Lazy Doesn't Matter

Transcription Do you have lazy staff? I know it’s pretty common to think that you do. I hear about “lazy” staff every time I do a frontline supervisor training. Lazy. Here for the wrong reasons. Don’t care. Basically broken humans beyond repair. But they just keep showing up to the job. Supervisors and managers feel frustrated, angry, and stuck. In the meantime, work is not getting done. Compliance isn’t happening. And most importantly, the precious minutes of the lives of the individuals you serve are slipping by. Those individuals are not getting the services they’re supposed to be getting, and they aren’t living the lives they want to be living. Welcome to the Provider Power Moves Podcast. I am your host, Sara Sherman. Here, I leverage my 35 years of experience in the field to give you practical steps that create big results in your agency and in your workday. This episode is brought to you by TrueLink. TrueLink partners with hundreds of IDD organizations nationwide to streamline how clients receive and use their funds. Many programs still rely on paper checks, cash, and manual receipts — which creates risk and makes audits difficult. The TrueLink platform replaces that entire process with reloadable Visa debit cards, built-in spend controls, and audit-ready reporting. TrueLink keeps clients safer, gives staff back valuable time, and provides clear visibility into every transaction. If your organization is interested in learning more, check the show notes for contact information. What if I told you that you wouldn’t recognize lazy if you were looking at it — and that it didn’t matter anyway? Would you believe me? Let me ask you this. How do you un-lazy someone? You can’t, can you? And that’s the beauty of judging someone’s character and giving them a negative assessment. There’s nothing more to do. The verdict is in. The staff are lazy, and you’re stuck with them. It’s kind of like saying, I just washed my hair and I can’t do a thing with it. You’ve judged them, and now you’re absolved of any further obligation to address the situation. I mean, what could you possibly do about someone who has decided to be lazy? Sure — these are people who have managed to find housing, drive and maintain a car, shower, have clothing, feed themselves, and often raise children, maintain relationships, and even attend college or have another job. But once they get to work, it all falls apart. It’s very frustrating when staff are not completing their work — or aren’t completing their work without a lot of nagging, reminding, and accommodating. Because supervisors tend to be diligent employees, they don’t understand this behavior. They can’t figure it out. So they’ve decided the problem must be a character flaw — and that character flaw is being lazy. The truth is, we don’t know if they’re lazy or not. What we do know is that they aren’t doing their work. When I hear staff say people are lazy, I ask this question: What is it that you see that is leading you to conclude that the staff are lazy? Let me ask it again. What is it that you see that is leading you to conclude that the staff are lazy? Here’s what I hear when I ask that question. They don’t take people on outings. They’re on their phones. They don’t interact with individuals. They’re visiting with each other. They don’t document. They don’t clean. They don’t cook. Wonderful. Why wonderful? Because we can work with this list. You’re not going to un-lazy someone, but you can address the fact that they’re on their cell phone. You can help someone figure out how to interact more with the individuals they serve. And because this list is specific, you can coach and correct on these topics. You can track performance expectations. You can move through corrective action procedures if staff decide they’re not going to be receptive to coaching. All of a sudden, lazy doesn’t matter. The truth is, these staff could be the most ambitious people on the planet. Unfortunately, they are not executing their tasks. Once you define the behaviors that need to change, you can have a specific conversation about expectations. You can complete skills-based training. You can create performance measures. You can track to those measures and have performance-based feedback conversations. You can identify barriers to success and seek to eliminate those barriers. And you can evaluate progression toward working independently — or toward working somewhere else. Now everything has shifted to the supervisor. It’s all about the supervisor’s actions and the staff person’s response to those actions. Instead of feeling helpless, the supervisor is now actively driving performance correction — and is completely responsible for doing so. That’s right. Monitoring performance and taking the necessary steps to move performance in the correct direction is the supervisor’s responsibility. No more feeling stuck and powerless. The key here is to define and address behavior, with the goal that staff do their work correctly, on time, and independently. So, what do you think? Did I convince you that lazy doesn’t matter? And do you now understand that in order to resolve performance issues, we have to focus on the concrete behavior patterns of our staff? What do you think? Leave me a comment, or shoot me an email at Sara — (S-A-R-A) — [email protected] . That’s in the show notes. Or ask me a question. I’d love to hear what’s on your mind and turn it into a podcast to give you the answers you’re seeking. Until next time — power on.