Your Guide to Mastering Difficult Conversations with Employees

Have you been faced with the challenge of initiating a tough conversation in the workplace? As a manager, or senior leader, you’re likely to face challenging situations often, whether it’s dealing with employee conflict, employee misconduct, or a workplace grievance.

Mastering the art of having these difficult conversations is a skill. Just like any skill - driving a car, developing a well formulated excel spreadsheet or creating a great presentation - initially, navigating tough conversations is not easy.

With time and purposeful practice, your ability to navigate through having difficult conversations become easier, and eventually, like driving a car, it becomes almost intuitive.

At Skildare, we often reframe the term ‘difficult conversations’ into ‘courageous conversations’. Putting a positive spin on an otherwise confronting task encourages a shift in perspective and transforms challenge into opportunity.

Why Is It Important That We Have Difficult Conversations With Our Employees?

Let’s face it – no one likes having tough conversations, and for many, the default reaction is to avoid them because:

*It makes us feel uncomfortable;

*We want to be liked, and not perceived as ‘the bad guy’. We fear the outcomes of these conversations may threaten our likeability; and

*We may be concerned with how the person on the receiving end of the conversation will react.

While they can be uncomfortable, having difficult conversations is an important measure in setting clear expectations with your workforce, as well as preventing negative team culture or dynamics.

These conversations provide an opportunity to resolve conflicts, give constructive feedback, and address performance issues. By creating a culture where feedback is embraced rather than feared, you promote open communication, strengthen relationships, and ensure a more productive and positive work environment.

What Happens If We Avoid Having Difficult Conversations?

With avoidance comes increased risk, particularly in the case of managing grievances, performance issues or inappropriate workplace behaviour. Some common consequences of avoiding having difficult conversations with employees are:

Lost time: As manager or leaders, you have to pivot your focus from proactive or everyday tasks, such as training and mentoring, to dealing with workplace conflict.

Employee disengagement and increased staff turnover: Due to impacts on morale, employees tend to seek alternative arrangements for employment if they feel their comfortability within a workplace has been negatively impacted.

Negative messaging: In a workplace environment, ignoring a problem sends the message to other employees that the behaviour or action is acceptable, and you may end up with more difficult conversations to have.

Decreased productivity: Underperformance and grievances impact both individual and team performance creating unnecessary distractions from the required tasks.

Psychological costs: Unaddressed behavioural issues have the potential to amplify into formal grievances, bullying or costly psychological worker's compensation claims.

So, How Do We Improve Our Ability to Have Difficult Conversations?

Like any other skill, with practice, you can improve your confidence and ability to have difficult conversations with employees. Here are some of Skildare’s best practice tips:

Communication is Key! Review Your Workplace’s Feedback Fitness

Does your workplace promote a culture of sharing feedback and striving for continuous improvement? Have you evaluated your team’s ‘feedback fitness’ (the ability to both give and receive feedback effectively)?

It may seem obvious, but the ultimate hack for having difficult conversations is establishing a habit and culture of consistent communication. When leaders are constantly communicating with their team, and have a strong feedback fitness culture, everyone grows accustomed to giving and receiving feedback and the confrontational nature of the conversation is eliminated.

Throw Away The ‘Sandwich’

You’ve probably heard of the ‘feedback sandwich’ - start with a compliment, then give your feedback, followed by another compliment. In the case of performance or grievance management, this often dilutes the core issue being raised. In order to get the best outcome from your conversation, it’s best to focus on the main source of feedback, to ensure the recipient receives the message clearly.

Sure, it’s OK to praise the recipient for their areas of strength or achievements, however, ensure that this is done in a way that doesn’t cause confusion or distraction from the main message.

Reframe Your Mindset

Reframing the term 'difficult conversations' to 'courageous conversations' can significantly transform the way we approach challenging discussions in the workplace. By framing challenging conversations this way, it encourages the mindset that views these interactions as opportunities for growth rather than sources of anxiety.

Additionally, as most employees want to perform well in their roles, by reframing the conversation to focus on their areas for improvement, the conversation has a motivational effect, rather than making them feel as though they have failed.    

Time Is Of The Essence

It’s important to address issues as they arise. Prolonging the time between the behaviour and conversation only increases the anxiety around having the tough conversation and makes the situation more complex in the long run.

It’s Your Turn

Next time you’re facing a challenging situation with your employees, remember that delaying having the difficult conversation only increases the anxiety and risks of the situation escalating.  It’s best to address these conversations head-on, and with each one, your confidence will only grow stronger.

If you’d like guidance developing the confidence to navigate difficult conversations effectively, or if you have a complex employee matter that you require guidance with, please get in touch with us—we're here to help you every step of the way.