6 Steps to Handling Difficult Performance Discussion

I am so sick and tired of dealing with this employee. If you are a manager, you have likely expressed some version of this thought before. When I talk with small business owners, they frequently state that managing people is the most challenging part of their job. Finding the balance between being empathic and getting things done is the goal, but it tends to be elusive.

This is especially the case when managing people is one of many roles you must play within your organization. If you have been struggling to figure out how to start a difficult performance discussion with an employee, this article will provide you with six steps that will help you to address performance issues while still maintaining a good relationship with your employee.

6-Step Process to Performance Discussions

1. Check for understanding of the task

2. Discuss the difference between expectations and performance

3. Ask what support is needed

4. Verify expectations are realistic

5. Request commitment from the employee

6. Establish a follow-up plan

By following these steps, you can have productive and constructive performance discussions that lead to positive outcomes for your employees and your organization.

Step 1: Check for understanding of the task

When you start the performance discussion, make sure that you and your employee have a clear and shared understanding of the task or project that the employee is struggling with. You can do this by asking open-ended questions, such as:

- What was the goal of this task/project?

- What were the main deliverables and deadlines?

- How did you approach this task/project?

- What challenges did you face?

By checking for understanding of the task, you can avoid misunderstandings, clarify expectations, and identify any gaps in knowledge or skills that may have affected the performance.

Step 2: Discuss the difference between expectations and performance.

The next step is to discuss the difference between your expectations and the actual performance of your employee. You can do this by providing specific, factual, and objective feedback, such as:

- I expected you to complete this task/project by this date, but you missed the deadline by two weeks.

- I expected you to produce high-quality work that meets the standards of our organization, but I found several things that needed to be corrected in your work.

- I expected you to communicate effectively with your team members and stakeholders, but I received complaints that you could have been more responsive and friendly.

By discussing the difference between expectations and performance, you can help your employee understand where they fell short, how their performance impacted the team and the organization, and what they need to do differently.

Step 3: Ask what support they need.

After discussing the performance gap, it is important to ask your employees what support they need from you or others to improve their performance. You can do this by asking open-ended questions, such as:

- What challenges or barriers did you face while working on this task/project?

- What resources or tools do you need to perform better?

- How can I support you in achieving your goals?

By asking what support they need, you can show your employee that you care about their success, are willing to help them overcome their difficulties, and are open to their feedback and suggestions.

Step 4: Verify expectations are realistic.

As you discuss the support and actions needed for improvement, you should verify expectations are realistic and attainable. You can do this by asking the employee

-Based on this conversation, what is realistic for you to accomplish?

-If you were in charge, what would you set as the expectation?

-Is there any reason you would be unable to meet this goal?

By asking these questions, you will better understand the employee’s belief in being able to complete the task at hand. With this information, determine if the expectations are realistic, and if not, adjust so the goal is achievable.

Step 5: Request commitment from the employee.

The next step is to request a commitment from your employee to improve their performance and meet your expectations. You can do this by asking them to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for themselves, such as:

- I will complete this task/project by this date.

- I will improve my work quality by following these standards and guidelines.

- I will communicate more effectively with my team members and stakeholders by using these methods and channels.

By requesting commitment from your employee, you can help them take ownership of their performance, motivate them to act, and hold them accountable for their results.

Step 6: Establish a follow-up plan.

The final step is establishing a follow-up plan with your employee to monitor their progress and provide ongoing feedback and support. You can do this by scheduling regular check-ins, reviews, or meetings with them, such as:

- Let's meet weekly to discuss your status and challenges on this task/project.

- Let's review your work quality and feedback monthly to see how you improve.

- Let's meet quarterly to evaluate your performance and goals.

By establishing a follow-up plan, you can ensure that your employee stays on track, receives timely and constructive feedback, and gets the support they need to succeed.

Summary

In summary, having difficult performance discussions with your employees can be daunting, but it can also be an opportunity to help them grow and improve. By following these six steps, you can have effective and respectful performance discussions that lead to positive outcomes for your employees and your organization:

- Check for understanding of the task

- Discuss the difference between expectations and performance

- Ask what support they need

- Verify expectations are realistic

- Request commitment from the employee

- Establish a follow-up plan

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Coach and Business Consultant with Your Path Coaching and Consulting. He is a former retail executive with over 20 years of experience in the retail industry. He is a Co-Active coach who focuses on helping professionals, and small business owners overcome insecurities, knowledge gaps, and lack of direction. He does this by assisting clients to tap into their values, recognize their strengths, and develop actionable strategies for growth.

