Dealing with Performance Problems

Leaders can help their employees improve their performance by using a progressive discipline system.

To help an employee with a performance problem, you should:

• get to the heart of the problem
• respond to the problem by preparing an action plan
• use discipline to deal with the problem.

Get to the heart of the problem
When there is a problem with an employee's performance, you should get to the heart of the problem before you attempt to correct it. This is important because the cause of a performance problem is not always apparent.

To correct the problem, you need to address the cause. To determine what is causing a performance problem, you should ask the following questions:

• Does the employee understand the goals and standards of the job?
• Does the employee get timely feedback on his or her performance?
• Did the employee get adequate training for the job?
• Does the employee demonstrate competency in other tasks?
• Is the employee capable of doing the work?
• Does the employee have the resources to do a good job?

Respond to the problem by preparing an action plan
Once you have determined the cause of a performance problem, you should meet with the employee involved to discuss possible solutions.

When you do this, don't get personally involved in the problem or apologize for having to deal with it. You want to help the employee succeed. Find out what the employee would like to see as an outcome. Then set up a plan of action.

Begin with the assumption that any corrective action you take should first and foremost help improve an employee's performance.

The following gives more about preparing an action plan:

• Make sure that employees with performance problems have a clear understanding of their jobs.
• Present clear information about how the job should be done, clarify each step, and emphasize the major responsibilities.
• Provide training if necessary.
• Make your employees responsible for the outcome of this process. Ask them to check back with you frequently.
• Encourage your employees.

Use discipline to deal with the problem
When it becomes necessary to take disciplinary measures, you should use a four-step procedure. Because these steps sometimes lead to termination, you should ensure that you have all of the facts and use the same procedure for all employees.
It's also important that you do not allow your judgment to be clouded by prior, unrelated problems. There is more information on the steps below:

• In step one, verbally remind the employee about the problem, and state that the problem is now in the formal disciplinary stage.
• Go to step two if the problem continues. Give the employee formal written notification of the continuing problem.
• If these steps fail, move to step three, in which the employee is given one day of paid leave to decide whether to stay and improve or leave. This demonstrates the organization's desire to give the employee control over whether to stay or leave.
• Step four is termination. Having documented all the previous steps in the employee's file, set a specific time for an interview. Inform the employee of your decision. Keep the meeting simple and short. The employee had every opportunity to improve. There is no need for further discussion.

By following well-thought-out steps in correcting performance problems, a leader can keep employees motivated and effective. Do you have procedures in place that make discipline a progressive measure?

Identifying Performance Standards

Performance standards are target measurements for achieving quality in work. The guidelines for setting performance standards follow these three perspectives:

1. establishing criteria for quality-performance standards
2. clarifying quality-performance standard
3. providing positive reinforcement and recognition for quality-performance standards

Establishing criteria for quality-performance standards
Before you set performance standards, it's important to establish your criteria. You should consider quality, quantity, time, and customer requirements as criteria for establishing performance standards.

Clarifying quality-performance standard
You should clarify your performance standards once you have established your criteria for setting them. It's important to involve your employees in this process. The following provide more information on how to do this:

• Once you establish your criteria for setting performance standards, you should describe your criteria to your employees. You should work with your employees to prioritize the tasks according to the customer requirements, and the time, quantity and level of quality needed.
• You should meet with your employees to record all the tasks and standards that are required to meet your criteria. To make your standards meaningful, they should be measurable.
• You should develop a tracking system and hold regular one-on-one discussions with your employees about work in progress. Don't wait until you have problems to establish a tracking system.

Providing positive reinforcement and recognition for quality-performance standards
After you establish your criteria and clarify your performance standards, it's important to encourage your employees to follow them. You should:

• provide positive reinforcement for following standards
• recognize those who adhere to the standards.

Performance standards are target measurements for achieving quality in work. You can use them to help your organization.

Identifying Performance Problems

In most organizations, it's essential that employees maintain certain performance standards in order for the department to meet its quotas.

When quotas are not met, you must determine why. What are the reasons for poor performance that you must understand?

There are a number of reasons for poor performance. You'll approach these reasons from three different perspectives:

• the reasons for performance problems
• the elements of performance
• the attitude behind performance.

The reasons for performance problems
Most performance difficulties arise for four different reasons. These reasons are explained below:

• Employees' lack of knowledge prevents them from knowing what to do.
• Employees lack the aptitude to do what is required of them and therefore are not capable of completing tasks.
• Excessive interferences from processes, people, or technology can create a situation where employees are not allowed to do what is required of them.
• Finally, some performance problems are caused by employees refusing to do what's required of them. When there are no safety issues involved, this is usually a result of attitude problems.

The elements of performance
When you discover performance problems, what are you actually measuring these results against? There are seven elements of performance that help you target employees' achievements. These elements of performance are:

1. Goals: What do they need to achieve?
2. Standards: How are their achievements quantified?
3. Feedback: Do they have the guidance they need?
4. Competence: Have we properly trained them?
5. Opportunity: Do they have chances for advancement?
6. Means: Do they have the tools to do their job?
7. Motive: Do they have good reasons to want to do this?

A useful tool for analyzing performance is to chart the reasons for performance problems against the elements of performance. This can help you figure out how to specifically address each performance problem.

The attitude behind performance
Attitudes are often part of vicious cycles in which an attitude provides a mental excuse to behave in a certain way. Quite often, this behavior creates a result that reinforces the original attitude.

Attitudes are not always easy to change because they can come from so many different sources. Some are brought to work by employees, and some are formed as a result of things that happen in the work setting. The following provide more about the source of attitudes:

• personal background
• self-esteem
• prior experience
• unclear goals
• poor feedback
• lack of recognition
• nature of the work
• inadequate compensation.

Consider the principal causes for performance problems for addressing the problem areas in your workplace.