The Big Quit, as an immediate consequence of the pandemic, highlighted millennials’ expectations regarding work-life balance, making employee engagement an increasingly relevant topic across organizations that seek to maintain high performance and gain long-term legitimacy. Employees can be an organization’s greatest asset and the biggest loss, so business leaders and HR professionals must be proactive enough to prevent employees’ underperformance, vigilant enough to recognize its signs, and open-minded enough to address it.
Why is an employee underperforming?
They say the best way to handle a crisis is to prevent it. So, the first step to handle underperforming employees is to know the reasons that lead people to underperform:
- Not fit for the job: The main reason why an employee may underperform is to be assigned a role that does not match his/her skills and expectations from the beginning.
- Not fit for the culture: It is not uncommon that people simply do not match the organizational culture and/or do not feel connected to the organization’s values.
- Poor opportunities for growth: For many people, work is more than just earning their living; it is self-fulfillment. These people can be very disappointed and disengaged if they find themselves in a job that does not allow them to develop themselves further.
- Stressful work environment: Pressure is a key feature of most jobs in business, and shipping makes no exception. But a chronic feeling of stress can gradually downgrade employees’ performance and even lead to burnout.
- Insufficient bonding: Business leaders have long ago realized that investing in bonding activities is the A and Z for boosting relationships of employees, not only with one another but also with the organization. It is very easy for people to lose interest if they do not feel connected to the company.
- Feeling underappreciated: People will fail to give 100% of their power when they feel they do not take credit for their work or when their salary is not representative of their effort and skills.
- Personal issues: There are always factors aside from the organization’s discretion that can affect an employee’s productivity, such as personal troubles.
9 signs of underperforming employees
- Decreased productivity
- Lack of eagerness to undertake tasks
- Bad mood
- Absenteeism
- Failure to meet deadlines
- Lowered quality of work
- Lack of motivation
- Lower eagerness of collaborating with others
- Poor compliance with procedures
How can we handle underperforming employees?
Recognize the problem: A proactive approach to leadership means closely monitoring your employees’ performance and learning how to recognize timely the potential signs of underperformance.
Listen: Most leaders lose the communication game out of talking too much, forgetting that listening is the way to understanding. If you let your employee speak out, you have more chances to comprehend what goes wrong and then act on it.
Give feedback rather than blame: They say leaders look for solutions, not someone to blame. If you have pinpointed the areas of the employee’s limited productivity, it is better to arrange a one-to-one meeting to discuss it, where both sides will find the opportunity to provide constructive feedback.
Be open: If an employee feels the psychological safety to open up about his/her struggles, chances are that others struggling will also feel safer talking about it. This will enable a more holistic overview of the situation and consequently the ability to address the issue at an organizational level.
Develop an action plan together: Once you and the employee have discussed the underperformance issues, you can discuss a potential resolution together. You can make suggestions for fixing the problem and encourage the employee to set goals. You may also look at reskilling opportunities together.
Understand your people: Knowing what makes people feel valued, what they expect and what disappoints them is the only way to keep them engaged. So, make sure you invest the right portion of time and energy to understand them.
Know your employees’ expectations: Ask your employees what they expect, how they want to improve, what they consider growth, and what their career goals are. If you make career goals together, it could further engage them in their work.
Give credit: As already stressed, people who feel undervalued will be less motivated. Don’t neglect to recognize the hard efforts of your employees, either with tangible rewards or at least some words of encouragement.
Keep a holistic view: It is very important for business leaders to keep a constant eye on their employees’ needs and performance and act quickly. If employees see their colleagues losing performance but no one addresses the issue, they will probably also feel less motivated to continue their good work.
What if the employee’s performance does not improve?
It is quite possible that the problems leading to perceived underperformance are workable if a reasonable amount of time is invested into the action plan by both sides. However, if the employee’s job performance doesn’t show signs of progress even after this time, the organizational leadership should contemplate other options before termination. An interesting solution is sometimes reassignment, which means the employee to be assigned a different role within the organization that will correspond more to his/her needs and expectations and potentially drive productivity up.
