Using the sandwich method is helpful because it starts off the meeting on a positive note. Being called on to speak with the superior is seldom an exciting moment in an employee’s life. Oftentimes, that employee knows that they are in trouble for something. They might know why they have been called, but sometimes they have absolutely no idea. This unknown situation can create an anxiety ridden meeting. Opening with a nice soft welcoming comment can help to make the entire conversation more successful. This comment also allows the employee to know that you have seen and appreciate their work. You might applaud your employee for a great report turned in last week. Or say “I’ve been so happy to see the ways in which you’ve innovated our Friday programs.” Beginning on a positive note lets the employee relax, even just a little bit. When they know that they’re not about to get fired, but are still in trouble, they can focus on what you are asking them to do. And you’ll prevent them from immediately arguing with you.
When moving on to the critical part of this discussion, the middle of the sandwich, you want to make sure that your words stick. Think of this as the peanut butter part of the sandwich and make your words sticky by being short, concise, and professional. Think about the difference between the two different statements addressing an employee’s tardiness:
“I wanted to let you know that we’ve been a little bit concerned about the ways in which you’ve come into work it’s not always exactly at the start of the day it seems like there might be some problems or perhaps you don’t understand the importance of being on time and maybe that’s why you haven’t been able to be here on time for the last couple of days…..”
“This meeting was called to inform you that you have been tardy 6 out of the last 10 days of work”
The tone and the verbiage of these two statements is incredibly different. The first statement makes it seem as though the speaker is uncomfortable that they have to speak to the employee at all. They are making apologies and providing excuses the employee. In the first statement it feels like the manager has been forced to have this discussion with the employee. The risk in delivering this kind of speech is that the employee will not see their tardiness as a problem.
The second statement is direct. “You have been tardy a certain number of times.” In this statement, the opinions and the reasoning of the manager are not apparent. The manager is simply the messenger who is reporting the tardiness of the employee. This gives space for the employee to then to respond and give their own excuse or reasoning. They might apologize. Or they might otherwise justify or acknowledge their tardiness.
Depending on the response given by the employee, the manager might ask follow-up questions. They might offer a different schedule to accommodate a transportation problem. In some workspaces managers are very helpful in this situation. In many workplaces, at least those experienced by your authors the manager may simply say “fix it.”
Ending a meeting in which, the manager has simply said “fix it,” may indeed be successful in delivering the message that the tardiness needs to end. However, it may not develop the openness and perhaps the professional compassion which would encourage the employee to approach their manager if they had a problem in the future. Therefore, by using the sandwich method we can end with a nice squishy fluffy sweet piece of bread on the bottom of our sandwich-built statement. The statement need not be long. It can simply be something along the lines of, “I do look forward to working with you in the years to come. Feel free to reach out if you ever have any questions or concerns.”
From the Employees Perspective
In the classroom exercise, we will provide everyone in the class the opportunity to roleplay as the manager delivering this difficult news, and also to be an employee receiving difficult news. While there are many laws labor practices regulating what a manager can and should say, there are not nearly as many regulating the employee. This lack of regulation is in part because it is the manager’s job to report tardiness – this is a quick and easy thing to do. You only need to count the days that a person was on time or was late. But for the employee, the reasons why they were late are so many and varied that it is difficult to give precise directions for each of them. What we can provide, however, is a general guide to professional behavior when receiving critical feedback.
Take Notes
When receiving critical feedback, taking notes is always an acceptable course of action. There is no harm in saying to a manager, “I just want to make sure I understand corporate policy. Let me make a note of it.” If you do not have paper or a pen with you during the meeting, or you forget to do so during a meeting, following up with an e-mail which says “just to confirm based on our meeting which we had yesterday, you would like me to do the following,” is a great course of action. This type of written documentation shows the manager that you are taking their words to heart. It demonstrates that have listened and understood what they have said. And it also provides you the employee with documentation if the employer is doing something illegal, if they are breaking corporate policy, or if they go back and change their mind later and try to claim that you have acted inappropriately based on directions which they had given to you.
