How to Manage An Underperforming Employee

As a manager, you are responsible for overseeing and improving your employees' performance and addressing underperformance when necessary.

For many emerging leaders, this can be a daunting task. Often, we're not adequately trained on how to manage the underperforming employees, conduct difficult conversations, or follow the appropriate steps.

So, we might avoid bringing it up and hope it will resolve itself. And then, at some point, we feel like it is too far gone and too hard to pick the problem back up because you ignored it for too long.

But don't worry. It is never too late to have a conversation with an underperforming employee.

In this week's newsletter and video, I'll introduce an eight-step framework for effectively managing and improving employee performance, even if you've ignored it for a while.

Understanding Underperformance:

There might be a few different ways in which underperformance can show up in your team. We might only think of a non-performing employee as someone who does not achieve their targets or goals or does not meet the agreed quality standards. However, underperformance can also mean someone shows disruptive and toxic behavior or disregards health and safety procedures.

Risks of underperformance:

The underperformance of one team member can have an impact on your whole team and organization. If unaddressed, it can lead to

1. Reduced Team Performance

2. Negative Team morale and team culture,

3. Lower engagement

4. Reduced trust in you as the leader

5. Health and safety risks

6. Business risks (i.e. financial, legal, and image)

As a leader, it is important that you address issues as promptly as possible. When you observe something, have a conversation and discuss a solution together. Addressing issues promptly will prevent them from escalating further. Sometimes, your employees might not even be aware that you have an issue with their performance.

Delaying a conversation can also cost you a lot of emotional energy and lead to ongoing frustration.

Eight-Step Framework:

1| Understand Internal Processes:

Familiarize yourself with your organization's performance management procedures to ensure that you follow the correct steps.

2| Reflect on the Cause:

Identify potential reasons for underperformance. You will confirm the root cause when you talk with the employee, but it is important that you get a first idea for yourself. From my experience and the work with my clients, the most common root cause is a misalignment of expectations.

But there could be other potential root causes of underperformance, like:

• Misalignment of expectations and priorities (mismatch interpretation)
• Expectations/ targets are not in their circle of control
• Lack of knowledge or skill set
• Tasks are not aligned with their strengths and, therefore, feel draining/ demotivating.
• Low confidence
• History of disappointment or no recognition in the past
• Personal issues such as family stress, physical and/or mental health problems, or problems with drugs or alcohol
• Low morale in the workplace and/ or a toxic work environment
• Interpersonal differences
• Workplace bullying
• etc.

3| Gather Input:

Seek feedback from other stakeholders to get a balanced view. To ensure that your unconscious bias is not influencing your judgment, you might want to get some feedback from other stakeholders as well. Make sure you do this discretely and respectfully.

4| Reflect on Your Contribution:

Based on your first reflections, assess how your actions may have contributed to the issue. Maybe you needed to set clear expectations and address issues early enough. Maybe your unconscious bias or personal judgments were at play, and you avoided 1:1 conversations with this employee. Try to be honest with yourself and get clear on the role you played.

5| Prepare the Meeting:

As I always say, preparation is the key to effective feedback conversations. You want to enter the conversation with clarity and a clear vision, feeling confident and optimistic.

To prepare, review performance targets, and gather adhering data. Prepare specific feedback examples and clarify what the improvement needs to look like.

Give the employee time to prepare for the meeting as well and invite or allow them to bring a support person, depending on how critical this conversation will be.

6| Conduct the Meeting:

Ensure you meet in a private setting. Clearly state your concerns and provide detailed feedback. Acknowledge your contribution to the issue and state clearly your desire to find a solution. Listen actively to hear their point of view. Then, define a clear improvement plan together. (Here is a video that goes into much more detail on how to lead a difficult conversation like this )

7| Monitor and Follow-Up:

Define together how and when you will check up. Consistently check progress and provide feedback. The secret lies in the follow-up!

Only one conversation is not enough. Show that you are committed to resolving this positively by continuing to show up.

8| Take Action if Needed:

If the performance does not improve, and you have invested enough time to follow up with the employee and resolve it together, you might have to consider further steps, such as reassignment internally or termination of employment.

This decision mustn't be taken lightly. Your role as a leader is to invest in your employees and put personal issues aside.

However, if you have invested in a fair improvement plan process, a termination might be the best option for you and the rest of the team. Ensure you follow internal procedures and be supportive, empathetic, and respectful during the process.

Tools for Success

New Leadership Cheat Sheets: If you found this article helpful, you might also like my new leadership handbook on "Performance Management and Feedback".

It includes 14 cheat sheets designed as a pocket guide to support you in your performance management from start to finish and helps you prepare for difficult conversations or performance reviews. Check them out here .

Points to Remember:

Whenever you find yourself in a situation with an underperforming employee, remember:

• Do Not Delay the Conversation: Address underperformance as soon as it's identified.
• Reflect on Your Contribution: Acknowledge your role in the employee's performance.
• Engage in Two-Way Conversations: Listen to the employee's perspective to identify root causes.
• Maintain Confidentiality: Handle performance issues discreetly and respectfully.
• Regular Follow-Up: Consistent monitoring and feedback are crucial for sustained improvement.