Managing a team isn’t always about celebrating wins; sometimes, it’s about navigating the quiet, uncomfortable friction of unmet expectations.
When an employee falls short, it can feel like a heavy weight on the entire department’s momentum and can be very frustrating for managers. However, underperformance is rarely a sign of a bad employee. More often, it is a symptom of a deeper issue: possibly a lack of clarity, a mismatch in skills, or temporary personal hurdles.
In this guide, we will explore a structured, empathetic approach to turning performance around, covering nine steps you can take to address issues about underperformance and motivate your employees to meet the mark.
Key Takeaways
- Underperforming employees can hold back the entire team’s success, as managers and teammates can end up fixing their mistakes or doing more work.
- Underperforming can mean different things, depending on the employee’s potential.
- Six common signs of underperforming include: poor quality of work; frequent lateness or absenteeism; poor communication; missed deadlines and procrastination; meeting deadlines but producing low-quality work; overall lack of enthusiasm.
- People ops managers can use a 9 box grid to identify low, high, and average performers. It is a great tool to help you compare performance against potential.
- There are 9 steps any employer can take to motivate an underperformer: define the problem; learn more about the context of the problem (is it professional or personal?); assess expectations and priorities (explain clearly); share real-time feedback (adopt a continuous performance management approach); ask the right questions during one-on-ones to understand what’s going on and any progress made; share personal stories to show empathy and inspire; use performance management software to do reviews, track goals, and keep notes; create a performance improvement plan to map a clear path forward; have career conversations to help the employee reach their goals.
- Transfer or termination should only be a last resort, as today’s workplaces focus on finding solutions and motivating underperformers rather than starting from scratch with a new hire.
Table of Contents
1. The Impact of an Underperforming Employee
2. How to Decide if an Employee Is Actually Underperforming
3. 9-Step Guide for Managing an Underperforming Employee
4. When to Transfer or Part Ways with an Underperforming Employee
5. Primalogik performance management software supports continuous performance management
The Impact of an Underperforming Employee
The saying “You’re only as strong as your weakest link” holds true: Underperforming employees can hold back the entire team’s success. A Robert Half survey states that managers spend a quarter of their working hours managing underperformers—roughly 10 of 40 hours per week. This also means that high performers may not be getting the support they need to reach their highest potential.
Managers and teammates may spend substantial time fixing an underperforming employee’s mistakes, and may shoulder more work of their own to overcompensate. Morale can plummet when one team member remains disengaged during meetings and collaborations. Over time, workplace culture can suffer greatly as team enthusiasm drops. Talented people may even leave a company because of underperforming colleagues.
The impact of an underperforming employee is far-reaching, and it’s a behavior that needs to be addressed promptly and effectively before it causes trouble.
How to Decide if an Employee Is Actually Underperforming
What exactly is an underperforming employee? Underperforming can mean different things, depending on the employee’s potential. For high-potential employees, average performance equates to underperforming. For average potentials, poor performance equates to underperformance. Consider whether the employee is living up to their potential by assessing their global performance and using the right performance metrics.
Let’s review some common signs of underperformance. In some cases, an employee may have begun displaying them more recently. For others, these behaviors might be observable over the long term. In either case, working to address the issue as soon as you spot it will boost your team and your organizational success.
Check for the 6 Signs of an Underperforming Employee
Common signs of an underperforming employee include:
- Poor quality of work, especially when compared with their previous output.
- Frequent lateness or absenteeism, or spending a lot of time on social media or playing computer games during the workday.
- Poor communication, such as not checking in with team members’ questions, and/or ignoring colleagues’ emails or clients’ phone calls.
- Missed deadlines and procrastination, resulting in not completing tasks on time or holding up team projects.
- Meeting deadlines but producing low-quality work.
- Lack of enthusiasm, leading to taking three hours to complete a task that used to take one.
Use a 9-Box Grid to Evaluate Performance
Our 9-box grid can help you identify low, high, and average performers. This tool will help you compare performance against potential. Plus, it will help you assess which employees need the most support—and what type of support they need. If an employee falls into the category of “low performance” and “low potential,” reassignment or parting ways could be the best option.