Determine the appropriate eye contact
Eye contact is a difficult element of professional and public speaking. In some cultures, it is inappropriate for a younger person to make direct eye contact with someone that is older than them. In other cultures, eye contact is not made between people of different genders or classes. In the workplace, however, these rules are sometimes overruled by professional expectations. And then other times even in places where direct eye contact is encouraged and expected the person receiving critical feedback may choose to look at the floor. At other times, you might not want to make direct eye contact with the person who is delivering negative news. Thinking about eye contact in these situations is important because not making eye contact when you are expected to do so can make you seem guilty or ashamed. Alternatively, demanding direct eye contact either from a manager or an employee’s perspective may make an employee or a manager feel exceptionally awkward or uncomfortable.
Deciding between written and verbal feedback
Delivering in negative professional feedback sometimes is less awkward for the manager. Think about this for yourself. If you have to tell somebody that they’ve broken a rule, would you rather do it to their face or would you like to be able to send an e-mail? Many people may choose the e-mail. You can make sure that your word choice is perfect. You can provide backup evidence if anyone ever asks for a specific time and date of what you said. And you have a firm written record of what you have said.
However, think about the ways in which you receive feedback. Would you rather receive the feedback through an e-mail or in person? You may not have yet had to experience this at work, but you might have experienced this type of feedback at school or university. If you’re worried about your grade, you might approach your professor and ask them how you are doing in their class. In asking them you might explain a little bit about yourself or otherwise work to gain the sympathy of your professor. This works well in person as you can build an individual relationship with the professor and cause them to be sympathetic to your case. In this situation you are drawing explicitly on pathos. Pathos, however, is much harder to establish in a written context. Something that you wanted to come off as feeling sympathetic might come off as cliche or snarky or otherwise inappropriate. It will be hard to explain or to interpret the meaning of it a narrative that is full of pathos. Also, it can be hard to determine exactly when that e-mail will be received by the person it is sent to. And it will be hard to determine the ways in which the recipient will understand and respond to the feedback which they have received. It is for these reasons that when given the option, we strongly suggest having a verbal discussion with employees even though sometimes it is slightly more awkward for the person delivering the news. The outcomes are almost always much better leading to a correction of the behavior which started the whole need for this exercise.
Bringing a witness
In the scenario where a manager is providing critical feedback to an employee, it sometimes is important for both the manager and the employee to have someone else in the room. Or to ask someone else to paying attention to the conversation via zoom. The second person might be another manager, or someone higher up on a hierarchy at an organization, or a union representative. The rights of the employee to have someone else in the room will vary from organization to organization. And when being hired by a new organization it is important to understand what your rights are. It is far easier to do that research when you’ve just been hired and are not in trouble yet, then to find yourself in a difficult conversation with your manager wondering if you should have brought someone else to help you to hear your perspective or otherwise document what is happening.
But why would you bring another person into these conversations? Sometimes an additional person is needed to provide information about the context in which something is happened. They may be acting as a witness, they may be somebody who has worked through a similar situation, or someone that can help. When acting as a witness they are there to ensure and that the conversation happened as it was intended. This is especially important if the manager worries that the employee may negatively respond. These negative reactions might take the form of yelling, of a threat or actualization of physical violence, or the implication and a verbal or physical assault. When you are delivering negative feedback to an employee, and are worried about how that employee might respond, it is always helpful to have someone else in the room who you trust. Additionally, if you are worried that the employee might lie about what you have said, it is always important to have somebody else in the room and potentially to record the conversation.
As an employee it can also be helpful to have somebody else in the room. Union representatives, (if you are part of a union) can be called upon for meetings between an employee and a manager to make sure that the employee’s rights are respected by the organization. Frequently an organization has many rules which the employee might not individually be aware of, but the union representative has been specifically trained to protect. Demanding that those rights are respected is the role of the union representative. But even if you’re not represented by a union, it can be acceptable to ask another employee to step into a meeting. You may choose to do so if you are physically uncomfortable being in room alone with a supervisor or a manager. Or if a manager is known to say something one day and change their mind completely the next day. In this case a second person can be helpful to ensure that you understood what the manager would like you to do and that you are acting in accordance with their most recent request.
