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Performance Management

Published December 2008

What Lies Beneath Low Performance

 

  Susan Tonkin

We know them well — employees whose work never seems to be up to par. They don't take direction well and may need constant hand-holding. Tasks are completed late and the quality of their work often is poor. Sometimes, a bad attitude and disruptive work habits are also present: They come in late, leave early and generally are difficult to deal with. At first glance, the best course of action for these individuals' performance management plans would be to weed them out. But perhaps not.

Showing low-performing employees the door may be the right decision in certain circumstances, but an alternative may be better for the individual and the organization. Before making a final judgment about a low performer, talent managers need to take a close look at the specific root causes of the subpar performance.

Is it due to lack of engagement with tasks, skill gaps in critical areas or perhaps a focus on the wrong priorities? In the vast majority of cases, some kind of talent management failure by the organization contributes to an employee's poor performance.

Consider, for example, an employee who has been hard at work on a key project, operating on guidance from his manager that he should "drop everything" and focus on project delivery. However, several months later, realizing that critical deliverables were left unfinished, the manager identifies this employee as a low performer. But are they? Or were they just placed in a difficult position that limited their opportunity for success?

By identifying the root causes of low performance, talent managers have the opportunity to call upon solutions and best practices to remedy the situation. In the aforementioned example, perhaps the problem was a breakdown in communication between employee and manager. Or perhaps this manager expects all of her employees to proactively handle multiple tasks at once, and this employee lacks that particular skill.

Once these root causes are identified, the right solutions can be employed to transform a low performer into a strong contributor to organizational goals.

Leading Causes of Low Performance

A closer examination of low performance reveals a number of common causes. They include:

• Lack of engagement: Employees may become disengaged for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they're confused by their roles in the company or by specific tasks they're expected to handle. They may not have a clear idea of what's expected of them or feel that they are part of a team. Consequently, they may either work on the wrong activities or simply not work hard because they don't see the point in making the extra effort.
• Skill gaps: Another type of low performance is caused by skill gaps. An employee may try to do the right thing, but can't because he or she is missing core or task-specific skills. This often is the case when a new manager who was a top performer in a previous position is promoted but not properly coached on the leadership skills needed to successfully manage a team.
• Wrong focus or wrong tasks: This is slightly different from the disengaged employee example. In some cases, talent managers may find employees are working really hard and putting in the extra time and effort to achieve excellence. But due to lack of guidance or the wrong direction, they work on projects or activities that do not relate directly or indirectly to the goals and objectives of the business.

Inevitably, there are going to be instances in which poor performance results from a lack of fit with the organization or culture. In these cases, management out of the organization may be the right decision, but it is important to do more than just show low performers the door.