We all want our teams to work to the best of their abilities and remain committed, loyal, productive, and engaged. However, even the best workers can fall at times and go through periods where their performance weakens.
Plus, you could find yourself with employees who seem great initially but disappoint you with regularly poor performance later.
It’s crucial to identify and address issues rather than let them build and fester. Here’s what to do to handle this situation if it arises.
- Spot Poor Performance
One of the key parts of handling poor workplace performance is learning how to identify it. While some issues may be blatantly obvious, lackluster results can build up into more of a problem over time. As such, you need to spot a higher than average number of errors people make, which could be caused by poor judgment or not enough attention paid to work.
You might notice a staff member starts missing more deadlines, calls in sick increasingly, or keeps wanting to take leave without pay or personal days. People might come in late to work consistently, or you may notice they’re not focusing appropriately in meetings or elsewhere.
Other signs to look out for include fluctuations in performance levels, aggressive outbursts, and elaborate excuses for work problems. Additional red flags are catching people in lies and hearing repeated complaints about employees from colleagues or managers, clients, suppliers, or other stakeholders.
- Work Out Why the Problem May Be Occurring
Try to work out why the problems in performance arise. Be as objective as you can and consider numerous issues that might be causing someone’s efforts and results to decline. For example, many workplaces aren’t positive or supportive enough, leaving employees to feel undervalued, under-motivated, and not truly seen, heard, or appreciated.
If morale isn’t high, you might need to thank people for their hard work and reward them with gifts and perks. A heartfelt conversation or note of thanks can go a long way to making people feel recognized, as can perks like extra time off work or free meals at the office.
You might like to purchase small presents for people to acknowledge a job well done, such as branded water bottles or coffee mugs, elegant custom pencils and pens, handy notebooks, or cool tees and caps. Or, gift people store gift cards, flowers, hampers, wine, chocolates, movie vouchers, etc.
Also, people often commonly start performing poorly if they’re overworked and burned out because they’ve been tasked with too much or don’t have the necessary resources to do their jobs properly. Are you asking too much of people or not giving them the time or tools they need? You may have to invest in more training or hire additional employees to reduce employee strain.
Plus, analyze your previous and current teams to see if someone who has left the company or moved into a new department was perhaps previously carrying much of the workload. If people coasted before because they could get away with it, you might only notice now because they don’t have anyone picking up the slack for them.
These are just some of the reasons people might be underperforming, though, so keep your mind open. Have a frank discussion with employees to get their take on what’s going on.
- Take Steps to Address Issues
Where an illegal or otherwise very untoward behavior has occurred, you’ll need to let an employee go. Otherwise, you might give people warnings, express your dissatisfaction, and explain what you expect them to do to start performing adequately in the future. Give unsatisfactory workers clear feedback and make it crystal clear that things can’t go on the way they have been. Let people know the consequences if things don’t change for the better.
Use data and evidence to communicate your concerns rather than getting too personal or relying on hearsay. Develop strategies to help workers achieve more in the future, such as mentoring or allowing them to have some unpaid time off to deal with personal problems.
- Moving Forward
Always follow up with employees and their managers and colleagues, where appropriate, to ensure positive change has occurred and is lasting. Evaluate performance at least once per year in general, too. Furthermore, examine what learning outcome(s) you can take away from the process. We never want our staff to underperform, but managing these challenging situations can give us growth opportunities as leaders.
There’s no need to put up with abhorrent or dangerous behavior in the workplace, but constructively addressing poor performance can help bring your team together and create plenty of positives long-term.
