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CONDUCTING THE COUNSELING SESSION

Assuming you have completed the four steps listed above, you are now ready to call the employee in and conduct a counseling session. How you conduct the session itself will determine in large part how successful you are in getting the employee to correct the problem behavior. As we said previously, you have to turn the session into a training session, not a control-oriented confrontation. Here's how you do that.

Counseling Step One: Get Agreement That A Problem Exists
Your first task in a counseling session is to get the employee to admit that he has a problem that is affecting his performance or the job. Let's take the example of Tom, who had not been performing the preventive maintenance on his equipment. Your opening might go something like this:

You: Hello, Tom. Have a seat. Tom, do you know why I wanted to talk with you? (You check to see if he understands that a problem exists. If he does, you can move on to step two.)

TOM: No.

You: Well, I've been checking the maintenance logs and I noticed that you haven't shut your machine down for the scheduled maintenance for the last six months. You can see right here (show log) there aren't any entries. (You pinpoint the problem and share the facts.)

TOM: Uh - well, we've been so busy and I thought it was more important to get the work out. (Perhaps Tom doesn't understand the expectations or why the preventive maintenance is so important.)

You: Well, it is important to get the work out, but you know that machine cost us over $100,000, and it won't keep producing the quality our customers expect if it isn't maintained. Also, we have a pretty expensive maintenance agreement on that equipment and it isn't valid if we don't complete the scheduled maintenance. We could end up with some expensive repairs. (You empathize with Tom's concern for production and then explain the expectations and why they are important to the company.)

TOM: I see. But I don't see any of the other guys doing all that maintenance Anyway, nobody told me we had to do it any special time, and I don't know why we should have to it anyway. We've got stuff to get out. It looks like to me they ought to build these things so you wouldn't have to stop them all the time to do every little thing to them. I got a buddy over at XYZ Company and he says they've got that new Model 40 you don't ever have to shut down" (Watch it here! Tom's getting off the point. He says the other guys aren't doing it so why should he be singled out? Anyway, he says, nobody told him it was that important. And the problem is the kind of machine, not what he is failing to do.  You've got to address each of these to move ahead.)

You: Well. Tom, it's not really true that the other guys aren't doing the maintenance. I checked the logs on all the machines, and while I'll admit some of the guys aren't meeting the maintenance scheduled like they should, yours has gone the longest without a shutdown for maintenance.  I'm going to talk with them also, but here I want to focus on your machine. Now, you say you weren't told about the maintenance? Well, I thought we had given everybody a copy of the maintenance schedule. I'm sorry if you didn't get one. Here, I've got one you can have. (Give it to him.)  Also, I know that Model 40 is a good machine. We looked into it, but we just can't afford it right now. I guess we're just going to have to keep the ones we have running a little longer. What do you think? (Show you listened and address his concerns, but get back on the point. The point is Tom performing the required maintenance on his machine.)

TOM: Well, I guess we ought to do the maintenance if that's what we have to do.

You: Good!

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