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Ever worked in a job where a slacker colleague or subordinate didn’t pull his or her weight in the office that created all round resentment? Not to mention stress?

I’m stating with 100% confidence that we’ve all experienced this particular kind of lazy co-worker who’s gotten our goat at some point or another. How we’ve handled it is a different matter.

Sometimes we’ve covered up for them. Other times we’ve allowed our resentment to be expressed especially when it affects our own work or team morale.

I met my first slacker colleague quite early in my career when I was part of an industrial secondment team for reviewing a Pension Equity Plan that needed financial support from the government.

Things were complicated because the accounting system had developed an issue and the Fund Managers had not done their job properly. Our mandate was to determine what should have been the value of each pensioner’s corpus in the plan.

It wasn’t the most glamorous assignment in the world but one that required concentration and efficiency as we worked towards a deadline. Colleagues were being pulled in from all our offices to work on it. We were put into micro teams to speed up the work.

My team leader and I were putting in the work but one of the secondees in our small team was too busy having extended lunches, doing her shopping and leaving work at closing time!

The rest of our team was eating sandwiches at our workstation at the time and clocking in extra hours.

There came a point when the rest of us couldn’t take more burden. The lady was out and sent packing back to her office.

It was the first time I heard the word slacker.

Since we were assigned a hotel room together and chatted, I thought it was more of a rebellion (more on that later).

A short background about the label of being a slacker

My colleague was definitely a slacker and fits the Wikipedia definition to perfection.

A slacker is someone who habitually avoids work or lacks work ethic.

It seems the term slacker goes as far back at 1790 or 1898 and gained recognition during the British Gezira Scheme in the early to mid-20^th century when Sudanese labourers protested their relative powerlessness by working lethargically, a form of protest known as “slacking”.

The word “slacker” was commonly used in USA during World War I to describe someone who was not participating in the war effort or avoiding military service (later termed as a draft dodger).

It’s not clear when the shift in the use of “slacker” from its draft-related meaning to a more general sense of the avoidance of work happened.

However, slacker has connotations of apathy and aimlessness. Other words that can be used for slacker include idler, do-nothing, loafer and layabout.

It is also used to refer to an educated person who avoids work, possibly as an anti-materialist stance, who may be viewed as an underachiever.

3 points to consider before taking action on the slacker

While slacking in the workplace should be discouraged and better work ethics be indoctrinated, it’s not always black and white.

Context of slacking is important.

For starters, is the person a habitual slacker or is this a one-off being triggered by a different set of circumstances?

The colleague I mentioned earlier had not wanted to come on the assignment. She was forced to do it by her manager who told her to put in 2 weeks and then he’d pull her out for other work.

I know this because we were sharing the hotel room and had some great chats about it.

As a junior trainee at the time, I was amazed she would allow her image to suffer the way she was going about it.

It was a learning lesson for me to be used later in my career – make sure my team members are all in or else find someone else to do the work.

Not everyone is a slacker – sometimes there are other issues going on that can lead to outward symptoms of laziness.

Your colleague might have problems on the home front or be unwell which prevents them from working efficiently.

In such a case, emotional intelligence and empathy are required as well as good management skills to adjust one’s approach.

Maybe give them time off or allow them to work from home while insisting the work has to be done.

Secondly, focus on your own productivity.

I know it’s irritating if your co-worker is not doing their bit but honestly, is their action or lack of it really affecting your productivity?

My colleague’s actions were definitely affecting my work. I was doing more than my share but I was still able to work independently even if I was slower in the evenings because I was tired out.

My team leader had to handle this for all of us. In general, if your productivity is not directly affected, unless you’re the manager, perhaps its best to not raise the issue.

Thirdly, if some minor tasks are slipping through the cracks, you might just consider doing them yourself provided this doesn’t become a routine activity for you.

One-offs are fine, all the time simply encourages bad behavior.

More ways to tackle the lazy Coworker

While it’s not your job to teach your colleague good work ethics, their active participation is required to get the work done.

If the 3 points I mentioned earlier are not enough, then here are 3 ways to handle the situation without adding to your stress.

