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EASY APPROACHES TO MANAGING EMPLOYEE POOR PERFORMANCE
The coordinated efforts of all employees in most businesses enable the workplace to run smoothly and assist the business to achieve its objectives.
Every member of your team, if you’re the recruiting manager, is probably in a position that is essential to productivity, project collaboration, and knowledge exchange.
It is crucial to learn how to manage and improve bad performance since, as you may have already experienced, the poor performance of a single employee or a whole team can have a negative impact on a number of crucial workplace elements.
In this post, I will discuss the significance of managing employee poor performance and offer a number of approaches you might utilize to do so.
It’s critical to manage poor performance in the workplace because of the benefits you and your team may reap when employees complete their responsibilities on time, to the best of their abilities, and with a positive attitude.
Each employee contributes to a positive and productive office environment.
MANAGING POOR PERFORMANCE
SET SMART GOALS
It is not a cliche to advise people to set clear goals. (SMART is to set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound) Job expectations and role clarification will keep your employees on track. This will keep them on track and on task and will ensure that they produce results on a consistent basis.
Setting and managing clear expectations also entails communicating what your team can expect from you, the level of support they will receive, and their goals. Setting expectations should be an ongoing process that includes frequent reviews and reminders.
COMMUNICATE
You need to speak with the employee in question. The sooner you can communicate with an employee about their poor performance, the sooner you can collaborate with them to resolve the issues. Because the employee may be unaware that they are failing to meet expectations, an open discussion about their performance can help them stay on track to improve their work and remain satisfied at work. Communication ensures that the employee is aware that their performance is not meeting expectations, ascertains if there are any extenuating circumstances, and agrees on the steps to improve the employee’s performance by clarifying what must be done to bring it up to an acceptable level.
FEEDBACK
Closely tied to communication is the need to provide honest feedback. It is critical that you be honest with your employee when discussing their performance. Discuss any flaws you’ve discovered and how their performance affects the overall team’s productivity. Give your employee some examples so there is no confusion about what you mean, as miscommunication can have an impact on work performance, collaboration, and trust. During your conversation, reaffirm your expectations and provide your employees with measurable steps they can take to improve their work.
Feedback should be given and received, and you should be willing to accept it in return. Your methods might not be appropriate for the employee, and having a genuine conversation can help you understand one another and give you both the ability to collaborate to find a solution.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PLAN
A performance improvement plan (PIP) is intended to assist employees who are not meeting job performance goals. A PIP addresses specific areas of performance deficiency, identifies skill or training gaps, and establishes clear expectations for an associate’s future behaviour. A PIP should be prepared, discussed, and agreed upon with the staff member, and then documented in the format that best suits the situation. There is usually a time frame for a PIP (Up to six months) allowing sufficient time for character change and performance improvement. In preparing a plan, the manager and the staff member should clearly establish which areas need to be improved, what results are expected and will indicate success, what skills and/or competencies need to be strengthened or acquired, and the support required, including any specific training needs.
The plan should establish deadlines for the deliverables specified and indicate the date or dates on which progress will be reviewed.
In preparing a plan, the manager and the staff member should clearly establish which areas need to be improved, what results are expected and will indicate success, what skills and/or competencies need to be strengthened or acquired, and the support required, including any specific training needs.
The plan should establish deadlines for the deliverables specified and indicate the date or dates on which progress will be reviewed.
FOLLOWING UP
A performance discussion should be held at the end of the agreed-upon period for the performance improvement actions (such as training, coaching, or a PIP) to review the results, identify any additional support or guidance that may be required, and consider the next steps.
This discussion’s outcomes should be formally documented in writing. Consider meeting with your employee on a regular basis to discuss their performance and ensure they are not repeating old habits.
By establishing a meeting schedule, you are also demonstrating to your employee that their progress is important to you and that you are not solely concerned with their poor performance.
If the training, coaching, or performance improvement plan produced the desired results and performance improved significantly, this should be acknowledged. On the other hand, if the progress is deemed insufficient, despite the support provided, this should be clearly stated. Where improvements have been made but performance is not thought to fully meet the requirements, this should also be clearly documented.
Employee underperformance can be caused by a variety of factors, including a lack of training, being unmotivated at work, unclear tasks, and so on. It is up to you as a manager to commit to an elaborate performance improvement plan. Only when every effort has been made but performance falls short of expectations can an employee be fired.
By Michael Kuma Avuglah- CEO of Ghana HR Solutions
Ghana HR Solutions
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