How to react when someone drops the ball

Employees within the transport sector make mistakes, as indeed do individuals in any other sector. How should managers or superiors react? JIM WARD has the answer.

There are numerous ways of addressing poor performance. The most frequently used approach is still, I suspect, a traditional one in the transport sector: defecation from a dizzy height. This can help to vent one’s frustration, but usually only brings temporary relief.

If an employee’s performance is frequently substandard, they are probably accustomed to being in trouble and will have developed a thick skin to survive. At some stage in the downward spiral, the effectiveness of getting another hiding gets diluted. As one disciplinary hearing blurs into the next, the individual often becomes punch drunk, and the entire process can become just another uitkak-parade.

It need not be like this. As I discovered during my career, there are better ways to handle poor performance. I’m going to share an actual example of poor performance where the response was proactive and the approach created trust, strengthening a valuable relationship rather than jeopardising it. 

In a transport company, there are inevitably times when it becomes necessary to adjust the fleet mix. Volumes may change with demand and market trends; to match these fluctuations, fleet size must often be altered. In this particular instance, after production was reduced, the request came to remove a new 30-tonner from the contracted fleet and replace it with a fully depreciated 24-tonner. The 30-tonne bulker charged out at a much higher rate than its 24-tonne replacement. This capacity reduction came at the client’s request and it was clear there would be a corresponding rate reduction in the fixed monthly charge.

Somehow, in the turmoil of continuous 24/7 production, rising raw material prices, and the ongoing distribution of over 17,000 tonnes a month, amending the rate sheet was overlooked. The mistake was missed by several people – the client’s management accountant, our bookkeepers and operations manager, and, at contract level, by myself and the contract supervisor. One evening, we were finalising our month-end numbers and working towards the trial balance, reconciling fleet activity against invoiced variable charges, when we realised that our primary client, our raison d’être, had unknowingly and unintentionally been overcharged. They were still being charged for capacity they no longer had and, as we checked back, we realised that this error had compounded over several months.

We owed the client a substantial credit – a five-figure amount that had accumulated over time. As the person responsible, I called my manager in Johannesburg and asked for an urgent face-to-face meeting. I didn’t explain what had happened, just that I needed to see him. He didn’t quibble, cleared his diary for a morning and asked me to set it up with his PA. In a few hours, I had a flight booked and a day or two later flew in, collected a hire car, and made my uncertain way through unfamiliar traffic to head office. I had with me the documentation, a draft credit note, and all the background calculations and details.

We met together over coffee, and he asked me calmly what had happened. The error had been running undetected for four months. I explained the situation and he understood it quickly, then without shouting or swearing, thanked me for coming to see him and for picking up the error.

There was no question about keeping quiet about it. As an ethical company operating an open costing national contract with a blue-chip client, we had to address the issue immediately. He advised that, on my return, I should arrange a meeting with their branch manager and accountant, and explain exactly what had happened. He gave me the authority to credit the full amount in one go at the end of that month. The substantial credit note he signed off would totally negate our monthly profit.

I duly arranged that meeting with the branch manager (a man for whom I had much respect) but was very apprehensive, dreading the fateful day.

They had still not picked up the mistake, but by seizing the initiative, coming forward, and explaining that we owed them money through the oversight was something that created far more goodwill than the value of the money itself.

Far from damaging our client relationship, if anything the situation cemented it even more strongly. That same branch manager, years later, would often refer to us in stormy times as his strategic partners, saying that we, as his transporters, would walk through fire to deliver the service levels he required. My strongest memory of this incident, however, was how calmly my boss at the time took it, and the sound advice he gave me about stepping up to the plate. He is no longer with us today, but he was a class act to follow.

Sometimes, openness and honesty have their own rewards. That client went on to renew a national transport agreement four times in succession, never putting the work out to tender because at the foundation of our partnership there was a bedrock of trust. This was a culture actively promoted by the management at the time, who had created a working environment where staff were not too scared to admit to an error.