Wouldn’t you like to have an effective, short term process to help your under-performing employees and at the same time eliminate your frustration and reluctance about confronting these people?
It’s no secret that disciplining is a part of managing people. After all, leaders are responsible for creating an environment where people thrive. And yet, there are a number of surveys indicating that managers and leaders in all occupations report that the most uncomfortable task they handle is dealing with under-performing employees. The longer you wait to do this, the more energy and time you waste, and the more money you lose just in personal time and productivity lost.
There are 5 progressive steps that are guaranteed to work when disciplining an employee. They are communicating, showing concern, coaching, explaining consequences and celebration. The first two are short term, informal steps; communicate by asking questions of the employee to identify the problem, then wait about a week and check-in with the employee and shown concern about their progress. If there is improvement, show appreciation; if things haven’t changed then show concern and find out what they plan to do about improving their performance.
Allow another week to pass and check-in again. If there is still no improvement then you need to move on to step 3 in the process and do some coaching with this employee. Your responsibility as a coach is to unlock the employee’s potential and maximize their performance. Help them understand how to perform better, don’t criticize or be judgmental.
The employee’s responsibility is to identify the objectives, set realistic performance targets, identify how to achieve the targets and accept constructive feedback. When those four things are being practiced the responsibility lies with that employee. You’ll need to give them time, maybe a month or two, to work toward their objectives. If they don’t improve then the fourth step is to deal with the consequences. I’ll discuss this step in detail in next week’s video.
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