No Triangles

Filed in archive Human Resources on March 18, 2008

Have you every had an employee come to you with complaints about another employee?

Anyone who has managed employees long enough has dealt with this kind of situation including myself. The employee expects to be able to complain to you and then have you deal with the situation.

Now if it is a serious situation, you need to deal with it yourself such as sexual harassment or any of the other issues that could land you in court if you do not promptly take care of it. But what about the minor things that seems to be petty complaints rather than something serious?

In an entry from Bill at the Freestyle Entrepreneur Blog, he discusses the idea of "no triangles" were if an employee has a complaint about another employee, the once employee has to confront the offending party with their issue.

For example say that employee "Marcy" comes into and complains to you that employee "Belinda" keeps her desk dirty all the time and wont clean it up. Instead of saying, "I will take care of it", you bring "Belinda" into the office so that "Marcy" can voice her problem directly to "Belinda".

This is one way to ensure that the small petty things get dealt with in a timely manor.