EMPLOYEE NEEDS PUSH TO BE MORE THAN MEDIOCRE.

Byline: KEN LLOYD On The Job

Q. One of the people who report to me has been with our company several years, but she has done nothing to upgrade her skills or expertise recently, even though we provide considerable encouragement in this area. She is steady, reliable and well-liked, and I am uncertain as to the best way to deal with her. W.D.

A. It is perfectly fine to have an employee who is steady, reliable and well-liked, but somewhere in the list of descriptors should be words like productive, industrious and tenacious. Otherwise, you could just as easily be describing the family pet.

There are two clear sides to this situation. On the one hand, when an employee has not made an effort to upgrade his or her skills, it is easy to lay the blame at the employer's doorstep. An employee can question the employer's commitment in this area if the company provides minimal training or has almost invisible education benefits. This means that you should carefully look at the extent to which your company truly supports employee growth and development.

At the same time, even if your company is woefully deficient in this area, employees who are motivated to enhance their expertise can act on their own in order to do so. In fact, employees who believe that it is the employer's responsibility to educate them may find that the most important lesson they learn is that they are ultimately responsible for their own education.

The best step at this point is to review this employee's performance and note any areas in which specific problems could have been avoided by increased education. The next step is to meet with her, go over the performance problems, discuss the areas in which she needs to upgrade her knowledge and skill base, and then jointly establish some educational objectives and a plan of action to meet them.

In addition, look at the amount of time you are spending in direct communication with your employee. If this training issue has been festering for a while, it may be a sign that you need to spend more time with the troops. After all, the most appropriate time to give employees feedback on areas in which they may need additional training is as close to their questionable behaviors as possible. Feedback, coaching and training are not intermittent events - they are daily practices.

Q. I am an administrative assistant for the owner of a real estate development firm. I am careful about setting up his appointments, but he is always late. Every day I get calls from people waiting for him, and some are not very pleasant. I mentioned the problem to him once, and he just shrugged. What do you suggest? S.V.

A. There is a larger issue underlying this untimely problem - you have a boss who shrugs his shoulders when you want to discuss a problem. This type of response tells you a great deal about his philosophy and style. In a word, it does not sound like he is going to be particularly receptive to any of your ideas to get him to his destination on time. In fact, it does not sound like he is particularly receptive to any of your ideas, period.

There can be any number of reasons why people are late, and they run the gamut from unintentional to willful. For example, being late for some people is just a matter of being spread too thin. In order to get one thing done, they push something else back, and the result is a delayed arrival. These are the people who literally run late, as they seem to be running all the time.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are people who are intentionally late because of the message it sends. In a word, it is a show of power and confidence. By making others wait, the message is, ``My time is more important than yours, and I don't have to wait for anyone.'' After all, there are not many kings who sit around and wait for their subjects to arrive for a meeting.

In order to change your boss's behavior, you can certainly try to adjust his calendar to provide him with more time between appointments, and you can give him positive feedback when he arrives at an appointment close to the due date. However, since you are dealing with a person who shrugs off the idea of arriving somewhere on time, the odds are that he will continue to be late, and you will continue to receive unpleasant phone calls and shrugs. Hopefully, your job has enough other pleasantries to more than counterbalance this treatment.

MEMO: Ken Lloyd, Ph.D., is a specialist in organizational behavior. Questions can be sent by electronic mail to LloydOnJobaol.com, or they can be mailed to P.O. Box 260057, Encino, CA 91426. Names will be withheld upon request.