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Managing Underperformers

The document discusses managing underperformance in the workplace. It defines performance as having four parts: skills, motivation, alignment, and structures. It explains that the first step in addressing underperformance is to determine the reason by considering whether it is due to a lack of skills, motivation, alignment, or poor structures. The case of an employee, Huma, arriving late to work is used as an example to demonstrate how to analyze the different possible reasons for underperformance. The document provides guidance on the best order and approach to addressing underperformance issues, which is to first consider structures, then alignment, skills, and finally motivation. It also outlines the basic steps that should be taken to manage an underperformance issue.

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115 views23 pages

Managing Underperformers

The document discusses managing underperformance in the workplace. It defines performance as having four parts: skills, motivation, alignment, and structures. It explains that the first step in addressing underperformance is to determine the reason by considering whether it is due to a lack of skills, motivation, alignment, or poor structures. The case of an employee, Huma, arriving late to work is used as an example to demonstrate how to analyze the different possible reasons for underperformance. The document provides guidance on the best order and approach to addressing underperformance issues, which is to first consider structures, then alignment, skills, and finally motivation. It also outlines the basic steps that should be taken to manage an underperformance issue.

Uploaded by

vodrolok
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Managing Under-performance

What is Performance?
Performance has four parts:
• Skills: A performing staff member is capable of doing
his or her job.
• Motivation: A performing staff member has a strong
desire to do his or her job.
• Alignment: A performing staff member understands
the key directions of the organization and his or her role
in meeting these directions.
• Structures: The organization and its systems are
structured in such a way that the worker is able to
perform his or her work.
What Causes Underperformance?
The main problem about working with
underperformance is that managers/supervisors
often misinterpret the reason for the
underperformance. The management response
to each of the factors causing underperformance
needs to be different, so it’s essential that this be
established first.
For example:
Huma is the administrative officer and the primary
customer service provider in a medium sized call centre.
The organization keeps office hours of 9 a.m. until 5
p.m. and it is Huma’s job to open up the building and be
ready to receive customer calls during this time. The
organization is heavily dependant on fee for every call
so it is vital that customer calls are answered. Recently,
Huma has gotten into the habit of arriving at 5, 10 or
even 15 minutes past 9. Her manager, Zara, has noticed
that during this time, the phone often cuts out before
people leave a message on the answering machine. Zara
can’t help but think that they could be losing
enrolments.
Before Zara acts, she needs to first determine the
reason for Huma’s under performance.
Here are four possible scenarios:
1) Lack of Skills
2) Lack of Motivation
3) Lack of Alignment
4) Poor Structures
Lack of Skills
Huma loves her job and wants to get to work on
time (motivation). She understands the
relationship between answering the phone and
meeting the organization's fee for service goals
(alignment) and she has no other tasks to do
before arriving at the office (structure).
However, this is her first job and Huma lacks
time management skills. She never plans her day
ahead and small things seem to derail her
attempts to get to work on time each day.
Lack of Motivation
Huma understands the relationship between
answering the phone and meeting the
organization's fee for service goals (alignment)
and has no other tasks to do before arriving at
the office (structure). She is capable of getting to
work on time, (skills) but simply couldn’t be
bothered. She is bored with her job and thinks if
she can get away with coming in late, why not do
it.
Lack of Alignment
Huma wants to achieve in her job (motivation).
She has good time management skills (skills)
and there is nothing stopping her getting to the
office on time (structure). However, she thinks
that because it is a medium sized organization it
is pretty laid back and flexible. She also thinks
that it doesn’t really matter what time she starts
as long as she puts in a full day. She has noticed
that another Worker, Qayyum keeps fairly
flexible hours and often works from home.
Poor Structures
Huma loves her job and wants to get to work on time
(motivation). She understands the relationship between
answering the phone and meeting the organization's fee for
service goals (alignment) and has good time management skills
(skills). However, she has some other duties as well. Every
morning before arriving at the main office, she has to open
another building where another office of the same organization
is located in the nearby area. She, then, has to wait for the
admin personnel of that building to come and then Huma can
come to her own office. Lately, every time Huma arrives there,
there seems to be a problem that delays her. One day someone
had misplaced all the stationery on the reception so she had to
send admin personnel to buy more while she herself waited for
the personnel’s return. Another time, the admin guy was late
and Huma didn’t want to leave the building unsupervised.
Another time the admin personnel had to accompany an
employee to hospital while Huma tried to call his family.
How to Proceed
The best way to approach underperformance is in
this order:

Structure,
Alignment,
Skills,
Motivation
Structures
Firstly, structures are something that can be controled
and are often easy to fix. Secondly, structures are not
personal. If the fourth scenario (lack of structure) was
true and Zara began to counsel Huma about her
motivation. Instead of improving her motivation, this
approach would be unfair and demotivating. By being
available to talk to Huma and by asking her how her job is
going, Zara may be able to find out about the structural
problem without having to directly ask Huma. However,
if this doesn’t happen Zara could simply say; “Huma, I’ve
noticed that you’ve been coming in late the past few
days. I hope there isn’t any problem?”
Alignment
Alignment is the second easiest to fix and the most often
overlooked by managers. It is important to know that not
everyone knows as much about the organization as
perhaps the managers do. The manager needs to tell staff
where the organization is going and their role in it, again
and again and again if necessary.

