How to Manage Procrastinators at Work

As compared to the whiners at the workplace who are considered a nuisance, the procrastinors need constant supervision and the process can be exhausting.

Situation:

Sheila thinks that her manager has unrealistic expectations and does not think that she can complete the work in 3 days’ time. She stuffs the report into her drawer. She proceeds to do other work stuff before pulling out the report hesitantly. Her manager has been observing her and decides to approach her “Sheila, let me help you get started. Let’s extract the figures from the companies beginning with the letter A. That’s all you will do today.”

What’s the harm?

1. Procrastinators are afraid of failure and would try to hide their deficiencies. They are more afraid of failing the task than meeting the deadline. They are not forthcoming about admitting their weaknesses and it requires x-ray vision for managers to be aware of them.

2. They have problems getting projects started. If the procrastinator has good ideas to contribute, the manager might probably never hear about them. This type of employee will procrastinate doing just about any task assigned to them and as a result is not a high performance employee. The contribution she makes to the company’s bottom line is minimal.

Recommendations

1. Buddy up. Assign a buddy to the procrastinator. This will usually take care of the ‘getting started’ issue. For instance, another colleague will be able to kickstart the project and Sheila will continue from where she left off. If Sheila has doubts about the tasks, she will find it easier to approach her colleague rather than her manager for help too. It is undoubtedly a learning opportunity for Sheila too. 
2. Celebrate small successes. Procrastinators feel doubtful about their abilities and do not think highly of themselves. Managers who identify this type of employee at work need to work on recognizing small achievements. In the earlier example, after Sheila has completed extracting the information of all companies beginning with letter “A”, her manager can praise her by saying “That’s a good start. Keep it up for the rest of the report.”