Have you been trying to improve your career or business on your own but are not seeing success as fast as you desire?

Book a free discovery call to discuss your goals and how I can help you accelerate.

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Have Feedback Send me a note at

Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

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Invest in Low-Wage Workers If You Want to Grow Your Business.

Designed by Taina Cunion

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Your Path Coaching and Consulted is committed to helping Small Business Owners attract, develop and retain employees. If you are looking to improve your people management strategy, visit our website. Or click this button to schedule a meeting

Start building your ideal culture

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Low-wage Workers Make Up a Significant Portion of the Labor Force

More than 40% of US labor force contains low-wage workers (Harvard Business)

Attracting and Retaining Employees Can be a Challenge

Companies facing the hardships of understaffing turn towards short-term incentives to fill in low-wage roles, such as sign-on bonuses or slight wage increases, yet why does turnover continue?

Employers' Beliefs Versus Survey Data

Common narrative regards workers as “fickle” people who constantly change jobs but the reality is that low-wage workers would rather stay with the companies that employ them.

• Harvard Business Study surveys shows 51% of low-wage employees had remained at their company for over four years

• 62% say that a promotion or higher pay would motivate them to stay

• 9% say they would like to stay if the employer offered them more skills training

• 6% say they would like to stay if the employer offered them more responsibility

• 22% agreed with the statement, “Even if my company doesn’t offer me higher pay, skills training, and more responsibility, I would prefer to stay at my current company”

• Changing jobs causes a disruption in a person’s life, which may not be a viable option depending on their financial situation.

  • No state offers a minimum wage that is in line with the living wage (CNBC)

  • 181,891 low-wage workers studied in 2012 found 60% of them remained stuck in such positions five years later (Harvard Business)

  • Americans who are employed in long-term low-wage work tend to be Black or Hispanic, are more likely to be women, and have less than 12 years of education, the researchers found (CBS News)

• Low-wage workers will stay at jobs longer if they have easy transportation access

• But when people feel trapped, it has rippling effects on the business

  • Low retention

  • High absenteeism

  • Low morale

  • Low productivity

• As temporary employees go in and out, more pressure is placed on long-time employees who stay. Eventually, they may burn out taking on extra responsibilities while management struggles with staffing

• Low-wage workers are thought of as easily replaceable, but there is a cost to constantly recruiting and training people

  • “At most companies with which Good Jobs Institute has worked, employers are pouring the equivalent of 10 to 25% of their labor budget on replacement costs—the costs to recruit, train, and reach baseline productivity, only to start all over again when employees leave.”

  • Senior living, call centers, warehouses, retail stores, and restaurants have to replace their entire frontline workforce annually, with more than 100% employee turnover (TIME)

Programs that are working

Sam’s Club- reduced hourly workers’ turnover by 25%, productivity increased by 16%, customer loyalty increased by 7%, and sales grew by nearly 15%.

Quest Diagnostics- reduced hourly turnover by more than 50%- At Quest, overall costs decreased by $2 million, $1.3 million of which came from ideas from the reps

Mud Bay- Mud Bay reduced turnover by 35%, 12% higher sales per labor hour, and 25% higher sales per square foot (compared to the 9% industry average at the time)

Eligible employees, after 90 days, can enroll in Disney Aspire, which provides full tuition payment for a high school diploma, degree, or vocational skill

• Of 14,000 hourly employees enrolled in Disney Aspire, 50% are working on a bachelor’s or master’s degree

  • 3,500 have graduated since it started in 2018

  • 2,800 graduates and students have been promoted internally

    • Of those enrolled in the program

      • 50% are people of color

      • 60% are women

The Path to Prosperity

If employees were set up for success from the beginning with full training, a livable wage, and support options for upward mobility, morale, and productivity would go up, and employees would be more likely to stay and grow within organizations.

Ensure Benefits are known

• 33% reported they were unaware of any opportunity to progress in their organization

• Only 55% of workers reported they’d ever had a supervisor or mentor who helped them succeed

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Your Path Coaching and Consulted is committed to helping Small Business Owners attract, develop and retain employees. If you are looking to improve your people management strategy, visit our website. Or click this button to schedule a meeting

Start building your ideal culture

How do you invest in better employee relationships?

If you are a hiring manager or a business owner, you probably know the importance of investing in your employees. After all, they are the ones who make your company run and grow. But how do you make sound investment decisions around employees? Employing a long-term strategy around developing your employees is the best way to ensure you have the workforce you need to achieve your company goals.

