7 Step Strategy for Employee Performance Improvement and Managing Under Performance

Picture yourself arriving at work, ready to tackle the day, only to have an unforeseen obstacle interrupt you. The member of your team on whom you have always relied on is the one who is underperforming. In what way do you react as a HR leader?

In every business, managing underperformance is a common issue that requires complexity and sensitivity to address properly.

Thus, let’s get going and put these ideas into action so you may support or manage your underperformers more effectively and underperformance strategies, ensuring not just their success but also our team’s total productivity.

Table of Content

• 7 Step Strategy to Address Poor Performance
  1. Identify root cause
  2. Create clear communication plan
  3. Decide and set goals along with metrics
  4. Plan for both formal and informal training
  5. Acknowledge improvement
  6. Assist and track metrics
  7. Make difficult decisions
• Conclusion

7 Step Strategy to Address Poor Performance

• Step 1: Identify Root Cause

  Before you can take any action to improve underperformance, you must identify the root cause. There may be a wide range of complex causes:

  • Personal Issues: The performance of an employee may be significantly impacted by family, health, or financial concerns.
  • Workload & Burnout: Taking on too much as a result of an overwhelming workload or a poor work-life balance will quickly cause employees or you to burn out, which is why problems keep piling up.
  • Training or Skills: This is the most confusing aspect of an employee; he might not have all the equipment needed to do his job well.
  • Bad work fit: When a person is not suited for the role in which they have been employed, as in a wheat yolk that can never hold a rock, the result is disengagement and poor performance.
  • Unmotivated Employees: Employees who lack motivation or who are not given enough credit may fail to meet deadlines and objectives.

  The first step in solving an issue is identifying its cause. It also entails having a brief conversation with the team member and learning more about their concerns.

• Step 2: Create Clear Communication Plan

  Working with a substandard performer might be frightening, but open, sincere communication between the two of you is essential. How to present this subject, for example:

  • Have a one-on-one meeting: Choose a quiet location where you can’t be reached by phone and meet with each other to discuss.
  • Demonstrate Empathy: Get understanding by empathetically starting the conversation. Show that you actually care about their well-being rather than just their performance.
  • Use Specifics: Provide particular examples to demonstrate how the employee is falling short of expectations.
  • Actively Listen: Give the employee the opportunity to clarify their position. Above all, just listen to them when they share their concerns and difficulties without attempting to add your own viewpoint.
  • Work for Solutions: Cooperating to find a solution to the problem This might involve adjusting workloads, increasing training, or creating well-defined goals.

• Step 3: Decide and set goals along with metrics

  Underperformance often stems from a lack of clarity about what is expected. Setting clear, achievable goals is crucial. Here’s how to do it effectively:

  • SMART Goals: Make sure goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. This provides crystal clear instructions for the employee to follow.
  • Check-ins: Designate certain times to go over action items and provide comments or alignment.
  • Track Development: Keep a record of the decisions made and the advancement—or lack thereof—of these action plans. This helps with staff responsibility and progress tracking.

• Step 4: Plan for both formal and informal training

  This is something that is easily remedied; if your employee’s low productivity is due to a lack of training or abilities, then supporting their professional development could help. Test out these techniques for size:

  • Educational Programmes: Provide employees with the option to enhance their skill set by offering in-person or online training or workshop-style programmes.
  • The idea of mentoring: You can try assigning the underperforming employee to a more seasoned colleague who could be able to provide them with advice and support.
  • Job rotation: It is the practice of moving between roles within an organisation to explore if a different environment allows for better use of one’s interests and talents.

• Step 5: Acknowledge improvement

  Motivation’s Effect on Performance. Alternatively, you could simply choose Ways to Maintain Team Motivation

  • Acknowledgment & Prizes: Provide acknowledgement and prizes to employees for their outstanding efforts and accomplishments. This includes verbal compliments, incentives, and more.
  • Promote Career Growth: Provide opportunities for professional and career advancement. Employees witness how their efforts can provide novel and stimulating outcomes.
  • Fostering a positive workplace culture will allow your staff to feel like sentient beings at the end of the workday. This entails promoting work-life balance and promptly resolving workplace issues.

• Step 6: Assist and track metrics

  Continuous coaching is necessary to support a worker who is having difficulty performing; it cannot be done in an isolated incident. And here’s how to maintain the momentum:

  • Feedback: It is given frequently. Keeping an employee on track with constructive criticism can help them grow continuously.
  • Goal Adjustment: Be adaptable and make required goal adjustments. If an employee continues to struggle in certain areas while performing well in others, be careful to reevaluate and adjust their goals.
  • Celebrate Small Wins: Showing praise to employees goes a long way in maintaining their motivation for treatment. Keep track of minor successes and improvements along the way.

• Step 7: Make difficult decisions

  In spite of your best efforts, this comes to a point when the performance of an individual does not increase. In the latter case, difficult decisions may be required. Here are a few ways to do this professionally:

  • Last Chance: Deliver a final notice that lays out the specific repercussions of continued insufficient performance.
  • Document: Make sure all actions in assisting the employee are documented. Meetings, action plans and feedback respectively.
  • Examine Your Other Options: Giving underperforming staff members a new role in a different department to see if they perform better is one of the greatest methods to deal with them.
  • Dismissal: When everything else fails, dismissing an individual who is no longer providing the necessary results may be the last straw to grasp in order to restore established chemistry. Handle with delicacy and consideration, making sure the staff member knows why—and that they can get further help with the move if necessary.

Conclusion

It’s undoubtedly difficult to deal with underperformance, but altering behaviour makes an organisation more productive and positive.

They can overcome obstacles that are seemingly based on personality if you approach them with empathy, candid communication, and an extremely strong support system, enabling them to realise their full potential.

Consider your position as a leader as a source of inspiration and guidance for your team, in addition to acting as an enforcer. Consider it an ideal chance if you are faced with the underperformance issue.

How can you use this challenge to your advantage?

In team building a more engaged, effective, and thriving atmosphere, your ability to manage and cope with underperformance may breathe life into not only the specific employee but towards everyone else as well.