You have an employee who just isn’t meeting expectations. You’ve tried hints—maybe even a stern talk—but the situation isn’t improving. You’re at your wits’ end, unsure where to go from here.
But what if the problem isn’t entirely them? Before labeling someone a “poor performer,” examine how managers often unintentionally contribute to these issues.
This guide will help busy managers take ownership of performance issues, understanding the why behind achievement struggles. A big part of continuous performance management involves strengthening your own performance as a leader, after all. By learning to proactively manage poor performance, you’ll create an environment where everyone can succeed.
Table of Contents
- Is It Really Poor Performance? The Manager’s Blind Spots
- Setting Employees Up for Success: Proactive Performance Management
- When Performance Dips: 3 Steps to Guide Improvement
Is It Really Poor Performance? The Manager’s Blind Spots
It takes courage to dig deep in order to spot any gaps in your leadership approach. But by doing so, you’ll set yourself and your employees up for success.
Self-Reflection: The Manager’s Impact
Consider these questions to assess whether you’re truly providing the crucial support employees need.
- Setting clear expectations: Have you outlined responsibilities and confirmed that employees understand them? And have you laid out exactly how you’ll measure success and goal achievement, with KPIs and benchmarks?
- Detailed feedback: Are you sharing feedback on a daily basis (or at least several times per week)? Is it specific and actionable?
- Resources and support: Are you providing vital tools and guidance? Do employees have the autonomy to carry out tasks, and are you helping them overcome any roadblocks?
- Empowerment: Do you encourage employees to share insights and opinions? Do you praise them for doing so even when their ideas don’t rise to the top?
Managers often have significant blind spots. For example, they might disregard creative ideas, believing innovation must come from the leader. Or they may discourage risk-taking due to their own fear of failure, causing others to silence their insights. Such mindsets can hold back team progress.
Bias and Perception: Checking Your Assumptions
Manager bias strongly affects performance, decreasing engagement and productivity, research shows. Further, it holds back development by depriving employees of the support they deserve. Often this bias remains unconscious. Shaped by our background, this implicit bias can influence our perception of others’ work.
Here are several types of bias that often affect managers. Consider how they might influence your work:
- Fundamental attribution error: Ascribing someone else’s error to their character, while ascribing our own error to external circumstances.
- The halo/horns effect: Seeing someone’s current behaviour in a way that matches our (possibly unfair) past impression of them.
- Affinity bias: Conflating personal preferences, or similarities, with objective assessments of others’ skills and competencies.
Further, almost 60% of managers feel they’re adequately recognizing their team’s efforts, but only 35% of employees agree. And while 50% of managers say they give weekly feedback, just 20% of employees agree, says Gallup.
To counteract bias, strive to become more objective and data-driven in your assessments. Keep careful records of employee accomplishments and challenges, drawing from performance management data.
Systemic Issues: When the Company Is the Problem
In some cases, problems at the company level may be holding employees back. Serious issues like these can hinder employee performance throughout an organization:
- A toxic workplace culture, where negativity and fear of failure stifle performance.
- Broken processes, which create inefficient workflows and poor communication.
- Lack of investment in growth, demotivating employees and robbing the organization of its leadership pipeline.
As a manager, advocate for changes at the organizational level if necessary. Approach HR to explain how such issues are affecting your team. By refining its culture strategy, your company can strengthen both performance and retention.
Setting Employees Up for Success: Proactive Performance Management
From their first day through key professional milestones, strive to support employees’ growth.
Onboarding: Starting Strong
- Setting the stage: Start having coaching conversations from day one. Check in regularly about roles and priorities, ensuring clarity. Assign new employees a peer mentor, who can help them acclimate to the culture.
- The first 90 days: Hold structured check-ins each week, discussing hurdles they face. Give daily feedback as well, sharing tips, making observations on progress, and inviting questions. Celebrate small milestones they’ve achieved, like learning to complete a task independently.
- Reviewing progress: Conduct a 90-day review at the end of the first three months. In this meeting, evaluate success and set new goals to keep employees engaged and inspired.
Ongoing Development: Fueling Growth
Ignite continuous growth by providing support in three key ways:
Feedback That Inspires
Give feedback linked to specific goals, articulating exactly how it’s tied to these objectives. This will boost motivation to excel. Share this feedback regularly, focusing on ways to improve.
Calibrating Training Needs
Conduct a skills gaps analysis for each employee, updating the abilities needed to perform their role optimally. Based on this assessment, identify upskilling or reskilling needs. Then decide on action steps for upgrading their skill set.
Design personalized learning paths for all employees, too. Everyone’s career follows a different trajectory, and customized learning plans will help them achieve their individual goals. Examine their progress at least once per month in your one-on-ones, updating the plan as needed.
