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Chair’s Message 2024

HAPPY NEW YEAR! On behalf of the Prairie Sky Chamber of Commerce, I hope that you were able to take a well-deserved break to share the joy of the holiday season with loved ones. As we head into 2024, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you, our valued...

Member Feature Cora Breakfast

Prairie Sky Chamber of Commerce is proud to showcase our member feature this week Cora Breakfast! Cora Breakfast is a breakfast and brunch restaurant located at 3020 Preston Ave S #100. With a great selection of breakfast food and brunch items to chose from such as...

SAVE THE DATE March 24&25!

Martensville Business Expo will be taking place again this year on March 24&25th. This year, there will be a job fair taking place on the Friday evening. Business are able to join the job fair and expo if they so chose, or to donate their job fair booth to a non...

Onboarding and Employee Retention Workshop JAN 18 2023

Join us on January 18th, over the lunch hour (12-1pm) for a Lunch & Learn work shop on Onboarding & Retaining Staff. This workshop is presented by Homefield People & Strategy who provides a variety of solutions from one on one coaching, business strategy,...

Mile West Consulting

As a late summer promotion, we’d like to offer 4 FREE hours of consulting – anything HR or management related – for example, coaching, policy development, recruitment assistance, etc. The first organization to email us referencing this offer will be the lucky recipient!

Difficult Conversations Having a difficult conversation is not something that most of us look forward to. That said, from time to time it is an inevitable part of life. In any event, avoidance is not the way to properly manage situations that need to be addressed. With employees, difficult conversations will normally centre around performance issues. For example, you may have an employee that is consistently arriving to work late. Your first inclination is that the issue will correct itself. This may be wishful thinking, as in reality these types of problems rarely go away on their own. Not having the conversation will merely perpetuate the issue. Furthermore, it sends a message to the employee that the behaviour is acceptable and also signals to other employees that showing up to work late is okay. Below are a few suggestions for having difficult conversations:

  • Address the situation in a timely manner. Don’t wait days or weeks (or even longer) while the behaviour, etc. continues.
  • Talk to the specific individual about the problem. If you work in a scent-free environment and only one employee is not adhering to the policy by wearing lots of perfume or cologne, don’t send out a generic email to the entire group. The guilty party is unlikely to pay any attention to a group email. Have a conversation with the person who is wearing the perfume or cologne.
  • Be direct in your conversation. Although the discussion will hopefully be cordial, ensure that the issue is made clear to the employee. If someone is wearing sweatpants to the office (where business causal is the normal attire), don’t beat around the issue. Let the employee know that wearing sweats to the office is not acceptable and that the expectation is that dress pants are worn.
  • Follow-up your discussion in writing. For instance, after you’ve spoken to your employee to let them know that they need to advise you if they are leaving the office to attend a medical appointment, follow-up the discussion with a quick email. This way, if the action continues at some point in the future, it makes it difficult for the employee to say that they didn’t know that the behaviour wasn’t acceptable.

Life is full of challenging situations that need to be addressed. With employees, have these discussions in an open, honest, and productive manner. Part of being a good leader is dealing with issues in a direct, appropriate fashion; avoid “avoiding” difficult conversations!