What to do when you have an unhappy employee on your team

Each of these situations has a wildly different path that you would take to adjust things, and that’s why we have to ask specifically like, well, how does that show up for you? Because if we make assumptions about what we think it is, We’re often totally wrong. Welcome to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager from conflicts to feedback, to delegating and more.

We will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing, kind of hate it and everything in between. Doesn’t matter if you’re a new manager looking for some tips or a seasoned manager looking up their game. Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. Welcome back to the show and it’s Sunday. So we are back with another edition of Sunday Scaries. Today’s topic is what to do when you have a team member who is really unhappy in their role.

You’ve talked about it. They’ve brought it up a few times. They’re feeling really stuck and frustrated. And yeah, this will set up some, some, some Sunday scaries when it feels like, ugh, here we go again. I gotta have this conversation. I gotta figure out what this person wants to do. And when this kind of thing is giving you Sunday scaries, I think it’s an opportunity to actually have a level setting conversation with this team member. I kind of see it as two different paths we could go with this team member.

When you have a team member who is really unhappy, there’s option one, which is helping them figure out what they need to do to make this role that they’re in better. So maybe it’s kind of shifting around some of the work, getting them a little bit of support and coaching, getting them, if they feel like there’s a skill gap, maybe there’s some professional development or option two is to help them figure out what’s their path to the next thing.

And this is something that I think can be really scary for us as managers. It can be overwhelming to think about, well, I don’t wanna help this person find their next job. I need them here. But if they’re really unhappy, they’re not giving their all, there’s gonna be a lot of kinda lost productivity. Oftentimes it can start to drag down the team. So the best option is to help that person find their next thing. So let’s talk about what Option One looks like helping to improve the current situation while using the coaching skills.

The things that we’ve talked a lot about on this, on this podcast. Figuring out what actually is wrong, but without problem solving, without jumping in like, Hey, I think this would be a good thing to do. Actually stopping listening and letting that person share what actually is going on. Let’s say you, you went to your team member and you said, Hey, I’ve been sensing you’re not that happy in the role. Maybe they’ve said that to you.

They’ve said, yeah, I feel like, you know, I wanna be doing more to use our coaching skills, our open-ended questions. And to say, okay, I hear you saying you’re feeling stalker, frustrated. What does that feel like to you? How does that show up? I wanna make sure I understand it. And just by saying it in this way, you are showing you’re really, you’re open to hearing more, you’re open to learning more. And I think that actually already starts that conversation in a very different place than, well, this is your job.

Uh, suck it up, deal with it. Because that’s, I think what someone might be worried that their manager’s gonna say. So if you approach this option one where you’re trying to make the situation better, and frankly, we usually start with option one, and we only go to option two about helping them find the next thing when we’ve fully exhausted option one. But let’s say we were, we say, Hey, you know, what does it look like to be frustrated?

And that team member says, well, I, you know, I really don’t get along with Sarah where we’re having this situation every single day, versus if that team member says, I feel like this is just, it’s not a fit. You know, I’m working on sales and my passion really is design, and it just doesn’t, it doesn’t go together. So I think it’s actually, it’s, it’s the role itself. Or they say, Ugh, I wanted to be in this company so bad.

I believe in the mission. I believe in what we’re doing, and I just feel like I’m not good enough. I don’t feel like I’m ever getting things right. You see, each of these situations has a wildly different path that you would take to adjust things. And that’s why we have to ask specifically, like, well, well, how does that show up for you? Because if we make assumptions about what we think it is, we’re often totally wrong, right?

Like that’s, we think what, what we, what we mean when we say frustrated, we think what we mean, how when we feel stuck, why that would be, and we’re missing the point. So if the person’s having an issue with a colleague, that’s one path to having sort of resolution through that if there’s a skill gap, right? And the third thing I said where they feel like they’re not, not good enough, they’re not getting it. Then you can find them a mentor or a coach, or help them develop some skills.

Or if it’s that second one where they’re saying, my heart’s not in it, I really don’t like what I’m doing. That’s where you go into the option two. We don’t know if it’s not time to help them find another role if we haven’t first diagnosed it. You know, if we know what, what the gap is and what’s causing that frustration, now we can work through it. Now we’ve taken a frustrated employee to someone that’s actually telling us what they need, and now we can work through it there, right?

