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Admonishing an associate for not doing her job is like juggling hornet's nests for some managers. However, if you don't say something to an employee about not fulfilling her responsibility, then you are affirming that her behavior is acceptable. This, in turn, gets picked up on by the others in the store. Avoid conflict altogether and you have a managerial situation that is virtually impossible to turn around. Therefore, you have to accept that as a manager you will have difficult conversations with your team. But try to approach this task from the standpoint of a coach who is trying to get the best and most out of the players. Yes, you sometimes will have to say "This is unacceptable," but you can add "You can do better than this" and "What is your game plan to particular individual. That situation can be managed far more effectively. MONITOR PROGRESS One thing that is helpful for both you and your employees is to touch base prior to the deadline you have set. This gives you an opportunity to ask questions like "How is the project going?" or "Need any help?" or "Run into any roadblocks?" Your interaction with the employee shows that the task at hand is still important to you and you want to see it through to fruition. Whether it is a single project or ongoing activities—such as maintaining the store database or increasing sales—you are monitoring the associate's progress. This also keeps the assigned responsibility fresh on the employee's mind. If you have a target of a 4% increase in sales by the end of the quarter, checking in periodically provides a checkpoint to see how the employee is actually doing. Waiting until the end of the quarter to find out that little or no effort has been made is a waste of nearly three months. Engaging sooner and occasionally will give you that chance to coach and develop the employee. BE OK WITH CONFLICT Some managers dread any kind of negative conversation with their employees. 86 August 2013 | beautystorebusiness.com Be realistic with your deadlines. Targets that are impossible to reach adversely affect morale and frustrate everyone. turn it around?" Conflict happens. But if you don't address the issues, who will? You're the manager. It all falls on your shoulders. Being afraid or reluctant to have that conversation doesn't serve you, your store, your customers or your employees any good. This, of course, is not to say that you have to be mean or belittling, but it does imply that you have to occasionally be firm and may even have to take corrective action. REPLACE AS NEEDED And this brings us to the final point about holding associates accountable. If you have set attainable and specific goals, provided deadlines and monitored progress, then when employees fail to deliver what was expected you'll need to take appropriate disciplinary steps. Initially, this is probably just a verbal warning that describes what the expectation was and how the employee missed the mark. If your store does not have a progressive disciplinary policy (such as verbal warning, first written warning, second written warning and then termination), establish one right away. This series of disciplinary The bottom line is that if you really want to hold employees accountable for their actions, you will need to take actions yourself to keep them on task. Though discipline is important, it is equally crucial that you provide positive reinforcement as well. For those who do a great job or consistently perform in a way that makes the store better, faster, cheaper or safer, acknowledge what they have done. Often, a "thank you" will suffice, but occasionally give some sort of tangible reward such as a gift card or dinner for the team. However, be careful that you don't open the door to creating an expectation of quid pro quo where getting things done always results in some kind of remuneration. The "reward" is really just a courteous way of recognizing all the hard work that has been done with little prodding from you. ■ Dr. Steven Austin Stovall is professor of management at Wilmington College in Wilmington, OH. He can be reached at steven _ stovall@wilmington.edu. Thinkstockphoto.com all take that responsibility to the fullest extent. To make sure people have the right responsibilities and are held accountable for those responsibilities, give one specific task to only one particular employee. For example, don't permit all your employees to keep tabs on your social media. Assign only one associate to keep up with Facebook and Twitter. Have another monitor Pinterest and YouTube and so on. Concerning in-store tasks, have one employee be responsible for the cleanliness of the restrooms, another for the windows, another for the shelving and racks, and so forth. By taking this approach and letting the entire team know who is responsible for what, there is a bit of peer pressure to not let the other teammates down. And when the windows are smudged and dirty, it is pretty evident who dropped the ball. Clearly the workload needs to be fair by being equally distributed, but you can also rotate duties between employees—after all, no one wants to get stuck with restroom duty forever! The other advantage to assigning responsibility to just one person for each task is that your job of holding accountability just became much simpler. Now it's no longer the entire staff that is to blame when something doesn't get done—or done well—it is a steps is precisely how you ultimately hold employees accountable. A managerial counseling or feedback session is the "teeth" that you put into your efforts to hold the staff accountable, and it is vital that you do so. If you don't, once again, you are saying that mediocrity or even poor performance is acceptable to you and the organization. Additionally, you must be consistent with all the employees. And, as you know, they'll be watching to see if you are indeed consistent with the application of any disciplinary measures. If you let the employee whom others see as your friend or manager's pet slide on things, then he'll perceive a double standard for himself. This can quickly snowball into a morale problem in your store.