What Is the Process of Informing an Employee of Poor Performance?

Performance issues should be handled delicately to encourage improvement.

Most performance issues can be addressed through proper communication between the supervisor or manager and the employee. While your individual organization may have a specific process for informing an employee of poor performance, there are a few commonly accepted strategies for handling such situations.

Performance Counseling

Once management has identified an employee as a poor performer, it is important to set up an interview with the employee to discuss the issue. In some cases, performance may be lacking due to a simple miscommunication of expectations. The supervisor should begin the counseling session by outlining her specific expectations to ensure that the worker's perception of management expectations are in alignment with actual expectations. Managers must inform employees of the specific performance problems and encourage feedback to determine if there are any roadblocks keeping the worker from meeting performance goals.

Identify the Problem

It is essential to determine the underlying cause of the poor performance, which is impossible without input from the employee in question. For example, the supervisor can collaborate with the worker to determine whether the performance issue is a result of a lack of training or a lack of effort. It is vital that the manager not automatically assume the problem is due to a lack of effort on the part of the employee.

The supervisor should attempt to approach the matter in a positive manner with a focus of fixing the problem rather than punishing the employee. Additionally, the specific source of the problem will likely influence how the supervisor chooses to inform the employee of poor performance.

Improvement

In many cases, the law requires that managers offer poor performers an opportunity to improve before taking punitive action. Even in cases where the manager believes the worker deliberately exhibits poor performance, it is critical to give the employee a chance to change. The clarification of expectations and identification of the source of the performance problem may be enough to motivate change. In other cases, the worker and manager may need to develop a specific plan of action to help the employee reach performance goals. In either situation, it is important to take steps to inform the worker of the specifics of the poor performance. The worker cannot be expected to improve without having a full understanding of what he has done poorly.

Prevention

Poor performance is not something that is recognized suddenly. Instead, an overall performance issue exists when a worker exhibits poor performance on an ongoing basis. One way to prevent seemingly insignificant instances of poor performance from becoming a larger problem is through the use of coaching. Managers first communicate with workers to inform them of what good work looks like. They then implement training to ensure all workers maintain a minimum skill level.

Managers must provide a quantifiable system of measuring performance to ensure objectivity and provide consistent, ongoing feedback to all workers to ensure performance issues are counteracted as they happen. It is far more effective to inform workers of poor performance as it happens than to wait until the performance issue has become a larger problem that requires punitive action. Additionally, it is important to inform a worker of poor performance in private rather than berating the employee in front of coworkers.

References

• U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Resource Center for Addressing and Resolving Poor Performance
• Reference for Business: Attribution Theory
• New York Governor's Office of Employee Relations: Performance Problems
• Coach4Growth: Coaching Quality - Feedback, Training, Measuring Success, and Coaching Feedback Sessions