9-Step Guide for Managing an Underperforming Employee
Replacing an underperformer reportedly takes an average of 42 days and incurs substantial expenses. So, managers should let go of an employee only as a last resort. It’s preferable to do everything possible to manage and coach an underperforming employee.
So, let’s delve into the 9 steps any employer can take to motivate an underperformer and help them fully meet or even exceed expectations.
1. Define the Problem
Consider in what specific ways the employee is underperforming. It’s important to create a list of points to address and note whether the issues are related to present circumstances, or missing skills.
Is the employee experiencing quiet cracking (are the financial pressures too much?) or burnout (inability to manage long term work stress)? Does the employee perceive a lack of opportunities for advancement?
Once you have identified the problem(s) affecting performance, you can move forward toward a solution.
2. Investigate the Context of the Problem
To find a solution to a problem, it’s important to assess the context of the issue.
Professional issues
Is the problem something that falls within the professional realm? In other words, can you do anything about the issue as an employer or manager?
Look into the possibility of providing professional development and training, or having conversations about the employee’s professional experience at your workplace. You can explore questions surrounding workplace culture and assess whether the employee is suffering due to a toxic workplace or any other factors within company control.
Personal issues
If the issue is not rooted in the professional setting or workload, it can be more delicate to address. A candid conversation can be a place to show your concern in a respectful manner and communicate that performance has become an issue. The employee may or may not wish to share details of what they are experiencing, and employers must respect their right to privacy and discretion. Managers can acknowledge the situation and explore ways to help the employee regain momentum.
Grey areas
Sometimes, the professional context can be adjusted to accommodate personal challenges. In other words, there can be overlap between the work and individual context when it comes to underperformance.
For example, if the employee mentions that they have been struggling with physical or mental health issues, you could potentially modify their workload. Or, if they are struggling with remote work, you could look for new ways to improve engagement for remote employees.
In extreme cases, consider whether paid or unpaid leave would be appropriate. Other accommodations may be necessary for dealing with physical or mental health challenges.
“Mental health issues that affect personal behaviors may invoke the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),” asserts the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
“If an employee is experiencing challenges in these areas, the employer may have an obligation to engage in the ADA interactive process by asking the employee how the company could help him or her meet the essential functions of the job.”
3. Assess Expectations and Priorities
Employees need to clearly understand the expectations and goals of their professional role.
Underperformance can sometimes be the result of a lack of understanding of what is expected. Share the criteria for success in their tasks and projects. If they’re completing assignments but doing unfocused work, perhaps they don’t understand what they are supposed to be accomplishing.
Many workplaces are switching to a result-first approach, encouraging employee autonomy to give people the freedom they need to work independently and effectively. If your employee is underperforming due to too much structure or oversight, this could be a good solution.
Quick assessment
Have the employee write down the three most important tasks they handle each week. Also, write down your own understanding of the employee’s top three responsibilities. Then, examine and discuss gaps between your answers.
4. Share Real-Time Feedback
Continuous performance management is becoming the norm in today’s workplaces, and it involves committing to giving (and receiving) real-time, transparent feedback.
When an employee is underperforming, they can benefit from learning the truth before their annual review. Real-time feedback allows someone to respond and adjust, and helps managers gauge whether there is a real will to change and meet expectations, or whether there is some other issue that needs to be addressed.
Real-time feedback sends a clear message, and opens the door to find an actionable solution by focusing on how to improve current behaviors. Once changes are put in place, it also allows for follow-up. Rather than waiting months to address a performance issue, real-time feedback shows that you care right now. The employee will better understand the desired behaviors. They’ll also know how their current habits and actions are affecting others. This is invaluable for saving time and taking appropriate action.
5. Ask the Right Questions
Asking targeted questions allows you to get the answers you need.
There are several ways you can ask questions related to the working environment (e.g., working remotely or on a hybrid team), or about career goals and how they may relate to current performance.
