Home >> Motivation Initiatives >> Performance Management

• Fact: No matter how carefully you recruit and select your employees, there will inevitably be a few who are unable or unwilling to meet performance expectations.
• Fact: In employee surveys and leadership assessments across a wide variety of organizations, one of the most consistent supervisory issues is that managers do not address poor-performing employees.

When these two facts collide, you have a workplace where the poor performance of a few is tolerated and where those employees who are capable performers become increasingly disenchanted and disengaged.

Why are supervisors reluctant to address poor performance? Several reasons may be at play: It is not an easy task to work through a performance issue with an employee. The employee may get upset when confronted. The supervisor may believe the employee will not change, even if confronted, so why bother? Performance expectations may never have been clear to begin with. The employee may "out argue" the supervisor or file a grievance, etc.

But here is the issue: If you, as the supervisor, let poor performance continue unaddressed, you will need to work harder yourself to make up for the slack created by a poor performer. Your unit's performance will go downhill as the poor performer's coworkers become disgruntled. At some point, you may decide to live with the status quo you have created due to inaction, and just accept the fact that you manage an underperforming unit and fatalistically acknowledge the poor performer's continued existence as "just the way it is." This is not a happy ending!

So, how can it be made easier for you to address performance problems and increase the likelihood that poor performers will either improve or leave?

Counseling Discussions

The purpose of counseling is not to punish poor performing employees but to let them know that their performance is not meeting expectations, and then help them raise their performance to the expected level.

Some general principles apply across all situations in which there is a perceived performance problem:

• Address the problem quickly — Do not let a performance problem linger. Counsel the employee as soon as you know there is a problem. You do not need to wait until a scheduled "interim review" or the end-of-year appraisal. One of the cardinal sins of supervision is to save up evidence of poor performance throughout the year and dump it on the employee in the annual appraisal discussion. This is one case where saving is not good. Use your evidence as soon as you acquire it! Deal with it while it is fresh.
• Look for the cause — To solve a problem, first find the cause. Why is the employee missing deadlines? Why are there consistently too many errors in the employee's work? Why is the employee late to work so often? Problem-solve to help the employee identify the cause of the performance problem. Then ask: What will you do differently to address the cause and bring your performance up to expectations? Use  Find the Cause of a Performance Problem as a logical problem-solving guide in addressing performance issues.
• Place accountability where it belongs — If the cause of the employee's performance problem lies with the employee (for example, frequent lateness is due to the employee's difficulty in waking up in the morning), then the employee needs to be held accountable for addressing the cause and correcting the problem. On the other hand, if the cause is located in the work process or equipment (for example, missing deadlines is due to an overly cumbersome work flow), then accountability for fixing the problem will rest with the supervisor.
• State a fact and then inquire — This is a very effective method for engaging the employee during the counseling discussion in solving a performance problem. Using specific facts, neutrally inquire about the problem behavior. For example:
  • Fact: I have noticed that your numbers have dropped during the last month.
  • Inquiry: Can we talk about how that might have happened?
  • Fact: I have noticed that you have been late for work three days out of every five for the past two weeks. Your leave record shows a pattern of using sick and vacation leave within the month that it's accrued.
  • Inquiry: What is making it difficult for you to be at work during your regular work hours?

For step-by-step suggestions for handling performance counseling discussions with employees, check out Formats for Counseling Discussions.

Corrective Action Plans

Corrective action plans are short-term action plans for bringing employees' performance up to expectations in their current jobs. You should prepare a corrective action plan whenever an employee's performance falls below expectations. The performance problem should be a persistent problem, not an isolated or one- off incident.

Begin documenting the problem as soon as it is noticed and document any discussions of the problem with the employee. The reason for documenting is that, if the problem continues despite the supervisor's and the employee's efforts to correct it, it may be necessary to take disciplinary action.

Supervisors should keep notes concerning performance observations and follow-up discussions. To complete the documentation loop, the corrective action plan should be attached to the end-of-cycle appraisal and the ongoing documentation of the performance issue should be summarized in the appraisal.

The corrective action plan can be a standardized form or a memo. Its format is not important so long as it includes the following information:

• What is the problem? — Concisely describe what needs improvement, why, and the consequences of failure to improve
• How will improvement be measured? — Describe how you will know when the employee's performance has risen to the point where it meets expectations. Refer to the specific results expectation or behavioral expectation on the employee's work plan that is in question.
• What will the employee do? — Describe the action steps the employee has agreed to take to improve performance. Note the target dates for completing these actions.
• Are any resources required? — Describe any resources the employee will need to carry out the actions agreed upon or any support you have agreed to provide.
• When will the supervisor follow up? — State when you will meet again with the employee to check on progress. Schedule and conduct follow-up discussions at frequent intervals. If a long interval is set for a follow-up meeting, you are communicating an expectation that it will take a while for the employee to make the change. Tighter time frames place a greater sense of urgency on the need to change.

Corrective action plans can be difficult to write, especially if you do not have to write them often, which we hope is the case. It is always good to have some models to refer to. Check out the Directory of Corrective Action Plans for examples.

Bad Bosses

Drawing from several national surveys, a prominent leadership scholar has estimated that the base rate for flawed leadership is somewhere between 60% and 70%." In other words, "somewhere between six and seven out of every ten managers in corporate America are not very good as managers." Furthermore, "the consequences of this in terms of lost productivity, employee alienation, and stress-related medical costs are staggering." ¹

Another researcher has estimated that as many as 90% of workers have experienced at least one abusive boss during their working careers. This researcher distinguishes between brutal and tough, making the point that bosses can be tough without engendering the significant negative effects associated with true abusiveness. In other words, effective bosses can (and need to be) demanding and results-oriented. However, that is not the same thing as being insensitive and demeaning. ²

Chances are that in state government the incidence of "flawed leadership" and "brutal bosses" is comparable. What can an agency do to address the issue of poor leadership? This is a special case of counseling. To address the issue, we offer the Bad Boss Program.

What about you? With the incidence of flawed leadership being as high as it is, there is better than a fifty-fifty chance that you are a "bad boss." Take our self-test, Are You a Bad Boss?, to find out. The test is actually not a definitive test of leader quality, but it can offer suggestions of things you might do to alter your behavior to become a more effective supervisor of people.

References

¹ Hogan, Robert, Robert Raskin, and Dan Fazzini. "The Dark Side of Charisma." In Kenneth E. Clark and Miriam B. Clark (Editors). Measures of Leadership. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1990.

² Hornstein, Harvey A. (1996). Brutal Bosses and Their Prey. New York : Riverhead Books (G. P. Putnam's Sons).