What To Do When An Employee Makes A Mistake

Mistakes happen. It’s part of life, but it can be very frustrating when an employee makes a mistake that directly impacts your company. As a person in a leadership role at your company, you need to know how to handle mistakes in an efficient and effective manner.

When an employee makes a mistake, you can do two things: Get angry and throw a temper tantrum or handle it like a professional. We recommend dealing with the situation like a true leader.

Here’s what you need to do when an employee makes a mistake:

Take A Deep Breathe – Before you react, take a moment to calm down. Take a deep breathe and try to look at the bigger picture from a variety of different perspectives.
Determine What Went Wrong – Use your detective skills to see why the mistake was made. Keep an open mind and don’t jump to any conclusions. Gather all of the information that you can.
Discuss The Situation – Have an open and honest discussion with the employee in private to determine what happened. Try to look at the bright side and put a positive spin on the mistake. This allows you to work together to address the issue.
Create A Learning Moment – Remember that making a mistake isn’t always a bad thing. Turn the error into a positive by creating a learning moment. Provide feedback and help the employee understand why their behavior or action wasn’t ideal.
Correct The Mistake – See if you can figure out a solution to the mistake and determine the best plan of action to avoid the same mistake in the future. It may require a bit of extra work to correct the mistake, but it’s important to do.
Document The Issue – As with everything in the business world, be sure to document the mistake and the follow up conversations. Add it to an employee’s record just in case you need that information later on.
Set Them Up For Success – After a mistake is made help to coach the employee to success to ensure that they do not make the same mistake again. Determine their strengths and weaknesses. Put them in a role where they will be the most beneficial to the company.
Consider The Bigger Picture – If necessary, make changes to any policies or protocols to ensure that other employees don’t make a similar mistake in the future.

Remember that we are all human. We’ve all made mistakes before and we’ll all make mistakes again. Both good and bad employees makes mistakes. Treat everybody the same so they employees know what to expect from you and the company.

The Best Day Of The Week To Fire Someone

If an employee makes a major mistake or repeatedly makes the same mistakes after proper coaching, it might be time to fire them. This isn’t a situation that any manager looks forward to, but it might be a realistic situation that you are faced with at some point in your career. If you have to fire someone, make sure that you do it properly.

See Also:

Common Mistakes That Recruiters Make
12 HR Mistakes That Your Company Cannot Afford To Make