Managing Poor Performance

Karen is an executive coach and career transition specialist with over 20 years practical experience in employee resourcing and development. She is well versed in all aspects of talent management, from helping line managers to design, develop and implement effective performance appraisal processes in their organisations to leading executive search assignments to attract people with scarce skills for her clients. Karen has a wealth of corporate experience across a wide range of business sectors including in oil and gas, rail, health, retail, catering, charity and training.

Neil MacLean

Neil is an experienced employment lawyer and is currently heads up the Employment Team at Shepherd and Wedderburn, a leading UK law firm. Neil has strong experience of managing complex business transfers and restructuring programmes, involving TUPE and redundancy, collective consultation and employee relations issues. He advises on employee issues across a range of sectors and has also been successful in using mediation as a route to resolve disputes promptly and commercially.

Interview overview

In this interview you can hear:

• definitions of poor performance
• some of the causes of poor performance that managers should be aware of
• the common errors managers can make in addressing poor performance issues
• how a manager should ideally plan and approach a performance issue with a member of their team
• advice for managers who may feel anxious about addressing poor performance, particularly if doing so for the first time
• advice to help organisations improve managers’ skills in tackling poor performance more effectively
• the role of formal policies in dealing with poor performance
• tips for managers to ensure that they use legally compliant processes when managing poor performance

Find out more

• The ACAS guide to Performance at Performance Management at: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=6608 (accessed 7 February 2019)
• Your HR department should be able to provide you with guidance and support, as well details of your organisation’s specific performance management processes and policies.

Transcript

Female interviewer: Dealing with a team member who is underperforming is a challenge that most managers will face from time to time.

In this interview we hear from John Reid, a line manager, Karen Summers, a business coach and career transition specialist, and Neil McLean, an employment lawyer, about how best to manage poor performance.

Karen begins by giving us a definition of what poor performance means to her.

Karen Summers: For me poor performance quite simply is when someone doesn’t meet the required standard. In my experience, it is usually a build up over time and a manager gets to the point where they need to invoke a more formal conversation and invoke part of the company poor performance procedure.

Female interviewer: We then went on to ask Neil and John for their views on what constitutes poor performance.

First to give us his thoughts was Neil.

Neil McLean: Essentially somebody who is not doing the job that you need done or not doing the job in the way that you want it done.

John Reid: For me poor performance is when an individual consistently does not perform to the measures set by the company either due to their capability or due to conduct. Consistently for me also means two, three, maybe four months, it is not a short-term thing.

Female interviewer: Now we hear from John and Neil about some of the causes of poor performance that managers should have an awareness of.

Here’s what John had to say on this issue.

John Reid: For me there’s two real kind of key areas and this could be either on the individual, either the employee or the manager. The first one is lack of understanding, so understanding what the role is, you know, what they have to meet and what they have to achieve. And the second one is lack of ability and that could be a lack of ability of the individual; do they have the right training, do they have the right knowledge, or that could also be the lack of ability of the manager, do they have the right skills, are they able to help that individual?

Female interviewer: We now hear Neil’s perspective on some of the causes of poor performance.

Neil McLean: One that could be quite common is changes to work practices or the role, for example, if you go back a number of years when our banks changed from people being tellers who just processed what the customer wanted into suddenly selling insurance and credit cards and other add-ons. For certain individuals that was something that they just couldn’t do or didn’t want to do and that led to a number of issues of poor performance in that sector. So changes to work practices or the role can often be a problem for people who can’t adapt or find it more difficult to adapt.

There can be other things like matters outside work affecting people, things going on at home, changes to their health, changes to motivation for a whole range of reasons. So a number of factors.

One of the keys in managing poor performance is actually to work out what is the cause.

Female interviewer: In this next section, we hear about the most common errors that managers can make when it comes to addressing poor performance.

First we hear from Neil, followed by Karen and then John.

Neil McLean: They probably talk about it to their other colleagues in management rather than actually talking to the individual concerned or doing something about it. Often by not dealing with it, which is maybe just the same thing, what they do is allow the issues to fester at least in their mind, so what could have been something minor that could have been dealt with informally, becomes a running sore and they haven’t dealt with it and by the time they are ready to deal with it, they deal with it in a disproportionate way because they are really narked, whereas actually if they had been on top of it from the beginning, they might have sorted it out in a much more informal and easy way. And I think when they ultimately do try to deal with it, not being clear as to what they want done, why they think something is not being done properly and helping the employee to perform in the way that’s required is probably the third issue.

