If you are feeling a bit guilty because your company had to dismissed an employee for performance issues, you may be wondering whether the employee you thought had great potential, could have be salvaged or whether there was something else more you could have done to prevent this tragedy.
Take what you learn below as a method or approach for managing sub-par performers so in the future you give these employees the best shot at improvement.
So, don't look back, but consider how many employees you will help in the future with the following.
When you work with an employee’s
performance issues, have several very short meetings, say 20 minutes, spaced out, during
the year where you discuss the standards of performance you require.
Share
notes between each other--no secrets--and examine parameters such as quality of work,
quantity of work, attendance and availability, responsibility and
dependability, use of time, cooperation, initiative, personal appearance, ability
to accept feedback (constructive criticism), and appearance.
First agree what constitutes
outstanding performance (what it actually looks like on each of these metrics),
but also above average, “standard”, below standard, or poor. At each meeting discuss
where the employee thinks he or she falls within these graded scales.
Critical: Discuss what
it will take to reach the next level no matter where an employee falls, and push them to reach it. This engagement supplies urgency and
motivation for most employees to keep their performance improvement "top
of mind."
It helps the employee also avoid complacency, and completely normal and natural response to boredom or other cognitive distortions that the employee uses to say to him or herself, "things are okay--I can kick back now." The process described above thwarts this drift to mediocrity or below.
Without short term, periodic discussions that are quantifiable in nature, as
described above, the likelihood of performance deteriorating further is high, or at least higher.
Refer
the employee at any point to your organization's employee assistance program because if something personal is in the way of achieving the required performance standard, you are not going to be able to deal with it and correct it as a supervisor.
Encourage a self-referral to such a helping program at the very beginning of this process, and at any point along the way as a formal referral if things to do not change, before half through your evaluation period.
Purchase a Performance Evaluation System using the methods shown above complete with with Forms, Video, and instructions at WorkExcel.com
