Employees’ performance can suffer for a number of reasons, so it’s important for managers to figure out the underlying problem before taking any drastic measures.
Asking yourself these questions will help you determine if the performance problems are due to simple communication breakdowns — or if there are larger issues at work.
1. Are the employees’ expectations clear? One of the most common causes of poor performance is when employees aren’t really sure what’s expected of them. You may want to check in with the person to see if you’re both on the same page in terms of what needs to be done.
2. Is the employee getting timely feedback? When managers don’t give feedback quickly enough, workers can easily develop bad habits. The longer the lag in feedback, the harder these habits are to break.
3. Are there mixed signals being sent? This happens when employees aren’t sure what’s important. Example: If the performance problem stems from sloppy work, the employee may believe productivity is much important than quality.