Karen Summers: One is actually not confirming or confronting poor performance in the moment when it is actually the most relevant. So, in a sense, I am saying, they kind of leave it too late to have that first conversation. And then, secondly, not really being clear about their expectations.

John Reid: The first one would be confidence in their own ability. You know, that maybe an understanding of performance management process they may have. The second one for me would be around the manager’s relationship with the individual and how that has, you know, progressed since they started together. There can be some difficulties where a manager and an individual are close and I have noticed this myself and I have felt this myself as well, you know, and it can divide loyalties in relation to what do you do when it’s maybe one of your better friends within the department. Do you give them more leeway, do you come down harder on them, and it’s remaining consistent with them as it would be with other people with this kind of issue as well. And finally, for me it would be, you know, not taking the individual into consideration. Very often when you are doing this for the first time, you are stuck around the task side of the process rather than the people side.

Female interviewer: So we have heard about what can go wrong in managing poor performance.

In this next section we hear how it should be done. Each contributor talks through how a manager should ideally address a poor performance issue with a member of their team.

Neil McLean: Preparation is probably a key thing. Know what you want to say. Know why you want to say it. That probably involves having evidence. If you go into a meeting and you tell someone they are not performing properly, quite understandably they will say, ‘What do you mean, why, what am I doing wrong, how do I compare to others, why are you saying this to me?’ Now, to anticipate those sorts of questions, preparation in advance is quite important. Knowing exactly what you want to say, having evidence to back up your concerns, without necessarily, you know, going off to investigate it as if you were the police or MI5, but having some sort of evidence as to why you think somebody is performing below the level that you expect. So being clear about that.

I think also being open to listening to what the person has to say. They may accept that they are performing poorly or they may not. You need to be prepared for both. And you need to have some flexibility about how the meeting will progress. And you need to be clear as to what you want to happen, when you want it to happen by and what the consequences might be if performance doesn’t improve to the right level within the right timeframe.

Karen Summers: It’s about early and ongoing intervention. It’s about remembering that the other person is a person, so be congruent, be authentic. Tell them explicitly what the issue is and what excellent performance would look, sound and feel like. Remember to think about, you know, if it was a friend or a family member, what would work best for them. Adapt your strategy to suit that individual. Ask them what they might need to make it to the standard that you expect. Listen and be really open to root causes and solutions that might emerge from that conversation.

I really recommend the use of a coaching style and asking the other person for their insights. So once you have kind of got on the table the reason for the conversation, there’s that opportunity to probe, ensure a full and rich understanding, and try to take any heated emotion out of the conversation. So, obviously acknowledge it if it comes up for the employee, for example, you know, you might want to say, ‘Well, I can see you are getting upset, are you okay to continue?’ or ‘You know, you are obviously very passionate about this which is great but can I just remind you about, you know, why this is important that we discuss this matter.’ So there’s a real opportunity to discuss any differences. Be very, very clear about the impact that whatever has happened has had and the results that that might have had, but also perhaps how the manager feels about it as well, so you can bring the kind of the facts and the human element into the discussion.

Be very clear about what is expected to be different moving forward and definitely agree what you will talk about again, what specifically will be achieved by then and when you need to do that. So again, it is just reinforcing the fact that this isn’t going to go away, you are being very, you know, mature and level about it, you are clear about what the person has to do and also you have reminded them about the fact that you are going to have another touchdown to speak about it again.

John Reid: Ask the person, you know, headline questions for the meeting, it’s not an interrogation. I will go in with an idea of improving the performance and where I want the performance to be, but I have learnt the hard way of going in with my own agenda of really kind of going in with maybe 20 or 30 questions and sticking to them. Whereas I will go in with a few headline questions such as, ask an individual, you know, ‘What could you have done more to improve your performance?’ or ‘What’s stopping you from improving your performance?’ For new people as well, I would only do, I would certainly discuss it, you know, or even role play it with an experienced manager. I still do this; I have been doing this for a long time and I still pass ideas back and forth with some other managers just to ensure that I have covered all areas. It is easy to feel that you have got everything covered in a situation, but it’s nice to see it from another point of view as well. And finally for me, is really choosing the time and environment for the meeting to ensure that, you know, there is no disruption, there’s no distraction at all and you will be able to concentrate on that individual and give them the time that they deserve and the time that they need.

Female interviewer: Some managers can feel anxious about raising the issue of poor performance with a member of their team, particularly if they have not had to do so before. We asked each contributor what advice they would give to a manager who needs to address a poor performance issue for the very first time.

