How to Help Someone Who Is Lazy With Their Work

Helping someone with lazy work habits can be quite a challenging task.

You could be a teacher who is trying to reach a “lazy” student; a parent who is dealing with a “lazy” child; or a boss who has a “lazy” employee. Or you could have some other relationship with someone you want to help overcome a lazy work ethic. No matter what that relationship is, your desire to help this person is best facilitated by taking a two-pronged approach. You need to address the underlying motivating factor behind the person’s laziness. You must also help the person establish an environment more conducive to developing better work habits.

Instructions

1. Ask leading questions to help the person identify the motivation behind their work laziness. Possible questions could be:

   What talents do you possess that could really be useful in getting this job done well?
   Do you feel you have all the skills required to perform this job?
   What could prevent you from successfully carrying out this job?
   What do you imagine will happen if you fail to successfully carry out this job?

2. Gauge the underlying motivation for the person’s laziness based on their verbal answers and the body language they communicate as they respond to your questions. It could be, for example, that the person does not try because they are afraid to fail or, conversely, are afraid to succeed. If the person is a perfectionist with high expectations of what they want to accomplish, they may have a fear of falling short of these standards. Or the person could simply find the work they are expected to engage in uninteresting or not challenging.

3. Develop a plan to help override whatever factor is driving the person to be lazy about their work. If the person has a fear of failure or success, for example, then plan on how to best aggressively challenge these beliefs. For the perfectionist, develop a plan that breaks their work down into smaller, more manageable tasks so that the work doesn’t seem so daunting. For someone who finds their work uninteresting, the solution may be to direct them to another line of work. If this is not feasible, brainstorm with the person to come up with things about their work that have the potential to be intriguing or could make the work more provocative.

4. Create benchmark goals to encourage the person to continually make steady progress in their work. Each benchmark must have a deadline that must be met. Establish rewards for each successfully met benchmark. Establish consequences for each benchmark that is not successfully met. Set up evaluation appointments in which you periodically check with the person to see how they are progressing toward satisfying a looming benchmark. Kind of like a midterm report. This all helps to give the person a sense of accountability while also helping them to develop more productive work habits.

5. Set up designated focused, work times. For example, if the person needs to get some writing done for work, help them plan to set aside a block of time to give their full attention exclusively to this task. Help them create a work space that’s distraction free. No TV, no phone, no stereo or MP3 player, for instance.

References

• Georgia Southern University; “The Satisfactions and Challenges of Teaching”; Greg Hamilton
• Princeton Univerisity: Avoiding Procrastination
• Google Docs: Procrastination