How to Deal with Poor Performers and Non Performers?

How to Deal with Poor Performers and Non Performers?
How does one manage poor performing employees and how do you deal with someone that comes to work that is not productive at all (being drunk, hangover)? They claim that they work for that matter.
Do you send them home? Or do you keep such person at work?
How do you handle them if you keep such employees at work.

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Welcome to the forums of 12manage. In this discussion we exchange ideas about How to Deal with Poor Performers and Non Performers?.

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Welcome to the forums of 12manage. In this discussion we exchange ideas about How to Deal with Poor Performers and Non Performers?.

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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands

Short Guide to Dealing with Poor Performance of an Employee
Good question! Last week we focused on improving the performance of employees who are doing just fine in their complex jobs. Handling a situation of poor performance by an employee in your team is a different, yet equally important, and complex management skill... What are the main steps and issues?

First of all: Don't jump to conclusions, quick fixes or actions. Start with a personal meeting and actively listen to what the employee has to say about the situation. Avoid making assumptions. Ask questions instead, like if there any special personal circumstances? Examine the issues and concerns the employee brings up.

Determine if you're dealing with a consistent or temporary non-performer. Is she (he) currently overloaded or stressed but normally a good, performing employee?

Then perform a brief diagnosis of the reasons for the poor performance by assessing what caused it. There are typically 2 main causes of poor performance of an employee (apart from the 0. PERSONAL OR TEMPORARY circumstances) and you need to apply situational management to them:

COMPETENCE / ABILITY. This includes a person's aptitude (natural ability to do something), and also any training or learning resources the person received. Typical indicators of low ability are:
- Low aptitude (natural ability to do something)
- Low intelligence
- Low skill level
- Low knowledge level
- Difficult or complex tasks
- Poor performance despite strong effort
- No or little improvement over time
- Was assigned to a too demanding job after hiring or was promoted to one later on

Now that you know the reason(s), you can try to enhance the person's cabilities. If the performance gap is not too big, consider providing extra help, training, coaching, reassigning him/her. If the gap is too big or nothing else works, be ready to let the person go. That could be better for your team and organization. After all, holding onto an underachieving employee may result in a ripple effect of negativity, low moral and quality of work which may demotivate others. Ensure timely assistance of HR / legal.
MOTIVATION. The commitment and desire of the person to perform and improve.

If the motivation level is low, you should first provide good and clear feedback about it, so the person understands your opinion and that improvement will be needed.
Also you might set more detailed, clear and SMART performance goals, and/or provide regular assistance or coaching (either by yourself or by someone else).
You could create and agree upon a performance improvement plan or ask the employee to create one.
Follow up and monitor the progress.
If the motivation level is extremely low or if there is not enough improvement, you'll have to be ready to let the employee go.

A final tip: Keep records during the whole proces described above, in case you need evidence later on.
Hope this is helpful... Any builds?

Norman Dragt
Netherlands

Cultural and Legal Aspects of Poor Performing Employees
As Jaap de Jonge nicely summates you can do a lot about poor performance. As an extra you may want to look at: the CULTURE within the department the person is under performing. It could be that colleagues are purposely undermining the person's performance.
As for the Netherlands, and probably most European countries, JURISPRUDENCE is rather clear about the possibility to let go of under performers. You need proof of your own actions to improve the performance. Judges have set the bar rather high for employers that are not in any form of financial problems or can not proof that the performance of the under performer is a threat to the financial health of the organization. You will need to proof that you did all the things Jaap de Jonge wrote, including evaluating the development of the under performer, and giving the opportunity to improve after each evaluation, before a judge or the unemployment office UWV, will allow an employee to be fired.

Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar
India

An Inside Out Approach for Poor Performers
Irrespective of the job that is being performed, it is clarity in the inner being that is responsible for improvement of the focus levels... If one were to improve on that aspect, then performance levels will improve naturally I suppose.
Probably the ways and means to improve on the clarity of inner being need to be provided to the people who are considered to be not so good at performance.

Graham Williams
Management Consultant, South Africa

How to Deal with Poor Performers and Non-performers
I resonate with both Jaap's response and that of srinivas.
There are a myriad of causes from self-abuse, wrong placement, home unhappiness, under equipping, and reasons extraneous to the actual work (for example reaction to an organisations response to a social/ community issue...
Our usual Western 'left brain' goes straight to confronting the ISSUE, analyses, diagnosis, solution, implementation (goal clarification, training, firing, pep-talk, assigning a coach, documented monitoring) so we "manage" the situation. In addition, a 'right brain' response may include:

Allowing the immediate team to fix things as they are accountable and responsible for team performance made up of its members;
Respect the person as being above the issue (Re = again, and Spect = see) and search for the wounded inner child and latent potential by coming alongside, unfiltered listening, support, perhaps trusting that the person is capable of fixing things themselves - perhaps both?

So the real question for leaders may become: Given the seriousness and urgency of the situation and wanting what is best for the organisation and the person, what is the right balance of 'left brain' and 'right brain', task and relationship, discipline and compassion to call upon?

Debashish Banerjee, Kenya

-1

Redundant Appraisal Mechanisms
@Jaap de Jonge: in contemporary situations, performance appraisals are routinely real time with strong quantitative measures built into the matrix. For example, Balanced Scorecards can factor financia (...)

Norman Dragt
Netherlands

Redundant or Not
@Debashish Banerjee: It is true that we can break down performance appraisal to the level of 'what will be the result for profitability'. However only a handful of employees will like this approach. (...)

Helen Strong
Business Consultant, South Africa

Risk Management in Case of Poor Performers
Totally agree that the situation needs to be handled with an evidenced approach and respect. However while that is happening one has to make sure there is a plan B in place to deal with performance la (...)

Kathleen Tan
HR Consultant, Singapore

What if a Non-performer Retaliates and Disagrees?
If we encounter a denial of non-performance, we are unable to have a positive outcome. Wonder how to handle the non-performer when each feedback session becomes an attack and deteriorates the relation (...)

Graham Williams
Management Consultant, South Africa

What if Non-performers Retaliate and Disagree?
Good question @Kathleen Tan! The same question arises in a number of situations, for example when activists clash with those they are trying to shift, with teenage children being corrected, within mar (...)

Norman Dragt
Netherlands

Procedure to Address Retaliating Non-performers
@Kathleen Tan: One possible approach to non responsiveness to feedback about performance, is asking questions and having answers ready if the answers by the non-performer are negative. Of course the (...)