Hiring employees is challenging these days—even getting candidates to show up for interviews can be difficult. As a result, we may tolerate underperformance more than we would have in the past. However, this can harm team morale, as high-performing employees might feel demotivated when they see others slacking without consequences, leading them to question why they should work harder.
What steps do you take to help an underperforming employee improve, integrate better into the team, and meet acceptable standards in their areas of struggle?
We start by meeting in private with the employee to see what they think from their perspective any underlying issues—whether they are personal, professional, or related to team dynamics.
Highlight the exact areas where performance is lacking, with examples so they understand what the actual issue is.
Ensure they understand their responsibilities and what success looks like in their role and why it is important to you and to the team.
Outline specific, measurable, and time-based goals for the employee.
Acknowledge improvements, even small, to boost their confidence and morale. A simple nice job shows you are noticing their efforts.
If progress remains less than ideal despite efforts, establish a clear timeframe for improvement and what the alternative is if they could try other roles.
Be prepared, if improvement is not achieved, to part ways. Sometimes a person just isn't in the right role and needs to be let go even if you like them. Keeping them on can be doing more harm overall for you and the team and your business.
On a personal note we just fired a lady this spring who has been with us for over 15 years. She always had some issues with timeliness, but they weren't egregious. But over the final six months of her employment, the tardiness was becoming the norm and not the exception with an average of 18 minutes late with many times requiring phone calls and texts to ask where they were as the person they were replacing had to stay late. Even on good days they were walking in the door at 11:59 to 12:05, but the worst was over 1.5 hours and the only reason it was not more is I called a family member of theirs to go check on them and they were sleeping on their couch with 2 phone alarms going off. It was difficult to cut ties as they were there so long but it isn't fair to others to pick up her slack. The best part is they tell everyone we fired her because she was late 4 times instead of the truth of 66 times in the last 6 months out of 96 shifts.
That is a tough one. I would say yes and no. Yes the new manager can get some of the employees back on the right track with better communication and leadership etc, but there may be some that are too far gone down the rabbit hole of not fulfilling their duties that they may need extra work or just need to be let go.
You definitely have to address it head on but be empathetic. From the beginning I lay out my expectations and if issues arise, I address them then. Not correcting or acknowledging the problem always lead to more and can make other employees feel that if so and so can do it and not be confronted with it why can't I do it as well.
