Tell me about a time you had to deliver difficult feedback to an employee.

"I once had an employee who had been a consistent and reliable team member for about two years. She suddenly started missing deadlines, and I had to constantly follow up with her to get the answers I needed. We had a regular one-on-one meeting later that week, so before that call, I reviewed the last month's worth of projects, deadlines, and communications I had sent her regarding missing or late information. I made a list of those examples and had that ready to discuss. I have found it's ineffective to say things like, "it seems like you've missed assignments" or "I don't feel like you're engaged in your work lately." Having real data and examples to present to the employee is often more impactful and limits the rebuttals from those subjective comments. I started my call by asking how things were going in her personal life and work. I then let her know that I value her as a team member and that I have noticed a pattern of missed deadlines, so I wanted to talk through what's going on and see what obstacles she's facing or what has changed that had caused this performance issue. She opened up to me about some personal problems, which were taking her focus off her work. We discussed our employee assistance program, and I asked her to be open with me when she struggles or needs time off to address personal matters. I reassured her that I understood her situation and wanted her to succeed at work. I reassigned some of her work to another team member with capacity while she took a few days to handle her matters. When she returned to work, she was focused and able to take her workload back, and I did not have any further performance issues with her."

"In my previous role, we had a team chat, which included about eight employees and myself. The team used it to ask questions, bounce ideas off each other, and send little jokes or inspirations here and there. I had one employee who was always very negative in the chat, often complaining about clients or processes at the company, and it started to spread to some of the other employees in that chat. I realized I needed to address it. It's often difficult to address a poor attitude or negative tone, so I had to consider how to address this person carefully. I made a list of instances where I observed the negativity and complaining and the impacts I observed; then, I scheduled a one-on-one zoom meeting. I began the conversation by doing more of a temperature check to see how they felt about things at work, the clients, etc. The employee took the opportunity to vent about some situations, leading me to our conversation's feedback portion. I let the employee know that their frustrations were valid and heard, but the appropriate outlet to discuss those is with me as their manager so we can problem solve, not in the group chat. I gave some examples of comments made that were inappropriate and unprofessional in that chat and reiterated the appropriate use of the team chat and my expectations going forward. I reiterated that their voice is important to me, and I want to know where there are problems. However, complaints in the chat affect other team members' attitudes and distract them from the work that needs to be done. The employee understood and agreed to come to me directly with concerns and complaints going forward."