I have been known to hire people to help me with various tasks.

The workers all start out full of promise. But then something changes. They get sloppy.

They start showing up late. Sometimes completely forgetting to show up. “I’ve been busy” is a common excuse. They ignore e-mails. They begin to overlook details they were so good with at the beginning.

And it’s not just me. All kinds of employers concur. Jillian Zavitz, programs manager for TalktoCanada.com, an online English learning company in Ottawa, says many of the new teachers she hires “start our great, signing into work early, responding to all of my e-mails, doing everything on time. Then things start to slip slop up.”

“They start coming right on the hour (instead of ahead to prepare the class). They make up lame excuses. People took advantage of the swine flu last year calling in sick left, right and center. They say their alarm didn’t go off, they have a headache, took muscle relaxers. Why they accept the job in the first place is beyond me.”

What changes?

Some attribute the explanation for good workers gone bad to a generation lacking a strong work ethic. But that doesn’t explain why they start off gung ho.

So I’m leaning toward a popular modern personality theory called the Five Factor Model that psychologist Carolyn Kaufman told me about. It argues that everyone falls somewhere between high and low on five different “superfactors.” One of the factors — the only one tied to performance — is conscientiousness.

People who rate high on conscientiousness tend to be very self-disciplined, careful with their work, high achieving, dutiful, organized and detail- and schedule-oriented, Kaufman says.

Folks who aren’t especially conscientious may act conscientious about things early on — often because they need to pay careful attention to what they’re doing when learning a new job, she says. But once they go into automatic mode — that is, doing the same thing over and over — things slide.

Psychologically speaking, the brain stops investing as much care to save energy. But the people who are naturally more conscientious, “continue to expend more energy on being careful,” she says.

But you’d think they’d know how important it is to be reliable and consistent, right• Not so, Kaufman says. The low-on-conscientiousness person doesn’t value being prepared or being responsible and careful in their work.

So when someone stops being conscientious, they don’t see themselves as having changed, because they haven’t. Their behavior changed.

It may not come naturally, but low-level types can learn to improve. Simply put, that means expending more care. “Make it a habit by faking it if that’s what it takes at first,” Kaufman says.

Learn to connect conscientious performance to achievement in the workplace. Research shows that people who come out as conscientious on personality tests are more likely to be seen by bosses as doing a good job and more likely to get ahead.

Look at the people who are achieving and where they are being diligent and hard-working. Check your work more carefully. Promise yourself you’ll stick with a project an hour longer than you normally would, Kaufman suggests.

If you don’t become more conscientious, you become more trouble than you’re worth.

E-mail Andrea Kay at andrea@andreakay.com

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