5 Steps to Manage Employee Performance

What do you do when, despite your regular coaching sessions, a direct report fails to meet the performance standards, goals, and deadlines the two of you have agreed on?

More frequent meetings can be the first step to improving stubborn performance issues.

Source: Pexels / The Coach Space

As the manager, the number one rule is that you cannot let people off the hook. Allowing ongoing performance problems to flourish diminishes your credibility and undermines the rest of the team. Failing to deal with individual performance issues immediately and aggressively will lead to decreased performance for everyone, including you.

There are five steps you can take if an employee’s performance does not improve, despite your continued coaching efforts.

1. Intensify Your Hands-On Approach

Be even more hands on for a while, narrowing the circle of empowerment. Step up your schedule of coaching sessions by meeting every day or even twice a day if necessary. Set smaller goals with shorter deadlines, and spell out even more guidelines and parameters for every goal.

Do what you must during each coaching session to ensure that the direct report completely understands. Always ask the person to explain their understanding of your expectations and the performance standards, goals, deadlines, and guidelines. Be sure to write this down somewhere.

Provide more coaching, support, and guidance in between sessions. As you do this, pay close attention and gather as much information as you can.

2. Diagnose the Problem

If the first step does not result in improved performance, you must further diagnose it.

Nearly all performance problems fall into one or more of three categories:

• Ability
• Skill
• Will

If the problem is ability, then your direct report’s natural strengths are simply not well matched with the tasks of their current role. In such a case, your best option is to change the tasks and responsibilities that are a poor match. If you cannot do that, you may have to remove the person from your team.

If the problem is skill, then the direct report does not have sufficient training for some or all of the tasks and responsibilities in their current role. In such a case, you'll need to find the skill gaps and ensure the person immediately receives the training needed to do the job.

If the problem is will, then the direct report has a motivation issue that needs to be addressed. If the problem seems to be internal, know that you have no authority or ability to solve that problem as the person’s manager. However, most often when work is concerned, problems of motivation are external. In such a case, explore incentives and see whether there are any that will reengage the person.

3. Prepare for a Performance Improvement Intervention

Get ready to meet with the direct report and initiate a performance improvement intervention.

• First, review your notebook. Think about your previous meetings with this person. What patterns of poor performance have you already documented? What measures, if any, have you already taken to correct the problem?
• Second, clarify exactly what's wrong. For example, does this person consistently fail to meet deadlines or goals? Do they fail to correct mistakes you've already discussed? Put your finger on the specific problem area or areas. If there is more than one area of performance to be improved, you'll have to focus on one issue at a time.
• Third, identify specific examples of the problem area you've identified. To prepare a good case, you'll need to gather evidence: Gather pertinent details such as times, places, and projects where the employee failed to meet goals, make deadlines, and/or follow guidelines.
• Fourth, review your initial analysis of the problem. Decide if, with further thought, you would categorize the problem as one of ability, skill, or will.
• Fifth, consider action steps. Decide whether there are concrete action steps you are willing to take or go and ask the direct report to take.
• Sixth, before you proceed, consult an ally in Human Resources. Make sure you are following proper procedures before you have your intervention conversation with the direct report. You want to make sure you are dotting your “I's” and crossing your “T's.”

4. Conduct a Performance Intervention

In your meeting, you'll need to do the following:

• Remind the direct report that high performance is nonnegotiable. You'll need to confront the person in direct terms, stating that the failure to meet goals and deadlines is simply unacceptable.
• Identify the performance problem. Be as specific as you can, presenting the facts as you've documented them. Remember, you are evaluating the performance, not the person.
• Agree on a plan to improve the performance problem. Once you've reached agreement on the problem areas and their sources, discuss how the direct report and you can work together on those areas.
• Sign a performance plan. If you have put together a written performance improving plan, then you and your direct report should both sign it and each walk away from the meeting with a copy.

5. Be Aggressive About Follow Up

After the meeting, follow up aggressively and try to reverse the downward spiral. As the direct report demonstrates improved performance, reduce your intensity, enlarging the circle of empowerment a bit at a time, until you reach a comfortable level of engagement.