As a people manager, it’s important to address underperformance in a kind and helpful way. This means talking to the person about the things they are struggling with, and finding ways to help them improve.
First, you should try to understand why the person is underperforming. Maybe they need more training, or maybe they’re having a hard time with something specific. Once you know the cause, you can work with them to find solutions.
It’s important to be clear and specific about what needs to improve, and to set goals together for how to get there. Make sure the person knows you are there to support them, and encourage them to ask questions and give feedback.
Remember to be patient and kind, and to focus on helping the person grow and succeed. With your guidance and support, they can improve and become a valuable member of the team.
What is Underperformance?
Underperformance in the workplace can emerge silently and bit by bit among employees, particularly for people working remotely.
Indeed, it does not merely affect the productivity of an individual worker; it can also negatively impact the productivity of the entire business, customers, and co-workers.
It can have a ripple effect if not managed immediately and could lead to severe issues like the proliferation of decreased team morale, loss of revenue, and reduced productivity in the workplace.
How to identify underperformers?
A well-administered workplace provides its employees with specific targets to accomplish, such as diversity goals. Therefore, clearly defined expectations are set, and if employees fail to meet these expectations, we can classify them as underperformers.
A few instances that we can categorize as underperformance may include:
Poor Behavior at Work
Employees with poor and hostile behaviour can negatively affect other employees. For example:
- Spreading rumors within the organization
- Not keeping time during the set meeting
- Failing to communicate well with teammates
- Not meeting deadlines
Performing Duties below the Required Levels or Set Standards
- Handing in a report with outright lapses or inaccuracies
- Not performing their duties at all
- Not submitting reports at all
Disobedience to Workplace Procedures and Policies
- Not logging their time correctly (again and again)
To protect the entire workplace and all workers, you should find ways on how to prevent underperformance.
Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/man-adult-young-break-corporate-7116367/
Underperformance in the Workplace Caused by Different Reasons
There are several possible reasons why employees are unmotivated, avoiding tasks, working at a slower pace, and increasing the rate of underperformance in the workplace.
Some of the causes of underperformance in the workplace may include:
Lack of Challenges or Variety
Daily tasks become humdrum when there are no challenges and variety. This issue can lead to a lack of motivation that can harm the work standards that employees deliver. Worse, it can result in employees resigning collectively.
Likewise, repetitious duties can quickly turn employees into autopilot, remarkably affecting work output, and they become lifeless.
Unawareness of Expectations
When employees aren’t aware of what’s expected of them, they tend to underperform because they don’t know what needs to be done.
In situations like these, employees create their own goals and take action to accomplish them.
Often, they’re not even aware that they’re performing below the set standards or expectations.
Work-Related Stress
You can’t work correctly and productively when you’re burnout or anxious.
Burnout and anxiety can affect your physical state and cause mental health problems, causing you to underperform and be incapable of delivering top-quality output at work.
Skills Gap
There are instances when employees lack the knowledge necessary to perform their duties properly. Moreover, it could be their skills are outmoded, causing errors and delays in production.
Sometimes, your employees’ skills no longer match the duty they’re performing, which might mean they’re better fitted to fulfill another role.
Lack of Incentive or Growth Opportunities
Employees have different goals; some long for job stability, while some prefer to grow within the organization. For this reason, companies need to encourage their employees with growth opportunities, so they become more motivated.
Employees tend to underperform when there is no clear path of progress for them. Meanwhile, providing employees with incentives motivates them to deliver excellent work.
Incentives may be in the form of bonuses, salary increases, or promotions. It’s fundamental to clearly explain these incentives in your company policies and performance reviews.
Personal Issues
When we deal with personal issues, our ability to perform our daily duties is affected. Dealing with personal issues makes it difficult to focus, particularly when we don’t have a support system to count on.
Most importantly, companies need to be considerate of their employees’ mental health.
Poor or Hostile Working Environment
The workplace environment is not only about how beautiful or conducive your workplace is. Beyond the physical aspect, your work environment should not make you feel pressured and not be surrounded by toxic colleagues.
Companies can expect an increase in underperforming employees in poor or hostile work environments. It’s not just and proper to burden employees with tight or unrealistic deadlines and standards.
Employees fail to thrive in a workplace where there’s bullying among co-workers, unhealthy competition, and conflicts. A toxic work environment may cause frequent absenteeism.
Lack of On-the-Job Resources
Companies need to make their employees feel valued and appreciated by training them. This approach can help employees perform their job correctly and with confidence.
