Feb 22
Sarah Tidey Workplace HR Consulting Workplace Training
In this post, we discuss strategies to manage poor performance at work. There is no doubt that managing an employee’s performance can be one of the most challenging parts of any manager’s role. Often by the time that the organisation’s formal performance management process commences, difficult and unproductive behaviours are already entrenched and the relationship between manager and employee has deteriorated. Productivity is low and patience is in short supply.
‘He won’t cooperate with me- he says that was never part of his job description.’
‘She says I have never had any concerns about her performance before.’
‘Once we had a great relationship but now he seems to hate me.’
These are the kind of comments we hear regularly from clients who call us in to assist when the performance management process falls apart.
5 strategies to manage poor performance at work
To prevent the situation from getting out of hand, there are five key strategies to manage poor performance by a member of your team:
1. Don’t delay
In many cases we see managers wait too long to raise performance concerns with an employee or put off delivering tough feedback. Opportunities for incidental or casual counselling sessions are missed. This can mean that the employee often has a false impression of how well they are travelling and so feedback about their poor performance comes as a shock.
In extreme cases, we have seen organisations decide it’s time for the employee to go – without having implemented any formal performance management process at all – which invariably ends in legal action for unfair dismissal.
2. Have tough conversations
Nobody likes being the bearer of bad news and so it’s tempting to soften the blow when giving an employee feedback about their performance. Lack of frankness or honesty does both the individual and the organisation a disservice. If you want your employee to have a genuine opportunity to improve, they need to know where their performance is lacking (with specific examples), what standard is required and there needs to be a two way conversation about how they can improve. Knowing how to have these tough conversations is a skill that can be learned and improved, but it requires practice.
3. Follow-through
So you have had the tough conversation with the employee and you have come up with a plan together as to how they will improve. This is the stage where things often fall apart if no one takes responsibility for following through.
It’s very important that there is a clear follow-through process which establishes:
- What the goal is ( i.e.: to improve their report writing to the Industry agreed standard)
- What the timeframe is for achievement of the goal?
- How will you measure whether they have achieved the goal?
- How regularly will you meet during the time for progress discussions?
Failure to follow up with an employee afterwards at regular intervals can lead to old habits resuming or for an employee to assume that they must have improved.
A clear and agreed process is also a useful tool that you can refer back to when emotions get high. If the individual involved fails to improve and you need to consider the next step, for example terminating their employment, that will be more straight forward if you can demonstrate that you gave the individual an opportunity to improve through a fair, documented process.
4. Document each step
The history of your management of an employee’s performance should be supported by a clear document trail. This doesn’t need to be an onerous completion of reports and forms. Clear diary notes that document meetings and emails confirming the content of conversations can also serve this purpose.
5. Improve your own performance
Finally, if you are not confident in this area and you have people management responsibility, then you need to improve your own performance! Successfully holding difficult conversations and managing poor performance is a learned skill that you can develop. Take our performance management course (see details below) or find a coach who can give you some professional development.
Nobody likes having to manage poor performance – but with a confident and clear approach you can ensure the process is constructive, respectful and hopefully, successful.
Master the performance management conversation
If you would like to improve or refresh your skills in this challenging area, then come along to Worklogic’s upcoming course on Performance Management in Melbourne on 9 March and Sydney on 15 March. This course will help you master the art of the performance conversation: listening, negotiating, and giving both positive and negative feedback about performance and planning for the future. Learn how to give honest feedback in a respectful way – and in a way that neither party will dread or regret! If you have a group of people managers that could benefit from boosting their skills in this area, we can also conduct this course in-house. Contact Worklogic’s training co-ordinator Danielle Calder for more information.
About Sarah Tidey
Worklogic offers a range of programs and in-house training to help organisations build a positive work culture and reduce workplace conflict. Please contact Sarah via email or give her a call on (03) 9981 6500 for a confidential discussion on strategies to improve the way your organisation manages poor performance.
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Employee feedback is an incredibly powerful tool. If offered properly, it has the ability to grow and develop the people of your organization, improve the levels of trust and communication, and strengthen bonds between employees and managers. But unfortunately, feedback is often ignored or omitted entirely in an effort to avoid discomfort.
Here are nine tips to help managers and leaders give employee feedback that’s frequent, effective, and will help you get you the outcome you need.
1. Avoid giving unsolicited advice
Only a third of people believe the feedback they receive is helpful. That’s because more often than not, it’s unsolicited, which can create an immense amount of stress for the person receiving it.