Invest in Employees for the long-term

One way to think about it is to imagine that your employees were stocks in your retirement plan. How would you behave differently if you treated your employees like company stocks? If you treated your employees like stock, you would likely.

1. Do research before investing. Before you hire someone, you should do some background research on their skills, experience, personality, and goals. You should understand who they are as an individual, what their goals are, and whether they are a good fit for the role and your organization. Hiring an employee that is not a good fit for your organization is bad for you, and it is bad for the employee. The employee is harmed because they are robbed of the opportunity of finding another job where they can excel, and you will waste time trying to get a square peg into a round hole.

2. Make consistent incremental investments over time. Once you hire someone, you should continually invest in them. You do this by providing them with regular feedback, coaching, training, and recognition. This will allow them to grow their skills, confidence, and competency. This will enable them to provide more value to your organization. Helping employees develop, showing appreciation, and providing advancement opportunities will motivate them to do their best.

3. Monitor progress. Just as you would monitor the performance of your stocks, you should also monitor the performance of your employees. You can do this by setting clear and realistic goals and expectations for them and measuring their progress regularly. These goals should be known to the employee, and you should have a cadence for meeting with them to discuss performance and plans for improvement. This will help you celebrate wins, identify issues or problems early and collaborate on solutions.

4. Take a balanced portfolio approach. When you invest in stocks, it’s a best practice to diversify your portfolio. The same should be done with your team. Building a team with a mix of people with deep industry experience and individuals new to the industry can help you balance risk and manage labor costs. It would be best to seek a diversity of race, gender, and other variables to help you have a well-rounded team of professionals. Diversity brings strength because it protects you from groupthink and other biases that tend to come from a homogeneous workforce.

5. Divest employees that are not helping you achieve your goal. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, some stocks might not perform well or meet your expectations. They might lose value or become irrelevant or obsolete. In such cases, you might need to sell or replace them with better ones. Likewise, sometimes, despite your best efforts, some employees might not perform well or meet your expectations. When this occurs, it is essential to consider the opportunity cost of continuing to employ someone who cannot deliver what you need. Plans should be made to help the employee move into a role or a company where they can be successful.

Employees are more valuable than stock

Of course, this analogy is not perfect and has its limitations. People are not stocks; they are humans with feelings, dreams, and emotions. They are not commodities that can be bought and sold at will; but individuals that deserve respect and dignity. As you work with employees, it is best to be candid about expectations and seek mutually beneficial relationships.

Do you feel your company adequately invests in developing employees?

• yes
• no
• unsure

Employees who do not meet expectations frequently carry stress and anxiety, leading to low self-esteem, poor job performance, and health issues. Helping employees identify when a role is not a good fit for them and identifying another role or opportunity where their value can shine will help them and your company. Great companies help employees build great careers, whether within the organization or not.

You should pay attention to your employees’ needs, preferences, and aspirations. In addition, you should listen to their feedback, suggestions, and complaints. The more you can empathize with their struggles, frustrations, and fears, the better guidance you will be able to provide them on building skills, developing themselves, and pursuing opportunities that will grow their productivity and your bottom line.

In short, you should treat your employees in a way that they feel valued and respected as humans while simultaneously focusing on how you can help them and your company achieve its goals.

Summary:

This blog post explains why investing in building relationships with employees is crucial for hiring managers and business owners. It suggests imagining that your employees were stocks in your retirement plan and considering how your behaviors would change if your retirement were based on their success. It encourages hiring managers and business owners to invest more time into people development, providing quality feedback, and helping employees to grow. In addition, it encourages managers to remember that this is only an analogy. Employees are not stock but humans with feelings, dreams, and emotions that should be considered when making decisions around upgrading talent or divesting roles.

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Thank you for reading this blog

Dorian Cunion is an Executive Coach and Business Consultant with Your Path Coaching and Consulting. He is a former retail executive with over 20 years of experience in the retail industry. He is a Co-Active coach who focuses on helping professionals, and small business owners overcome insecurities, knowledge gaps, and lack of direction. He does this by assisting clients to tap into their values, recognize their strengths, and develop actionable strategies for growth.

Have you been trying to improve your career or business on your own but are not seeing success as fast as you desire?

Book a free discovery call to discuss your goals and how I can help you accelerate.

Talk with Dorian

Have Feedback Send me a note at

Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

For daily tips on leadership and professional development, follow me:

LinkedIn

Facebook