Providing them with the tools they require to perform their duties consistently and smoothly can help promote work productivity.
Lack of Management Support
Direct managers or supervisors need to ensure that their employees attain their full potential. They’re accountable for offering and improving supervision when managing diverse projects.
Managers and supervisors must keep complaints and conflicts from getting to the top management. Inability to take action immediately and efficiently can hurt employee performance.
Lack of Communication
Whether in on-site or remote working situations, today’s workforce highly recognizes transparency in the workplace.
Companies need to keep their employees posted regardless of their work location. Without open communication, employees may start feeling strained about unclear goals.
How to Evaluate Potential Candidates During the Hiring Process?
Making a well-thought-of hiring decision is decisive for human resource specialists and hiring managers as it’s a crucial part of their responsibilities.
Allowing job candidates to fill out a pre-employment screening questionnaire and taking a personality assessment test are a few methods of evaluating if they’re fit for the job role.
Assessing interview candidates can assist you in pondering your hiring options discreetly. Furthermore, having a more profound understanding of conducting interview assessments can prepare you to develop a fruitful hiring decision.
What are the vital factors in evaluating job candidates?
The main evaluation aspects for any job position are:
Educational Attainment
Assessing a candidate’s education can provide detailed information regarding their specialized training.
For example, suppose they’re applying for a specific position that calls for an advanced level of education. In that case, you should consider your job candidate’s level of educational attainment so they can perform their duties better.
There are instances when education might not point out the capability of the job candidate to succeed.
That said, it’s essential to look at the specialized training required for the position you’re offering before matching the educational backgrounds of the job candidates.
Experience Levels
Experience refers to the related job experience of the candidate and the industry, function, and geography required for the job.
Ponder how similar their previous roles have been to the job position they’re applying for, the amount of experience they have, and how the duties of their previous positions accord to the job you’re offering.
Assess their accomplishments in their previous jobs and how those accomplishments exhibit their potential to flourish within your organization.
Skills
When it comes to skills, you need to assess if the job candidate possesses the skills needed for the position they’re applying for.
It’s significant to evaluate your job candidates’ soft and technical skills. Hiring managers should prioritize candidates who possess the technical skills required to complete the duties of the job role.
Meanwhile, soft skills remarkably help identify your job candidates’ capabilities to complete their tasks and influence how they deal with clients, co-workers, and managers.
Compensation/Salary
Human resource specialists or hiring managers need to evaluate whether the expectations can suit their budgets carefully.
To help you figure out whether your firm’s budget accords with the salary requirements of your job candidates, you need to compare their salary expectations.
You need to analyze your job candidates’ salary requirements with your prearranged salary budget.
In some instances, you might consider extending your salary budget to accord with the salary expectations of your most qualified candidate.
Or, you might consider making terms for a lower compensation to agree with your most qualified candidate.
References
To help you assess your job candidates better, consider verifying their references. You may get immediate reviews of their past performances by contacting the references they provided.
If your job candidate’s references verify the skills, qualifications, and experiences stated on their resumes, you can determine if your candidate has the potential to flourish within your organization.
On the other hand, if you uncover some discrepancies between their references’ testimonials and resumes, this can be a sign to consider looking for another candidate.
Culture Fit
It’s also critical to evaluate whether the job candidate can fit the organization and other employees without causing disturbance or division to the organization or themselves.
Human resource specialists and hiring managers should not overlook how the employee performed in his previous jobs.
Consider your job candidates’ values, personalities, and communication styles during the hiring decision process. Analyze if these items accord well with your organization’s values.
If so, your job candidate might have a greater chance of coordinating effortlessly with your company culture and work environment.
Pro Tip: You may also get second opinions to help you in the hiring decision process. Asking the opinions of other decision-makers, managers, and members can contribute to the interview candidate assessment process.
This method can provide you with better insights you might not have uncovered regarding how the job candidates could fit within your organization. Similarly, they can confirm your candidate preferences.
Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/teamwork-cooperation-brainstorming-3213924/
The Importance of Motivating & Developing Employees, So They Stay On Track
Imagine an employee whose unmotivated, unfocused, and doesn’t exert much effort into their duties. Such behavior towards work can waste your company’s resources, affect other employees, and fail to meet essential goals or targets, losing revenues.
On the other hand, if you have enthusiastic, focused, goal-driven, and motivated employees, they can quickly take action, inspired to perform their duties, and meet targets and goals, bringing positivity and productivity to your company.
