He said/She said, confronting an employee based on another employees story

[Ijustwantausername]

How do you go about talking to an employee about performance issues when their crew member tells on them?

Confront the one together or separate?

New employee today mentioned several things that a veteran employee is doing that is hurting productivity, and a few other unrelated issues. I have heard some of the issues before from past employees but it wasn't a big enough complaint or brought up enough to warrant approaching the veteran.

Now after hearing it again I need to have a talk with him. Since he has been with me the longest (3) years and helped me get to where I am today I admit I have played favorites, my bad. The veteran may sense that and is probably getting comfortable.

How would you begin the conversation?

 

[dKoester]

Have a meeting with all of your teams together. Go over some items that need to be addressed. Be positive and remind your teams about the core values you stand for and ask your teams to do there best work.

 

[Trees Too]

Have a meeting with all of your teams together. Go over some items that need to be addressed. Be positive and remind your teams about the core values you stand for and ask your teams to do their best work.

Agree, to the extent that you don't need to create animosity/angst by putting the offending employee on BLAST with "so-and-so tattled on you!"

 

[Youngandfree]

I agree with the above, have a team meeting and emphasize what you need done in a way that doesn't single one person out.

 

[Jeff@diyokc]

First of all, I would observe for myself what the issues are, trust but verify. For all you know, you may have a personality conflict with these two.

second, your correct, your own admission of “ playing favorites” has now come back to haunt you.

third, not a fan of the group “ talk”. It’s like your avoiding the issue in some passive aggressive way of dealing with this one person.

finally, your own admitted avoidance of the past employee identified issues has come about. If similar issues brought to you by current/ former employees have gone unresolved, then how is some group meeting going to change that.

as I stated in the beginning, you need to observe and correct behavior once brought to your attention.

 

[Trees Too]

..........
third, not a fan of the group “ talk”. It’s like your avoiding the issue in some passive aggressive way of dealing with this one person. .....

This would be only the 1st step. If the problems persists. (once they've been confirmed), then pull the offending employee into the office for a closed-door talk.

 

[rclawn]

Is this guy a veteran from serving our country, or are you calling him a veteran after 3 years? If the latter, that’s the problem. He probably knows you view him as such, and he is complacent.