We can help resolve that conflict, get them the, the training, the skills, whatever it is. Now, let’s say we go to option two. The person says, you know what? My heart’s not in it, or I, I just, this isn’t, this doesn’t feel like a fit. We don’t have to try to push them back into option one. We’re like, no, no, I’ll try to make it better. I think it’s important to do that for a little bit of time as a manager to say, Hey, I see a lot of potential in you.

I know there’s a lot we can still do here. That’s awesome to try. But I think after a certain amount of time, it’s really important to recognize if someone’s not a fit, they’re not gonna be happy. They’re not gonna bring their best to the team, and it’s ultimately gonna cost you time and energy and money as a business. It’s especially true if you have a small team that when someone’s really not into it, every single person represents maybe like 20% of the whole company.

If you have five people and one person’s not into it, this is a huge, huge weight on the company that’s being taken down. We wanna make sure that we are helping that person find their next thing. See that? Okay. We’re totally no hard feelings. I’m support you. Let’s find that. And then I think it makes sense to kind of make that transition pretty quickly because when someone says they’re kind of out, they’re likely mentally checked out and once they’ve had that conversation with you, they know that, you know that they’re kind of done.

They’re pretty much finished. Okay. In their mind, they’re like basically end of senior year in high school, like checked out even our star, star 10 X employees when they’ve kind of said, I think I’m ready to go. I do feel like you see a performance dip and it’s not, you know, it’s nobody’s fault, but they’ve literally said, I’m done with this. So it’s important to figure out what’s that transition plan pretty quickly. And again, this is not saying how dare you, you’re not loyal saying, okay, cool, I support you.

Let’s find that next thing. And even if you say, Hey, I, I really, you know, can you help me through the busy season, the next three months? Setting a timeframe for that exit plan that also can help you kind of keep, keep that momentum high and that engagement up even while someone is figuring out their next thing. So I think that’s another thing that can work too, is saying, Hey, if I really need this person for, you know, four weeks or, or two months or whatever, mutually agreeing with that, really kind of tuning into what is that person saying?

What’s their body language? Are they saying, yeah, like, that’s totally fine, or I want to be doing this transition, whatever it is. Setting that up and having a clear finish line so that both you can move on and start hiring and that person knows like you have this mutual agreement. Those are my tips for how you handle this. Sunday scares around, I have this employee that’s frustrated. They don’t wanna be here. I don’t know what to do about it.

We do these two options. Option one is figure out, is there something that can be fixed here? And we gotta diagnose that by using our coaching questions of what does that look like to you? How is that showing up for you? What’s that feeling like? So we really understand where the frustration is and if it’s something that’s fixable and if it’s not, then talking about how you can support them through that exit plan. Is there anything that they need from you to find that next role?

Any way you can support them? And then figuring out what is that off-ramp timeline, and just rolling with it. And one thing to add before we wrap is all of this is tied in that framing of you’ve already set expectations. People understand what the role is, what success looks like, how they grow and advance in the team. Because sometimes actually why someone’s frustrating is because they actually don’t know how to be successful. So they don’t know if they have a career path.

This is why I talk about this in the Ops Playbook program, where I sit down with a business owner and we map out really clearly, you know, how do we set expectations? How do we set priorities and communicate changes and priorities? How are decisions made? What does career growth look like? What does success look like? Because if we haven’t started with that, oftentimes we see that’s actually what people are frustrated about and that’s why they wanna leave as a reminder to you to look inward as well as you’re having these conversations think, Hmm, have I made it really clear here how to be successful?

Am I creating a sense of a moving target? Because that can cause some of this frustration, and that’s also something that can be fixed. You might be have an employee that’s in that option too. Like, no, I’m outta here. And actually by fine tuning and, and outlining a couple of these simple processes, you can reengage your employees overall. That’s why I do that with companies, because a lot of times we see it was the lack of clarity that created some of that disengagement.

That created some of that feeling like, well, I don’t see what the point of this is, so I’m outta here and making that shift that reengages someone altogether. If you wanna learn more about the ops playbook and how to bring that kind of clarity to your company, send me a message at [email protected] and let’s dive in. See you next time. That’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at liagarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.