Karen Summers: I think this is quite common and, you know, what I would want to do is just help the manager with their confidence. The thing I’d want to talk about is just to say, remember that your primary concern is to return the individual to the required level of performance, not to put the boot in. So if you come at the conversation from that point of view, think about it if someone was having that conversation with you, you know, it might be your partner at home even, how would you want that to happen. You know, you would want them, you wouldn’t want them to wrap the message up in cotton wool so that there is a danger that you actually miss the point and you would want it to be said to you maturely, adult to adult, in a timely way so that you have got clarity about the next step and so everybody can move on as soon as possible.

John Reid: Firstly I would say that, you know, I still feel anxious at times, you know, in relation to performance because, you know, I look at it as this person may lose their job, you know, if they don’t improve. The best situation is where they do improve and everything’s fantastic. What I would say to someone that is doing it for the first time is there is a reason why that person was awarded the role; they have the skills necessary to manage that individual. So give themselves a bit of time to prepare for the meeting. I would also, you know, advise to talk to someone you trust, you know, about the meeting and also learn from their mistakes as well. We don’t always get these things 100 per cent first time.

Female interviewer: In the following section, Karen offers some practical tips and advice to help organisations improve manager skills in dealing with poor performance.

Karen Summers: It is very much dependent on, you know, the individual managers, but I think there is definitely something about developing their leadership and management capability overall. And this could involve helping them to understand themselves better, possibly through the use of psychometrics and coaching, so they know why conversations like this hook them in that way, so that then you can build confidence appropriately. And also help them to develop coaching and communication skills because the more they are able to ask insightful questions, the more likely they are going to be able to unlock any root causes and really get to the bottom of something and genuinely help to return performance to a good standard.

Female interviewer: In this next section, we hear how formal organisational policies can be of help when it comes to addressing poor performance issues.

Neil McLean: They give the manager a framework, a rule book, a guide, a road map, you can use any of these sorts of phrases. They are there to tell people what they should do and for management it can be quite helpful because it says, these are the steps that I should take and that can be quite helpful for a manager who might not know quite how to deal with it. And for the employee, it gives some transparency as to what the process will be, some transparency as to what will happen if they don’t improve by the, you know, right period of time, whether it’s a first warning or a final warning, and then ultimately potentially dismissal. So it can be helpful at just giving a framework.

There is a concern that if you run to the policy, you miss actually the day-to-day interactions which should be part of good management that help keep people performing in the way that you would want them to perform without necessarily threatening them with disciplinary procedures, you know, every second minute.

Karen Summers: Well, I think they can really help in that, you know, it sends a signal for everyone in the organisation that, you know, the organisation has got, if you like, the lines on the pitch drawn on should this event kind of arise and overall it just does protect everyone, it helps managers and employees to know, you know, what the deal is and it helps to ensure fairness and equity.

John Reid: I think formal policies are the best way to be consistent around managing and addressing, you know, poor performance issues. It’s great for both the manager and employee to sense check what needs to happen to assist with poor performance and they will also know where they stand. Although it’s not always a one size fits all, it should ensure consistent approaches when dealing with poor performers. Further down the line, you know, it will show that you have given all the support and development that’s needed or required and that will also, you know, keep yourself right for any formal appeals based on formal warnings or even dismissals as well.

Female interviewer: We asked Neil for his three top tips to ensure that managers use legally compliant processes when it comes to managing poor performers effectively.

Neil McLean: The individual manager, he might be an owner manager and therefore they would have control over the policy, but you would imagine in most medium to large size employers you would have some sort of HR support. So having a policy of some description would be sensible and having that in place before an issue arises would actually be ideal and that would give you your road map.

That policy should be compliant with the ACAS code on managing disciplinary and grievance procedures, albeit you might want to tailor certain aspects of it to your particular business. So having some sort of policy would be sensible.

In terms of how you manage it just on a personal level, be consistent in your approach, treat employees in the way that you would like to be treated yourself. I know in these days of very formal procedures that might be seen as less relevant than it would have been 10 or 15 years ago but I think for me it’s still very relevant. You treat people the way that you would expect to be treated and by and large you won’t go wrong.

Invest time and energy to manage the situation. It is not easy, it will take time, but then that’s what a manager is there to do, he is there or she is there to manage and these things aren’t easy, but if you work at them like everything else, you will actually produce results.

Female interviewer: Thank you for listening to this interview. For more information and resources on this topic, why not search for poor performance in your toolkit?