Key Solutions to Turn Around Underperforming Teams, Part 1

At some point in our supervisory roles, we've all encountered employees who need to perform to their full potential. We strive for high-performing individuals, those who are both willing and able. But what about those who can but have yet to be fully willing? Or perhaps they are eager but not fully able? It's crucial to address these situations early to set the stage for improvement.

Let's start by acknowledging that it would be rare to have all high performers. It's possible but rare. If you feel the employee is 100% willing but not 100% able, the solution may be training and mentoring. But what if it's the reverse? What can you, as the supervisor, do? Remember, there's always potential for growth and improvement, which can inspire hope and motivation in both you and your team.

Tactfully addressing underperformance is much easier when you, as the supervisor, make fact-based decisions. Your role in maintaining team productivity and alignment with organizational goals is crucial. The key is approaching the situation constructively, focusing on support and improvement rather than blame. The first question is, “Are they meeting their key performance indicators?”

To align, we need to ensure that individual goals and performance standards are tied to key performance indicators, which in turn are aligned with department goals and department performance standards. Your role in this process is very important, reflecting your commitment to the organizational goals.

Here’s an example:

Organizational Goal: SEMAP High-Performer Status: Achieve a top-tier performance rating on the HUD Section 8 Management Assessment Program (SEMAP) to ensure excellence in administrating and managing housing assistance programs and delivering the highest-quality services to our residents and stakeholders.

Department Goal: Enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance of the Housing Voucher department to gain maximum points for the indicators they are responsible for to achieve SEMAP High-Performer Status, ensuring all administrative and operational processes meet or exceed HUD's stringent performance benchmarks.

Department Performance Standard: Achieve and maintain SEMAP High-Performer Status by ensuring the Housing Voucher department consistently upholds high operational excellence. This includes maintaining a voucher utilization rate above 98%, conducting quality control inspections on at least 10% of units annually, completing all rent reasonableness determinations within five business days, achieving 100% completion for annual re-examinations 30 days before the deadline, resolving 90% of resident and landlord inquiries within two business days, verifying 100% accuracy in income verifications, providing 20 hours of annual HUD-focused training to all staff, and promptly investigating and correcting 100% of suspected fraud cases within 30 days. (Those, of course, would be broken down into individual performance standards.)

Department Employee Goal: Ensure accurate and thorough verification of income and deductions for all program participants. This contributes to the Section 8 department's objective of maintaining 100% accuracy in income verifications and preventing errors that could affect benefit allocation.

Employee Performance Standard (it gets more complex because several standards are necessary to achieve the goal):

1.????? Timeliness: Complete all initial income verifications and annual re-examinations at least 60 days before the deadline to provide ample time for corrective actions, if necessary.

2.????? Accuracy: Determine household income and deductions with 100% accuracy by cross-referencing information from various documentation, third-party sources, and the Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system.

3.????? Documentation Compliance: Maintain comprehensive and clear documentation in participant files to support income and deduction determinations, ensuring compliance with HUD and SEMAP standards.

4.????? Error Detection: Identify and resolve discrepancies in participant income information through thorough analysis and communication with participants, minimizing errors that affect benefits.

5.????? Reporting: Provide detailed monthly reports to supervisors highlighting the status of completed verifications, unresolved issues, and proposed strategies for resolving outstanding income verification challenges.

6.????? Training and Improvement: Participate in annual training and workshops on HUD income verification guidelines and best practices, incorporating new knowledge to improve accuracy and efficiency in the verification process.

We need to measure whether the employee is meeting their performance standard. For this purpose, we use key performance indicators. To keep our discussion simple, we will use the accuracy performance standard.

KPI: Measure the percentage of family files with zero errors in household income and deductions, including verification and required forms. The target is 100% error-free files upon initial completion.

TRACKING KPI’S

If you establish KPIs without tracking them, you miss their actual value. Creating a spreadsheet or dashboard is an excellent way to track KPIs and visually interpret progress. The easiest way to do this is through a dashboard. It would be best if you tracked these by team and by employee.

If you don’t have a dashboard program, here’s how you can set up an efficient tracking tool:

Spreadsheet Setup (Excel/Google Sheets)

1. Identify Your KPIs: List all KPIs in separate columns or rows, depending on the layout preference.
2. Structure Data Entry: Create a consistent format for data input. Include columns for each data point: date, specific KPI, value, target, and notes.

1. Automate Calculations: Use formulas to calculate totals, averages, percentages, and variances against targets. For example, calculate the "Accuracy Rate" by dividing the number of error-free files by the total files reviewed.
2. Graphical Representation: Add visual elements like bar graphs, line charts, and progress meters. For instance, a line chart can track “Timeliness” trends over time, while a progress meter can reflect the percentage of “Training Hours Completed.”
3. Conditional Formatting: Apply color coding based on KPI thresholds (e.g., green for meeting targets and red for falling behind).

?Setting KPIs without monitoring them leaves a significant gap in achieving your goals. KPIs are powerful tools that provide direction, measure progress, and help identify improvement areas. You must track them in order to understand performance trends, adjust strategies effectively, and celebrate milestones. By setting up an organized spreadsheet or dashboard, you gain a practical way to stay on top of these critical metrics, ensuring data-driven decisions that align with your strategic vision. Effective KPI tracking bridges the gap between ambition and achievement, unlocking the potential to reach and sustain high performance.

?In the following newsletter, I’ll discuss tracking, teams, and what to do with the results.

If you're interested in enhancing your supervisors' leadership skills, I invite you to book a call to discuss how we can upskill your team. Let's work to unlock your organization's full potential. Book a call with me here: ?https://calendly.com/nanmckayconnects/lead-and-succeed