The employee’s goals at my company stay pretty constant. However, there is a temporary situation where the team members have to take a significant amount of additional training for a few months which hinders their ability to meet all of their standard goals and this frustrates them. In many cases, they are put in a position where they have to decide what they are not going to do. This situation is coming pretty fast so there will not be perfect planning or a perfect solution.
These situations have occurred periodically in my career and I would like to explain how I deal with them. I like to refer to the joke you can wish in one hand and S*** in the other and see which one fills up first. There is no way we can make everything perfect in this situation (this is going to suck for everyone) and some goals will not be met. It is management’s responsibility to deal with this, avoid unrealistic expectations, and make sure employees feel safe. Here is some guidance I have been providing my team members.
- We must be comfortable going with the flow, be like water, roll with the punches, and be flexible. Call it whatever you like but everybody (including your manager) realizes there will need to be flexibility.
- Managers will have grace in this situation and understand some things will fall through the cracks and it is not the team member’s fault. I like to call it “running defense” for my team members. I also make sure their yearly reviews account for this situation so they do not receive negative marks.
- The risk is probably pretty low, so focus on getting work done and work with your manager when you cannot.
- The vast majority of managers are reasonable. What would a reasonable person do in this situation? I do that for my team and expect my manager will do the same.
So if you are in a situation where the goals are conflicting or changing, maybe you can consider the above bullets for perspective.
Profitable Daycare: https://www.instagram.com/p/C1ua-2au3US/