If your direct report doesn’t ask for feedback directly, either in person or through 15Five’s Request Feedback feature, be sure to ask them if, when, and how they’d like to receive it.
By doing this, you can give the control to your employee and increase the likelihood that they will act on the feedback you share. Empower your people to control the feedback agenda by helping them feel confident and comfortable enough to ask for it.
2. Be specific
Employee feedback should be solutions oriented, crystal clear, and to the point. If your intention is to offer corrective feedback, general comments, like “Your work needs to be improved” or “I wasn’t very impressed with those reports. You have to do better than that” can leave your employee confused and in the dark as to what aspect of their work needs to be corrected.
Be specific on what you’d like your employee to do and offer guidance on how they can apply the feedback. For example, “I noticed you were late on your last two deadlines. I’d like to work with you on your time management to ensure you’re not committing to too much and completing each of your tasks in a timely manner.”
Pro tip: Don’t get stuck on corrective feedback. Remember to also share positive feedback with your employees so they know the things they should continue doing (but not at the same time, see tip #6).
3. Come with a deep level of empathy
“Delivering feedback that exposes a wide gap in self-knowledge demands an extra measure of sensitivity. Like ripping off a scab, the sting of discovering such a profound gap often elicits strong emotions that can easily be confused as defensiveness. If you’re someone who bores the brunt of your colleague’s difficult behavior, be sure you can set those frustrations aside in favor of the empathy you’ll need for this conversation. Before you even approach your colleague, be prepared to give them the space they’ll need to feel shocked upon receiving your feedback. Remember not to interpret it as intensified resistance to your message,” according to organizational consultant, Ron Carucci.
4. Don’t wait for a quarterly review
Employee feedback immediately following an event has the greatest impact on performance. And engagement peaks when employees receive feedback on a weekly cadence. If issues are left unaddressed, they may multiply by a domino effect. So by the time the quarterly performance review comes around, you’ll be confronted with a host of issues that could have been avoided if mentioned earlier.
Another flaw in saving feedback for the performance review process is that problems will be forgotten and the time for offering valuable feedback will have passed. Daily or weekly feedback will help you avoid the recency bias—which mainly reflects recent work and occurs too infrequently to align with the employee’s workflow—and can make tracking and analyzing a colleague’s work much easier for all parties involved.
5. Keep it private
Don’t criticize publicly—ever.
For some, even praise is better delivered in a private meeting. Some people simply don’t like being the center of attention. You can also consider offering employee feedback in the form of a written response. This can give you time to reflect and offer a more thoughtful answer.
Feedback isn’t just uncomfortable for the receiver, it can be uncomfortable for the giver as well. By moving the location to a more informal area, you can help to alleviate some of the underlying pressure.
6. Don’t take the “sandwich approach”
Helping someone improve should always be the goal of feedback, but sandwiching corrective feedback between two pieces of positive feedback won’t soften the blow. This method creates confusion for the receiver, undermines your feedback, and can decrease levels of trust.
Although it may feel more uncomfortable for the giver, being upfront and transparent with corrective feedback sets the foundation for an authentic conversation. Focus on delivering feedback tactfully instead of beating around the bush.
Lecturing someone on how they should improve is about as effective as talking to a brick wall. Don’t forget the important element of respect when discussing vulnerable topics, and certainly don’t talk at someone when it’s far more effective to open up the conversation and talk with them.
Let the receiver respond to your feedback and allow them to ask follow up questions. Once the issue is clear, then you two can work together to land on a solution or course-of-action.
8. Focus on performance, not personality
Focus on an employee’s behaviors (what they do) rather than on their personality traits (what they’re like). Consider these two examples from “The Secret to Giving Constructive Criticism” and think about what type of feedback you would like to receive.
Example 1: “Your arrogance is causing a problem.”
Example 2: “When you interrupt me in front of a client it causes a problem.”
The better approach to feedback is in example 2 because it’s focused on the person’s behavior, whereas example 1 takes a jab at the person’s character, which won’t be conducive to improvement.
Evaluation is tough, and it takes a lot of thought and energy to do it properly. Instead of treating feedback conversations as a one-and-done, follow up with your direct report and show appreciation when you see improvement along the way. This will show them that you care about their success, and it can motivate them to keep up the great work.
Employee feedback is a necessary part of growth and development. These tips can help managers and leaders deliver it more effectively, which will lead to more collaborative, communicative, and higher-performing cultures.
Image credit: Shutterstock