Stop Supporting Mediocre Performance?
Managers can be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work and skills required under their umbrella. Sometimes, rather than coach an employee, a manager will elect to hope their performance gets better. Other times, the thought of having to hire a replacement and train them, it seems better to keep the known one and accept mediocre performance. Or maybe just uncomfortable confronting an employee and wait until the performance or behavior becomes a significant problem?
You are faced with a lot of decisions when managing employees, though how you deal with underperforming employees impacts you, your team and the company. When an employee’s performance consistently comes in under a standard, they won’t change unless you intervene and start the coaching or in some cases counseling process.
In the early phase of an employee’s employment, this is when you coach and clearly define expectations around performance. Don’t send an employee into the waters to “sink or swim” because you will have casualties.
If an employee has been there for awhile and their performance drops, bring it to their attention and ask how you can help them perform back to standards.
Tina Del Buono on Practical Practice Managment blog in “When Poor Employee Performance Becomes Regular Performance” states all of the issues when you ignore poor performance.
What do you do when poor performance starts to become an employees regular performance? I am sure we have all worked in places where we have seen this happen and wonder why management allows it to continue.
If you find it daunting to handle all of the employee issues, then set up a schedule when you will review employee’s performance and behaviors. For example, if you set aside 30 minutes in your daily schedule, to discuss the level of each person’s performance the previous day, you can do two things. One, find out what employees need to be recognized for work well done. Two, what employees missed a deadline or submitted work that was below standards. Just have a checklist of each employee and review the day’s performance. The next day you can recognize the high performers and coach the low performers.
Be respectful and persistent in setting performance standards.
Be well,
Pat
Other Articles:
Do You Procrastinate with Performance or Behavior Issues?
How To Handle Poor Performance (Part One)
How To Handle Poor Performance (Part Two)
How To Handle Poor Performance (Part Three)