Janine should explain to Huma the importance of taking


calls to the overall business and also explain the
relationship between keeping published office hours and
good customer service.
Skills
Skills are the next to approach. Highly skilled
people often forget what its like to start out. A
common mistake for managers is to mistake lack
of skill for a “bad attitude” or a “lack of
motivation”. This is the wrong approach. People
who lack the skills to do their jobs generally don’t
feel good about it. They may already feel like
they’re letting everyone down. If scenario 1 were
the problem, Zara should be prepared to coach
Huma in a way that is systematic, clear and non
judgmental.
Motivation

Finally motivation. This is the hardest to identify


and the hardest to impact and, as such, is rightly
left till the very end. The sources of motivation in
a workplace are many and varied. However, an
important point to remember is that most staff
come to work wanting to achieve.
Basic steps to manage underperformance
1. Identify and agree the problem. Obtain agreement from
the individual on what the shortfall has been.
2. Establish the reason(s) for the shortfall. The aim
should be for the manager and the individual jointly to
identify the facts that have contributed to the problem.
If it is established that the individual is at least partly
responsible for the poor performance, it can then be
agreed whether this is because he or she:
▫ did not receive adequate support or guidance from his/her
manager;
▫ did not fully understand what he/she was expected to do;
▫ could not do it – ability;
▫ did not know how to do it – skill;
▫ would not do it – attitude.
3. Decide and agree on the action required. Action may be taken by
the individual, the manager or both parties. This could include:

▫ Taking steps to improve skills or change behavior – the


individual.
▫ Changing attitudes; this is up to individuals as long as they
accept that their attitudes need to be changed. The challenge
for managers is that people will not change their attitudes
simply because they are told to do so – they can only be
helped to understand that certain changes to their behavior
could be beneficial not only to the organization but also to
themselves.
▫ Providing more support or guidance – the manager.
▫ Clarifying expectations – joint.
▫ Developing abilities and skills – joint, in the sense that
individuals may be expected to take steps to develop
themselves but managers may provide help in the form of
Coaching, additional experience or training .
4. Resource the action. Provide the coaching,
training, guidance, experience or facilities
required to enable agreed actions to happen.
5. Monitor and provide feedback. Both managers
and individuals monitor performance, ensure
that feedback is provided or obtained and
analyzed, and agree on any further actions that
may be necessary.
If, however, a person has all the resources to do
their job and chooses not to do it, then straight
talk is called for. If the person’s performance
doesn’t improve, you may need to begin a formal
capability procedure.
Use of a capability procedure
Every attempt should be made to deal with performance
problems as they arise or at least consider them
dispassionately at a review meeting. However, further
action to deal with underperformers if all else fails may be
necessary. But when confronted with such situations, many
organizations have recognized that to go straight into a
disciplinary procedure with its associations with misconduct
is not the best way to handle them. They believe it is better
to have a special capability procedure for performance
issues, leaving the disciplinary procedure as the method
used to deal with cases of misconduct. Such a procedure is
described in the next slides.
1. If a manager believes that an employee’s
performance is not up to standard, an informal
discussion is held with the employee to establish
the reason and to agree the actions required by
the employee and/or the manager to improve
performance.
2. Should the employee show insufficient improvement
over a defined period, a formal interview will be
arranged with the employee (together with a
representative if so desired).
The aims of this interview will be to:
a)Explain the shortfall between the employee’s
performance and the required standard;
b)Identify the cause(s) of the unsatisfactory performance
and determine what – if any – remedial treatment (e.g.
training, retraining, support, etc) can be given;
c)Set a reasonable period for the employee to reach the
standard; and
d)Agree on a monitoring system during that period and
tell the employee what will happen if that standard is
not met.
3. At the end of the review period a further formal interview
will be held, at which time if the required improvement
has been made:
a)The employee will be told of this and encouraged to
maintain the improvement;
b)If some improvement has been made but the standard has
not yet been met, the review period will be extended;
c)If there has been no discernible improvement and
performance is still well below an acceptable standard,
consideration will be given to whether there are alternative
vacancies that the employee would be competent to fill; if
there are, the employee will be given the option of
accepting such a vacancy or being considered for
dismissal;
d)In the absence of suitable alternative work, an employee
who is clearly below an acceptable standard is liable to be
dismissed.
• Employees may appeal against their dismissal as
per the systems and procedures of the
organization.

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