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The right questions to ask an underperforming employee is not the main focus to blame that employee, it’s all about understanding the real challenges like clarity of expectations, identifying tool gaps. Understanding the workload and reviewing manager support.
Conversation should be started with open ended questions like “what obstacles are slowing down” and then agree to go with a clear action plan.
When an employee continuously misses deadlines and makes simple mistakes you as a manager do not directly go with formal warnings because employees can become defensive and they may not be ready to share actual problems with you. It’s better you must go with supportive questions, and this is the best way to approach.
Top 10 Questions to Ask an Underperforming Employee
If you have limited time to understand the real cause of underperforming employees, these questions may be helpful for understanding quickly.
- How are you feeling about your current workload and daily tasks?
- Ask employee that how your current workload is and daily tasks are going
- What parts of your job do you find most challenging right now?
- With this question you can understand where employees face difficulties
- Do you feel clear about your top priorities for this month?
- Check whether employees understand this month’s priorities or not
- What tools do you feel are missing from your work?
- Ask employee which tools will help you
- Where do you feel a gap in training might be holding you back?
- Try to understand where training is lacking in which part
- What obstacles are making it hard to hit your project deadlines?
- Ask which obstacles create problems to complete project deadlines
- How can I help you with your project
- You can ask directly how I can provide support for your project
- How you feel about your work in recent days
- Allow employees to share their thoughts about work in recent days
- Is there anything that affects your focus and energy
- Ask employees respectfully if there is anything outside of work that may affect you
- What steps do we take together to bring your performance back
- Decide some steps with employees that will help to improve performance
Questions to Identify the Main Performance Barrier
Poor performance always happens because of laziness; in most cases there is a real barrier behind employee performance. By using the process of questions to ask an underperforming employee can help identify real work problems and remove them from their effort.
- What is the biggest thing that will stop you completing work?
This gives employees a chance to explain issues like this software does not work properly or company laptop is not working properly.
- When you look at your daily schedule and where do you lose time most?
This question will you identify real activity of employees during working hours like employees attending unnecessary meetings
- Is there anything you are stuck on right now?
It will help you identify problems before they become bigger issue
Questions About Unclear Expectations and Priorities
Employees sometimes do not meet deadlines because they are unclear about work and responsibilities or unclear about manager expectations.
- Explain in your own words what the top three goals are this month?
You can compare your expectations with employee answers if your expectations and answers do not match then you get an indication of a problem.
- Do you know what the outcome from this project is?
With this you can understand the employee clearly understands expected and quality standards
Questions About Skills, Training and Knowledge Gaps
Work requirements quickly change and sometimes employee performance drops because they have not received proper training for new roles and responsibilities.
- Is there any part or role you need training in?
You can provide employee without feeling embarrassed you can provide additional training
- Are there any steps in your work you feel unsure of?
With this question you can identify skills gaps and help to remove gaps by providing training sessions
- What skills do you feel more confident in?
This question will help you identify employee skills
Questions for Missed Deadlines, Mistakes and Quality Issues
Use fact based approaches when addressing mistakes. The goal is not to punish the employee, it is all about why this issue happens.
- You missed your project deadline, what went wrong?
You can trace issues from the starting point
- What steps can we take in your daily work routine?
This approach is useful for improving employee performance instead of blaming employees.
- What would you do differently if you have this project again?
This allows employees to get a chance to prove themselves again and develop work habits in a better way.
Questions Managers Should Avoid Asking
Wrong questions damage employee trust and employees become defensive. Here are some bad questions you should avoid asking.
1- Why cannot you meet deadlines like everyone else?
2- Don’t you care about your job anymore?
3- Why did you create such basic mistakes?
4- What is wrong with your performance?
5- Why are you taking so much time to complete tasks?
6- Why cannot you handle workload?
7- How many times have I explained to you?
How to Use Employee Answers During the Conversation
Knowing the questions to ask an underperforming employee is only half the job. The important thing is that you must listen to them carefully then you can decide whether employees can improve or not.
- Listen carefully without cutting them off
- Note down everything in a notepad what the employee wants
- You can ask if you want to hear back from you about project guidelines
- Build action plan together so it makes it easier for employees to improve performance
How WorkDesQ Supports Employee Performance Discussions
WorkDesQ helps you during the conversation or before the conversation to understand what the real reason is of employee performance issues , this software provides real data of underperforming employees.
Working hours
With this you can check whether your underperforming employee works according to office hours or not.
Review productivity
Understanding work patterns and check productivity has dropped over time
Check application usage
You can check which application your employee uses most of the time during working hours. This will help you understand whether this application is suitable for office work or not.
Idle time tracking
This feature provides data of the employee’s idle time and this will help you understand whether the employee started working after login or not because idle time indicates no activity on the laptop screen.
Track improvement
After the employee’s performance with an employee, you can track employee performance through WorkDesQ software.
How WorkDesQ Can Support Better Employee Performance Discussions
Final Words
Managing underperforming employees does not have to turn into having difficult or stressful conversations. By using clear and supportive questions to ask an underperforming employee then difficult conversation converts into productive coaching sessions.
You should focus on identifying the real causes and challenges and provide practical support to achieve targets.