The bottom line here is that staff motivation is valuable. The moment your employees show a lack of motivation, their output and your company’s revenues will drop.
Employee motivation is crucial because it can ensure a win-win situation for employees and the company.
If your company values staff motivation, dedicates programs and training and implements an effective employee development strategy for your employees, you will reap many benefits.
Some of the benefits of having motivated employees include:
Lower Levels of Absenteeism
As an employer, it’s critical to recognize the significance of motivation in your administration. If you want your employees to perform their duties exceptionally, you need to support them by employing an ideal performance management strategy.
If you show your staff that you are concerned and supportive of their wellbeing and workload, they’re more unlikely to feel overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed.
As a result, they won’t resort to frequent absences that could affect work productivity in the workplace.
More Robust Recruitment and Excellent Reputation
Companies adept at boosting employee motivation can deliver outstanding employee experiences, allowing them to attain a solid internal brand. Nonetheless, this isn’t a cinch to achieve.
A solid internal brand results from data-managed approaches that largely depend on employee assessment.
Organizations, companies, or businesses with highly motivated employees don’t have problems attracting and retaining top talents.
Superior Productivity Levels
Carrying out employee motivation approaches encourages people to perform their duties productively, resulting in excellent revenue outcomes.
Nevertheless, not many people think that a constructive means of working also doubtlessly prompt employee experience since it stimulates superior job satisfaction.
Greater Innovation
Providing employees with rewards and other forms of benefits can motivate them effectively, and this technique helps develop a culture of innovation.
When companies support, appreciate, and recognize their employees, they encourage them to face challenges and do better.
Companies should not undervalue the significance of motivation in the workplace because it serves a vital role in promoting growth.
Managers who acknowledge what benefits inspire and motivate their employees usually see excellent outcomes.
Reduced Levels of Employee Turnover
Staff motivation and benefits synchronize, contributing to outstandingly superior retention rates.
When you provide your employees with incentives, rewards, and other benefits, they work enthusiastically and are unlikely to search for another job.
This is particularly true if other firms can’t provide the compensation and benefits they get from your company.
Ultimately, making your staff feel valued, recognized, and part of your team is critical for job satisfaction and overall employee satisfaction.
You can engage your employees through organizing team building, concentrating on professional development, and inspiring confidence in your team members.
Studies reveal that a well-engaged, motivated, and receptive workforce is considerably more productive than a laid-back and unmotivated group of employees.
There’s no doubt that when employees feel engaged, they have more potential to work productively and benefit the organization.
Nothing motivates them more when they can witness directly what their contributions mean to the betterment of the entire organization.
RELATED: Looking for ways to steer your employees in the right direction and attain your goals collectively? This blog is worth reading: https://www.betterup.com/blog/motivating-a-team.
Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/meeting-workplace-team-office-5395615/
Conclusion
Conclusively, dealing with underperforming employees can be physically and mentally draining for many employers. But, the good news is you can prevent it from worsening provided that you take the correct measures.
Implementing strategies that manage underperformance in the workplace early on can save you from worst-case scenarios.
Likewise, taking immediate steps can be advantageous to other employees who are more likely to be influenced by underperforming staff.
Some of the effective ways of preventing underperformance at work include:
Having a Deeper Understanding of What Motivates Your Employees
Getting to know your employees better is crucial, but this doesn’t happen overnight. To do so, you need to ask them questions like:
- What are your pursuits and long-term goals?
- As their employer, what can you do to support them better?
- Where would they prefer to envision their career headed in the next two years?
Once you get responses from your employees, you can better understand what motivates them. Additionally, you can ensure that they are designated for suitable roles in your team.
Show Where They Fit in the Organization’s Mission
Employees need to understand where they fit in the company’s mission. Consider asking your staff if they know how their work fits in with their team.
You may also ask them how their roles affect the entire organization. It would help if you clarified what your firm intends to accomplish and how they fit into that mission.
Providing your staff with a more integrated understanding of the organization will provide superior employee engagement.
RELATED: What do you mean by stop trying to motivate your employees, unleash their motivation instead? Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lhVUedc1a4.
REFERENCES:
https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/identify-underperformance-and-deal-with-it-the-right-way/
https://fellow.app/blog/management/ways-to-keep-employees-engaged-and-motivated/
https://www.adeccousa.com/employers/resources/motivating-employees-in-the-workplace/
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/how-to-evaluate-interview-candidates
https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/317/how-to-assess-candidates-in-a-job-interview
https://lawpath.com.au/blog/tips-for-preventing-underperformance-in-the-workplace
