One of the many challenges that plagues managers is the struggling employee. This is typically the employee who delivers inconsistent quality, misses deadlines, and overall doesn’t seem interested or excited for the job. In this post I will discuss the approach I personally take as a people leader, so hopefully get to the root of the issue and resolve it before resorting to the dreaded PIP.

Above all, my philosophy around effective leadership involves treating employees as people. Sounds simple, but the concept of treating your employees as human beings with thoughts, feelings, goals, and lives outside of the workplace is not as common as we think. Quite often, working relationships between managers and employees is always centered around the work to be done and nothing more. Conversations go from one task to the next. Some years ago, I had the pleasure of working for a director who genuinely treated his direct reports with the same candor and warmth as he would a trusted friend. Conventional wisdom would say that this would lead to employees taking advantage of this kindness, but the opposite effect occurred. This director fostered an environment where his direct reports felt psychologically safe, maintained great accountability for their work, excitedly participated in meetings and group activities, felt free to innovate and improve processes, and felt respected. The team operated like a well-oiled machine, and was consistently reliable. Therefore when dealing with all employees, especially those struggling, it is important to take a step back and try to get to know them as people first. Share a little bit about yourself, let them know you, and give them the space to share if something is going on at home that is affecting their work product. If the issue is personal, you can guide them towards resources to assist them, give them time off, or support them in another way.

Sometimes, the failure point is communication. I tend to be an over communicator, especially when giving instructions for work. Did you have a vision for a deliverable in your mind – but gave your employee such vague instructions that they put something together that does not resemble your goal at all? As a people leader – avoid making assumptions that your employees can read your mind. This leads to frustration from your employees, because they don’t always feel comfortable asking you for clarification. It is your job as the leader to 1) give clear and detailed instructions of the project and its intended outcome 2) check for understanding 3) be available and encourage them to ask any questions 4) check-in along the process to make sure the employee does not pour hours and hours into a project they will need to re-do. In the case of my team, we have tasks with many moving parts and pieces – so one simple tool I built to ensure we didn’t miss anything was a tracker sheet in Excel. Every quarter, we roll out quotas and compensation plans for hundreds of sales people and multiple business units. While our intention is to get everything out in a scheduled and staggered fashion, there are always bottlenecks out of our control which may throw a group or two into a different schedule. The tracker is incredibly valuable for these situations.

Let’s discuss employees who make a lot of careless mistakes. Are they rushing through their work? Do they have too much on their plate? Review their workload and make a plan if this is the case. Do your processes have a million steps to them and are the employees missing steps as a result? See if you can streamline your process to automate or condense some of that tedious work. If the workflow cannot be changed, then create a step by step checklist for the employee to follow. Give it some checkboxes or lines for initials, so the employee has to mark each step, and have them submit the completed checklist at the end along with the deliverable to show they followed the process. Consider having employees buddy-up to check each-other’s work, and frame it as “getting another set of eyes on it.” Perhaps there is an IT issue – maybe their computer crashes because the files are too large and they lose their place. Be the advocate to secure them better equipment from IT. If it is hindering them in their job, make a business case and drive it up the chain if necessary. If the employee needs extra training, make sure that they have access to it. Quite often, this can be the case with new employees. A detailed walk through of a process where the employee is not only told WHAT to do, but WHY it is done, can go a long way in helping them get better at the work.

Lastly, show empathy and kindness. Lead by example and give employees a little bit of grace, especially in the beginning of their careers. Unless an employee commits some egregious act, no one should be in fear of losing their job on a daily basis. Be clear with your expectations, and frank about the situation at hand. Don’t be quick to think an employee is not ‘cut out’ for the job until you have gone through all the steps you can to support their success. Sometimes, an employee who is struggling on one team could easily thrive under another. Get to know their career goals, professional interests, and help them make connections where possible. Even if an employee doesn’t care much for the current subject matter, they will improve their current performance if they have some hope that they can transfer to a different department or team in the future. I hope all of these suggestions are helpful and thanks for reading!

Rose