Every company wants its employees to perform at their best in order to grow, acquire loyal customers and become more profitable. For this purpose, sometimes carrots such as bonuses, promotions and benefits are used, and sometimes sticks such as pay cuts and demotions are used. No matter how you look at it, getting employees to perform well is a challenge for every company. I will share with you an email I receivedtoday on the subject, with a pseudonym and my response.

Hello Ms. Bahar,

I deal with underperforming people who can't complete their work properly. The best way to describe their performance is mediocre! But we don't have sufficient grounds to terminate their employment. Customers don't complain about them, but they don't praise them either.

In fact, what we do is one of the hottest jobs in the company, and I have a waiting list of great candidates who want to join our department, who can improve the performance of our team. But I feel like I'm stuck with these few incompetent people. How can I manage these employees who often slack off with minimal effort?

Manager of Mediocrity

Dear Administrator of Mediocrity,

I'm going to suggest you do a lot more than you probably think in your answer, but I can assure you that this is the way to go if you want to improve the performance of your whole team, not just underperforming employees. First we need to agree with you what the real problem is. The problem you are facing is not underperforming employees.

The problem is low expectations. If these team members are indeed underperforming, but there is "no justification for terminating them", then you are working in a culture of mediocre norms. If this is true, the first thing you need to do is to address the chronic bad norms, not the underperformers. If your team were completely clear about high performance expectations, mediocrity would be blatantly visible. So when you had to advise them on performance improvement or terminate their employment, it was not a difficult decision for you.

While it may seem like a roundabout way to go about solving what you see as a problem with these people, I suggest that you first address the issue of expectations. If you don't, any action you take with respect to these employees alone can be confusing and can be seen as unfair. Over the years we have had our own issues with employee performance in our own company from time to time. Of course, we cannot say that we are perfect, but we have always tried to adhere to the standard that no one's dismissal comes as a surprise.

Going this way is a heavy burden on both the manager and the organization. But it is the right burden to have. Sometimes managers watch a person's performance and say, "This person can't do this job," and the tendency is to fire them immediately. In such cases, a "no surprises" policy holds them to a higher standard. It requires them to be much more specific and clear about their concerns and then follow a process of progressive discipline over a period of time. I can't say that this approach has always led to better employee outcomes, but I can mention at least 3 equally important areas where it has worked very well:

2-As a result, they were more likely to feel that they were treated fairly.

3-Theemployees who stayedwith the companyalso realized that if their managers were concerned about their performance, a certain procedure would be followed and there would be no sudden surprises in their career. This created more trust than mistrust.

So how do you re-establish norms? How can you set a high standard that will make dealing with mediocrity clearer?

1 - Agree on Your Human Resource Standard. You, your colleagues, managers and HR should have a similar and clear understanding of how you expect people to perform in your organization. Some organizations are happy with the bell curve - the variation in employee performance. Others are very clear that there should be a "Class A" performer in every position in the organization, i.e. the best performers. What this standard is in an organization has a significant impact on employee selection, pay, development activities and everything else. If you want to have an "A-class" player in every position, you need to pay them. You need to be willing to look for them. You have to be willing to invest in their development. And you have to let go of those who don't live up to expectations. These are big commitments and you need to make sure you have enough support from your own chain of command before you say you are going to establish this standard.

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2-Publicize Your Standard. Once you have enough support to make the tough decisions about the high standard of performance, it's time to go public. Let people know that the bar has been raised. Let people know that people should understand the recommendations about jobs, development and other results so that there are no surprises. Make it clear that the standard is different now, without judging what has gone before and without looking down on previous leadership. Articulate with honesty how things will move forward, why it is right for the organization and why it is good for those involved. Present this vision in a way that instills pride and enthusiasm in people, but acknowledge up front that some people will not be able to achieve it. Let people know that there will be ample and fair opportunities for them to take their contribution to the company to the next level, and that you will support this with candor, coaching and development.

3-Coach, Coach, Coach. Change Now it is time to live the standards. If someone performs sub-standard, coach them, i.e. talk about the "content" so that they understand the expectation gap between what they are doing and what you expect. If it continues, coach them again, but this time talk about it as a "pattern" so that they understand that this is a chronic problem, not an isolated incident. If necessary, offer whatever support is needed in the form of training, mentoring, business process change, etc. If it recurs, it is time for a "relationship" conversation. At this point, the employee should know that dismissal or reassignment is a possibility. This needs to be in writing so that there is no confusion about its understanding.

Ultimately, the biggest challenge in coaching is not the person's performance but your own clarity. Few managers know how to articulate the difference between mediocre performance and great performance. If you cannot define the great performance you want, you cannot expect it to happen. You have to detail the behaviors and results you want to see and then compare that description with mediocre performance, a difficult task. This may seem like a difficult and circuitous route, but every minute you can articulate your expectations with expertise can save an hour of arguing and resentment later.

I realize this is a longer response than you might expect, but it is definitely worth doing.

Love

Bahar Sen

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