Make the team member understand their role in the scheme of things. In other words, apply your skill of relationship building. When colleagues are part of creating the solution, they feel more responsible and wouldn’t deliberately let you down.

Maybe my colleague would have acted a little differently if she had not be thrown into the middle of a project. Instead of being told to pour over bank statements and find contributions from pensioners she was told what we were trying to assess.

Restructure your process. If the colleague still doesn’t get the message, you need to be proactive to ensure your productivity and deliverable don’t suffer. Can you restructure your job to bypass the coworker who misses deadlines?

Escalate the matter to your supervisor. This is a last resort tactic and to be used only if all other attempts to get your coworker to do their part of the work fails.

However, make sure you have already documented specific examples of their behavior and the impact on the work process first. Otherwise it can backfire on you.

How to get work out of Slackers when you’re their Manager

My early experience prove to be handy much later in my career when I had to manage a slacker in my Group. The story of extended lunches and leaving on time was further exacerbated with work that wasn’t up to the level required.

I was a new Manager in the Group and had already been apprised about this employee. Let’s say, her reputation preceded her. I wanted to give her the benefit of doubt and see how big a slacker she really was.

As it turned out, the lady had just had her first baby and her heart wasn’t really in the job she had. The office politics had turned dirty for her and she was on a Performance Improvement Plan. On top of it, her heart was set on going a more academic route.

Getting to know her was the best thing I did.

I discovered she had certain unique skills that were valuable for the projects I was doing but hadn’t been utilized by the other Manager in our Group.

She put in her papers about 4 months later when the tug of motherhood got strong and went on to pursue the line of education she wanted. During the time we worked together, this slacker was the most efficient professional I had!

There was no secret sauce or magic involved. Simply applying Emotional Intelligence with a good dose of trying to understand what made the other person tick.

Being a good manager means bringing out the best in one’s team while also ensuring the goals of the organization and those of the employee are aligned. I share another example with tips in my blog post How to bring out the best in reporting colleagues.

Quite often employees fall behind because they need training in skills. They refrain from telling their manager or coworker about it for fear of looking incompetent.

If you’re a manager, be proactive in identifying skills gaps. Ensure the employee under your charge is given access to the training, whether its offsite or an online course.

Some tips about getting the lazy team member to start pulling their weight are:

Share the big picture with the employee.

Employees will feel more engaged and motivated if they understand the purpose behind their activities. Talk about how their efforts contribute to the good of the organization and help others.

For example, a monthly report is being prepared for top management. You ask someone to pull out numbers without telling them the importance of those numbers and you might end up having to double check.

In contrast, when the person knows the relevance of the numbers, they’ll make sure their work leaves little to criticize.

Clarify roles.

Give staff members unique responsibilities to increase accountability. Design tasks that leverage their personal strengths.

As I discovered my team member had unique skills when it came to analyzing financial instruments and creating templates that could be used to plug and play for different clients. Imagine how many hours of work she saved us on different clients with complex loans and financial instruments!

Establish measurable goals and reward progress.

Employees may under perform if standards are imprecise. Set targets they can aim for, like number of billable hours per month or milestones to be achieved per quarter.

Follow up to let employees know that their accomplishments will be noticed and appreciated. Praise them for taking on a heavier workload successfully.

I had a boss who used to take us out for a meal when we’d successfully complete a difficult assignment or give us time off. Give the whole office an extra day off to reinforce a sense of teamwork.

Ask for input.

If you’re unsure how to proceed, enlist the employee’s cooperation by asking them for their feedback. They may be able to suggest whether they need closer supervision or a quieter workspace. Just being consulted may help them to feel more engaged.

That’s how I discovered my team member’s special skills. I asked her for her feedback and views, and she showed me a template she’d been working on.

The point I’m trying to make is one doesn’t have to go after the lazy employee with a whip to get work out of them. Sometimes trying to understand them and leveraging their skills can actually turn the situation around for everyone.

Besides, it makes us better coworkers and managers and develops our people skills too.