Monthly one-on-ones can be a place to ask more about what an employee is going through. You can use employee surveys, or do a quick check-in. The continuous performance management model allows for much more communication between staff and leaders than previously, via a variety of methods. Asking targeted questions is not awkward in this context, and can provide essential insights.
For example:
- “Has working remotely been challenging for you? Can you tell me about that?”
- “Do you feel this job is still a good fit for you? Or have your personal goals and aspirations changed?”
- “What are your best qualities? How can you draw upon them more in this role?”
- “What skills do you need to develop more to excel in this role?”
- “What motivates you to do your best?”
Thoughtful questions like these will help you have authentic conversations with low-performers. They serve as a jumping-off point for creating an effective response.
6. Empathize and Inspire
Sharing stories about how you’ve overcome your own challenges opens the door to finding the right solution to underperformance in others.
Personal stories can emphasize that success is a journey. It’s important to motivate employees to start from wherever they are, so why not talk about a time when you struggled to believe in your ability to achieve a goal. How did you persevere? What outcomes did you accomplish?
The old-fashioned top-down approach to performance management is gone, and today’s workplaces thrive on open communication between staff of all levels. A struggling employee may benefit more from knowing that their professional superior once faced similar challenges, rather than feeling judged or assessed in a colder, more professional manner during an annual review.
7. Use Performance Management Tools
Performance management software can be used to help an underperforming employee to get back on track.
The right performance management software enables real-time feedback and various types of assessments, including 360 degree reviews, annual reviews, surveys and check-ins. Managers can keep a log of their notes on particular employees, and easily check on progress or problems before their next meeting. The software provides a private, secure place to keep review notes, track goals and visualize data so that you can decide how to respond to an underperforming employee, and whether your efforts are working.
Dedicated software can also help avoid performance issues to begin with. You can boost motivation by showing people their goals and progress at a glance, as a reward for behaviors you’d like to see repeated.
8. Create a Performance Improvement Plan
A performance improvement plan (PIP) is your go-to approach for a chronically low performer.
Don’t expect miracles to occur overnight. Instead, design a performance improvement plan that sets up the underperforming employee for small wins and trackable milestones that guide them in the right direction. It’s important to come up with a specific percentage of improvement you want to see each week.
A PIP can provide valuable guidance while also providing a way to document progress. As you put your plan into motion, have frequent check-ins about progress with the underperforming employee, even two or three times per week.
To learn more about PIPs, check out our Complete Guide to Performance Improvement Plans.
9. Have Career Conversations
Employees need to know they are heading toward their career goals.
You can also motivate an underperforming employee by reminding them of how they could advance in their career, via regular career conversations or by creating a formal Career Development Plan (CDP). If they are struggling because they do not know how to move forward professionally, this might boost motivation to excel in their current role.
Discuss the steps they are taking and have taken toward goals and how this supports the achievement of professional milestones. When the employee is performing well, share opportunities for promotion or recognition (celebrating milestones goes a long way) and you may see their level of engagement and enthusiasm rise.
When to Transfer or Part Ways with an Underperforming Employee
If you’ve taken the above steps and haven’t seen the desired progress, consider a transfer to a different role. Importantly, only transfer an underperforming employee if a new role seems like a better fit. Otherwise, you’ll just be kicking the can down the road for another manager.
If a transfer isn’t an option, you may need to let the underperforming employee go. Make sure you’ve documented the reasons for doing so thoroughly. HR and the employee’s manager should do this in collaboration with one another.
Primalogik performance management software supports continuous performance management
At Primalogik, we believe that happy employees help organizations thrive! We’re excited to share our award-winning performance management platform to help you motivate underperformers and make the right staffing decisions for your company.
Our performance management platform helps you gather 360° feedback, assess performance, visualize data and more. It’s easy to use and quick to set up. We provide support every step of the way.
Across industries—from Fintech to Healthcare and Nonprofits—our tools help businesses motivate and manage their employees, from underperformers to the best worker on the team.
Book a free demo today!