Page 18 - MetalForming October 2013

Human Capital By Debbie McGrath
Are You Challenged by Poor Performance?
Posted to HR.com by Christina Lattimer, owner, People Discovery; www.peoplediscovery.co.uk
As a young manager, the second-biggest challenge to
wrap my head around was to identify when lagging
performance became poor performance. The biggest challenge then was to determine what to do once that iden- tification had been made. The reason tackling poor per- formance was an even bigger challenge than recognizing it? Once I spotted the problem, I then had to deal with the per- sonality of the poor performer, and people react differently to the same information.
In those early days of my management career, I also was the youngest on the team; telling someone they weren’t cut- ting it was particularly daunting. As my experience grew I learned to help and support the poor performer in a much kinder and effective way. Here’s what I learned.
Managing poor performance can be one of the most stressful parts of managing a team. Good managers know that the vast majority of employees want to come to work to do a good job. When an employee underperforms, it’s often either because:
• They are in the wrong job;
• They have problems outside of work; or
• They simply need more knowledge, information or
understanding.
It takes a skilled and experienced manager to expertly
raise poor performance. Often teams become less than enchanted with their manager when the manager fails to address poor performance, even when the impact isn’t extreme. One of the most frustrating experiences for a team is when it must carry a member not pulling his own weight—frustration can turn to stress when the manager fails to act.
Poor performance can appear at any stage in the employ- ment life-cycle. Managers must be extra vigilant during any trial period. I have seen managers give new employees the ben- efit of the doubt and live to rue the day they confirmed a per- manent appointment, when they had experienced niggling
Content for Human Capital comes courtesy of Debbie McGrath, founder and chief instigator of HR.com, Aurora, Ontario, Canada. McGrath has a degree in computer science and business administration from the University of Guelph. Founded in August 1999, HR.com aims to help build great companies by con- necting them with the knowledge and resources they need to effectively manage the people side of business.
www.HR.com
tel: 877/472-6648
doubts during that time and failed to listen to their intuition. Here are some simple ways to help prevent problems, and,
when they do occur, what to do about them.
Don’t:
• Miss the telling signs in the trial period. Follow up on any issues that arise during that time.
• Wait until the next performance review. Deal with emerg- ing problems as soon as they become apparent.
• Develop an attitude or fixed view of the employee; there may be many reasons for under-performance.
• Ignore what other people say about someone’s under- performance. Subtly check it out, if you don’t at first agree.
• Wait until a major incident or disaster occurs.
• Wait until everyone else in the workplace becomes total- ly fed up with the under-performance.
• Confuse a performance issue with a conduct problem. Misconduct impacts performance, but they are two totally different issues.
• Wait until the under-performer goes off on sick leave.
Do:
• Have a fair and equitable way of measuring performance for all employees.
• Use your internal policies and procedures for managing under-performance. Your policies should be designed to assist you to get it right. If your policies hinder the process, rewrite them.
• Identify the precise areas of under-performance. Exact- ly what element of performance is the employee not achiev- ing? Areas of performance include productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and an underdeveloped skill set.
• Gather clear examples and facts that demonstrate level of performance. Do not rely on hearsay or niggling doubts.
• Keep an open mind about the reasons for under-per- formance. You may not know all that is going on in the employee’s life.
• Talk to the under-performer as soon as possible, and lis- ten to what he has to say. Let him know you are concerned, not accusing.
• Ask the under-performer about external factors, his own views about his performance, and what he thinks his expectations are. Ask about training and skill sets.
• Develop a clear and smart action plan. The outcomes of the action plan must prove to you that the employee is will- ing and able to bridge the performance gap, and sustain it without constant supervision.
16 MetalForming/October 2013
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