Even if you hire the best and the brightest, performance issues are bound to happen. Whether it’s personality clashes between co-workers or a misinterpretation of policy that leads to errors, having a system in place for managing employee performance problems before you face these challenges is essential. These four tips can set your company on the right track for addressing and resolving employee performance issues before they negatively affect your company or your employees.
Straightforward Policies
It's hard to argue with black and white. Many companies neglect to draft comprehensive policies and procedures to prevent managing employee performance problems down the road. Creating a set of straightforward policies that are distributed to every employee sets a list of expectations before new employees start orientation. Policies, like tardiness, vary wildly between employers. While some allow a five minute grace period, others expect employees to clock in at least five minutes before they start. A simple policy can address these performance issues and prevent them from escalating. Basic policies like time and attendance, customer service expectations, and job descriptions gives clear expectations of what is required of the employee during working hours. A concise set of policies provides employees with a concrete set of expectations, preventing performance issues.
Consistent Enforcement
Employee morale doesn't exist in a vacuum. Small but noticeable differences in expectations can quickly lead to a hostile work environment or decreased productivity. Whether it's different job responsibilities between co-workers with the same title or by managers of separate teams, it's important that all managers hold their employees to the same standards. Part of this employee performance issue can be resolved by ongoing training by executive management to reinforce the company's standards. Another answer is automation to remove the "human" component from enforcement. By training managers in company policy and enforcement and relying on automation to enforce these policies, companies can avoid managing employee performance isues.
Targeted Training
Managing employee performance problems is rarely the fault of the employee alone. Underlying issues with communication and training may be to blame. An automated workforce management system can help bridge the gap between initial training and employee performance issues. By targeting policies and procedures that are commonly misinterpreted or incorrectly enforced, management can retrain employees in the correct procedure without one-on-one meetings. Online training modules can provide critical information without reducing productivity or requiring managerial time. Not only does targeted training help prevent later managing employee performance issues but it also prevents passing down incorrect information from seasoned employees to new employees.
Documentation
Despite best efforts, there will still be instances where verbal and written warnings for employee performance issues are needed. While this escalation can be resolved before termination, in the small percentage of employees that simply cannot fulfill their job duties, creating a paper trail is essential. Implementing a company-wide system for documenting employee performance problems and follow up action helps employees and managers. Employees can gain an understanding of what they aren't accomplishing through specific instances to improve their performance, and managers can lay out a plan to correct those issues from happening again.
Managing employee performance issues can be frustrating. So long as an employee isn't performing their job, co-workers are required to pick up the slack and managers are required to take time away from their job duties to counsel the employee. Companies that proactively develop employee training and steps to take when employees aren't meeting their job duties save time and energy. Use these four tips to develop a strategy for managing employee performance problems at your workplace.
