When employees complain about each other...

May 21, 2021

An interesting discussion came up the other day. What do you do when employees, and especially managers, complain about each other? You surely know the scenario. It’s when someone comes to you essentially to whine about someone else’s performance or lack thereof. It may be they are angling to get you to drive the bus to run the other employee over. Can you smell diesel fumes?

So, really, what should you do? First, you should recognize it for what it is. The person starting this isn’t really interested in a solution or they would already have handled it. They aren’t looking to help someone or they would have made a suggestion to them.

Rather, in an odd way they are thinking they are helping by pointing out someone else’s weakness or poor performance. Worse, they may be trying to make themselves look better at someone else’s expense. None of that can be considered positive or helpful.

I have to admit that in another life, I did something similar. My boss stopped me in mid-sentence. Before I knew it, the other party had been summoned and was standing there with the two of us. It was, for me, a bitter but easily remembered lesson.

I should also mention this is the boss who taught me not to bring him problems without solutions. A local construction company owner was saying that to me just this morning. He was saying he could really tell a lot about his people by the way they brought him problems.

The second thing you might do is to get the person whining to you to understand that when they bring a problem without a solution they do little to help. It’s not to say that if the place is burning down they should wait to tell you until they’ve found a hose… It is important that you set boundaries for the difference between having a gripe and having a grip!

Don’t let your people waste time and energy to support their need for drama or to help them feel better than someone else. If it is a legitimate problem, get all parties together and solve it right then. Otherwise, recognize it for what it is and don’t put up with it.