You might then wonder, “Which of my employees is not performing?” This is true. When you handle an underperforming employee, the toughest task is to first check their performance and provide feedback. This is all time-consuming work for a manager.
Here, we’ll explain how to handle an underperforming employee and what fair efforts you can make to keep them motivated and help them improve.
What Is Underperforming of Employee?
Before jumping to any solutions, there must be clarity about what the actual underperforming is. It’s not always a lack of skill or laziness. Underperforming in real workplaces often occurs for a number of reasons
- Work expectations are unclear to the employee
- The employee’s training for the job is weak
- Sometimes personal stress impacts work
- Sometimes the employee’s role doesn’t fit
In many companies, we’ve seen many employees struggle because they’re never clear on what good performance actually looks like. So, when handling an underperforming employee, first assume responsibility.
Check Yourself First
Whenever you meet with an underperforming employee, first ask yourself whether you shared all the project details, outlined the deadlines, and gave support when it was needed.
Many times, the issue isn’t with the employee but with management. They do not know all the details about the project and not receive the support they need which leads to poor performance. Handling an underperforming employee starts with ownership, not blaming.
Judge the Work Not the Person
Whenever you’re giving feedback to an underperforming employee, judge their work, not their personality. We’ve often seen managers give feedback that’s a little personal, which can demotivate employees and, in a fit of anger, say things like,
- I don’t find you interesting
- You don’t know how to work
- Your attitude is the problem.
These statements are a direct personal attack and when the employee takes it personally and they become frustrated
Managers should always focus on the work why deadlines are being missed, why quality work not being produced and how the employee can be seen in the comments. Provide examples with dates of why this task was not completed on decided date.
By addressing the employee’s work facts, you can easily handle an underperforming employee.
Have a Calm Conversation Early
One of the biggest mistakes managers make is not communicating with employees regularly and instead wait until the end of the month. Managers often do this because they dislike conflict and think the problem will resolve itself.
Then, at month’s end, frustration start Why performance is not good and why is it dragging down the team’s results? The easiest step is to address Underperforming early. First, inform the employee of his or her performance, and in a calm manner, so they can improve their performance.
Communication between manager and employee often improves performance.
Listen More Than You Speak
Managers often prefer to explain things to employees in meetings, so that they can only speak their mind and do not give an underperforming employee a chance to explain, due to which their performance does not improve. Whenever you have a meeting, ask them openly:
- How are you feeling about your work today?
- Where are you facing the most challenges?
- Any problems that are preventing you from working?
And these things are never reflected in a report, but they often come up in a meeting. When the employee is clear with work so you can handle an underperforming employee in this way.
Main Reason for Underperforming
When identifying Underperforming, there are several categories that contribute to poor results:
Skill Gap
This employee wants to work but doesn’t know how.
Will Gap
This employee knows how to work but doesn’t want to.
Role Mismatch
This employee wants to work and knows how, but is assigned to a faulty department.
Through all of these factors, you can identify which employee is underperforming. The truth is, it’s more difficult to identify than discipline.
Keep Expectations Clear and Simple
If any new project is being given to an employee, it is often seen that the project is given in a very simple manner. Managers prepare long documents and give them to the employee due to which the employee himself gets confused as to where to start and which project to complete first. This problem is often seen with employees working remotely.
- You can use a simple trick to tell them that this task needs to be done first and completed by Friday.
- There should be no mistakes, even if you test it yourself first.
- Client emails should be replied to within 24 hours.
If you follow this process your employee’s performance will never suffer, and you will never have to deal with an underperforming employee.
Now you might be thinking about how to measure a remote employee’s work and whether it’s going well or not, If you’re thinking about this, don’t worry. By using our employee work monitoring tool, you can track employee work from anywhere.
Make a Clear Improvement Plan
Handling an underperforming employee is not about control but about giving the right direction. When you create an improvement plan, what are some things you should keep in mind to increase the chance of your employee’s performance improving?
Tell them to focus on just two or three areas in the plan where you feel there are shortcomings. Don’t ask them to start over again, as this will waste their time and the company’s.
Mention that we have support available if you need it. For example, a graphic designer needs good image creation software.
Then, simply measure their performance for the next 30 days and you see there is real improvement. By creating a plan like this you can handle underperforming employees.
When Performance Management Becomes Necessary
It’s also true that even after a manager puts in effort, the employee’s performance may still not improve. In such cases, the next step needs to be considered, then you can ask HR to issue a warning letter because it is possible that he has made up his mind that he does not want to work and is also not serious about the work.
This trick is a bit hard but sometimes it works because when the employee gets a warning then he becomes serious about the work. Yes, you can say that this method is strict but it works and with this method you can handle underperforming employees.
Exit Employee with Respect and Dignity
When his performance does not improve even after warning, you can let him go from the company but first give him a notice period with respect and when he completes the notice period then ask the HR to make it complete and final and this is your responsibility because when that employee leaves then he will never say that the company was bad, it culture was bad, then he will think that the company was good but he will not be able to understand the work and this increases the respect of the company in the market and this is the last trick to handle an underperforming employee.
Why This Approach Works
The tricks that we have told you work because these are completely transparent tricks and the employee never feels bad nor thinks wrong about the manager or the company.
When the employee himself feels that he is being heard and is getting support, then he gets motivated and works and the performance automatically improves and all these tricks are real and work in the right way and it is possible that many of your managers will also follow this method.
Final Thoughts
A manager job is not to fix an employee personality, but rather to improve the performance. A good manager should sometimes be polite and sometimes strict because one formula does not always work.
In the future, the sooner you act on problems, the sooner they are resolved. The same applies to underperforming employee, and this also makes you a better leader.