[1]Poor work performance is a far more common complaint than misconduct. It’s less well addressed too, for all sorts of reasons.
An ability to identify and tackle poor work performance in an effective timely fashion is an essential management skill. Failure is costly. BP’s recent performance in resolving the enormous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig was clearly viewed by the Obama administration as very poor. BP and other parties received a bill for the clean-up of about £150 million (at the time of writing) and BP’s share value declined.
The essence of being a manager is getting work done effectively through your team - it can be a tough job. Many managers fear confrontation. These days it is quite common for a manager who is giving guidance and correction for poor work performance to become the subject of a grievance, but putting off dealing with employees who are not delivering to the standard you require is the worst thing to do.
In the short term it might be easier to ‘work round’ a poor performer, but quite quickly, other employees get fed up with carrying a colleague and grumble about covering for him. They might leave, you could end up doing the work yourself, or it may be that the work just doesn’t get done. Either way, it’s a costly and unsatisfactory outcome.
Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t usually go away by itself. Gerry, an employee who had been with his company for some time, was failing to properly carry out his duties and was causing serious problems.
The employer (my client) wanted to sack Gerry. In expressing his considerable frustration he said “He’s always been like this; slow to learn and loses the skills he does manage to gain quickly.” I asked how long Gerry had been working there, expecting the employer to say something like, “About six months.” I was amazed when the reply was “15 years – and he’s always been ******! useless…” This is an extreme case of the ostrich manoeuvre, a position popular with some managers.
Where you have a poor work performance issue, try to identify the cause of the problem. Managers can be tempted to assume that performance problems arise because of an employee's carelessness or lack of effort; some employees will be guilty of this, but it’s not automatically the cause. The cause of the poor work performance should emerge when you carry out an investigation.
Start by investigating the cause of the unsatisfactory performance with the employee. The solution to the problem should then become apparent. If you can remove or reduce the cause of the problem, the employee's performance is likely to improve.
There are three key components of managing performance successfully; setting and communicating standards, regular feedback and correction where needed.
Take appropriate action as soon as you notice that the employee is not performing work to the required standard. Delaying, or worse, doing nothing, may well cause the performance problem to get worse.
After you’ve had a discussion with the employee, the next stage is to create a performance improvement plan (PIP). Agree and set down precise performance targets which are capable of being measured.
Agree a process to keep both of you informed of progress and diarise follow-ups. If the employee needs any training, specify that in the PIP. Build in a date for an interim performance evaluation to assess the employee’s progress. Include the employee’s suggestions in the PIP. List the positive outcomes of successfully completing the performance improvement plan along with the negative consequences of failing to meet performance criteria.
It’s essential that you ask the employee to date and sign the PIP, acknowledging that he has read and understands its requirements. Note that the process of encouraging the employee to improve his performance starts at the informal stage. If it becomes necessary to escalate to the formal process, the PIP will continue to run in parallel with any formal sanctions.
Review at weekly intervals, so you keep track of progress. If the situation picks up and the employee starts to perform better, this will be encouraging for both of you. Give accurate and targeted feedback. Try to focus on the positive as this will increase motivation and performance. Give enough time for the employee to improve; this should be at least one to three months, but it does depend on the circumstances. If in doubt give more time rather than less.
If the employee’s performance does not improve after the informal approach you can move to the formal process. The efforts to guide your employee to a raised standard of performance would continue in parallel with any formal sanctions.
Kate Russell is the author of How to Get Top Marks in … Managing Poor Work Performance, due to be published at the end of September, ISBN 978-0-9546054-5-2
Tackling workplace performance issues head on – a checklist for action
Links:
[1] http://www.financeweek.co.uk/image/meetingpeoplestaffteamemployees