Measure the impact of your training plans with sophisticated analytics tools. For instance, Primalogik’s goal-tracking software will track productivity and engagement trends over time.
Well-Matched Mentors
Create structured mentorship programs so no one gets left behind. Match mentors and mentees carefully, so each employee receives optimal support. Consider learning interests as well as the personality fit between mentor and mentee.
Creating a Motivating Environment
Let’s explore how to ensure people feel deeply motivated, so they’ll be driven to excel.
Prioritize Intrinsic Motivation
Build a culture of sharing appreciation and recognition. Senior leaders can instill this culture by regularly recognizing people at different levels for their specific efforts. Managers can follow suit by highlighting team members’ achievements during meetings. Feeling seen for their efforts will serve as an integral source of intrinsic motivation.
Other intrinsic motivators include autonomy, competence, and a sense of belonging. Having autonomy over how they complete tasks increases employees’ ownership of their work. In other words, it makes them feel more invested in succeeding at these tasks. Competence refers to the sense that they can succeed and grow. And feeling connected to others brings crucial social and emotional benefits that make work more fulfilling.
Promote Internal Mobility
Create a pipeline of talent in your company, with the goal of making internal promotions whenever possible. Outline clear career paths, while also allowing for flexibility. HR could create flow charts modeling potential employee journeys in your company, serving as a road map for various career paths. At each stage, they can highlight crucial skills the employee must build.
Provide abundant skill development opportunities, such as leadership training. Work will feel more dynamic and engaging when people are continuously growing their skill sets.
Tie Success to Values
Relate each success, both individual and team-based, to the company’s values and mission. Emphasize how it serves as a stepping stone to achieving your broader vision. You can also highlight how different small successes have been mutually beneficial, emphasizing the importance of teamwork.
When Performance Dips: 3 Steps to Guide Improvement
Take these steps to pursue a solutions-oriented approach to poor performance challenges.
Open Communication: The Foundation
Regular, open communication fosters strong relationships between managers and direct reports. Cultivate a safe space for dialogue in weekly one-on-ones and other check-ins.
Are You Listening? Hearing Their Perspective
Get to the root of the problem by asking open-ended questions—and really listening. Seek to understand their perspective. Reflect on what they’ve said, and ask follow-up questions to dig deeper. By listening to employees, you might learn that they’re experiencing imposter syndrome, for instance. Or, you might realize they’re feeling disconnected from the team after two close colleagues left.
For example, ask questions like these:
- “How do you feel that project went? Can you describe the main hurdles you faced and how you handled them?”
- “What do you wish you’d done differently?”
- “Where do you feel confused or unclear about how things could’ve gone better?”
- “Are you experiencing any ongoing frustrations at work that affect your efforts?”
Remain open-minded and empathetic as you listen to their perspective. Then, focus on addressing these issues together.
Collaborating on Solutions
Instead of dictating solutions, take a collaborative approach to problem-solving. Ask employees for ideas on what would improve their performance.
Use questions and phrases like these to encourage open dialogue:
- “When have you felt your best or most focused at work? What allowed you to feel that way?”
- “In contrast, what makes you feel less productive or effective?”
- “How can we better support your working style or learning preferences?”
- “What developmental opportunities or resources do you wish you had access to?”
- “Feel free to share any idea that comes to mind. Don’t worry about whether it’s too outside of the box.”
Integrate the insights they share into the solutions you build together. Ask what they think of any ideas you offer, too. In these ways, you’ll gain their investment in any solutions you adopt together.
Targeted Support: Matching the Solution to the Cause
Foster growth and maintain momentum through solutions tailored to employees’ needs, with a focus on these three areas:
- Strive to remove roadblocks, addressing any obstacles you’ve identified. For example, fix inefficient workflows or set clear communication norms.
- Build skills through trainings, workshops, and mentorship. When they’re ready, provide employees with stretch assignments to let them apply and strengthen these abilities.
- Allocate resources appropriately. Equip employees with the tools, software, or staff connections to facilitate success.
Continuously reflect on how to support employees in these ways. As roles and priorities shift, new technology or access to staff in different departments may prove crucial, for instance.
Performance Improvement Plans Done Right
For struggling employees, a performance improvement plan (PIP) provides vital guidance for improvement. Create the PIP in partnership with the employee, focusing on growth rather than punishment. In this action plan, set several primary goals with clear timelines. Make sure these objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.
Then, establish a schedule of regular check-ins. Share feedback on a daily basis, providing plenty of encouragement. Make adjustments to the plan if goals need to shift.
Addressing poor performance requires leadership, not criticism or judgment. As you fully listen to employees’ perspectives and match solutions to their needs, you’ll maximize their growth. By understanding the root causes of performance issues and taking proactive steps to resolve them, you’ll create a workplace where everyone thrives.
Learn how Primalogik’s software helps managers and employees excel—demo our performance management system.
