Problem Employees Challenge Managers

Confronting employees with poor performance, however, carries a risk. You can easily demoralize them unless you present critiques in a sensitive way and offer opportunities for improvement. Here’s how you can avoid the most common pitfalls when evaluating employees who have problems:

1. Don’t base evaluations on personal opinions. Too often managers evaluate employees in general terms that amount to opinions. Examples include using phrases such as, “needs to improve work habits” or “must improve interpersonal skills.” Employees resent such nebulous statements and become defensive when they receive them. To make your point effectively, talk about specific problems.

Suppose you have received many complaints from customers about an employee. The employee will balk if you say, “You need to improve your customer relations skills.” Instead say, “We received six complaints from customers about you during the past year.” Then provide the details of each complaint from written records. (Of course you should address all problems as soon as you know about them, not just at a performance review.)

When possible, provide quantitative information. How many times did the employee arrive late for meetings? How many arguments erupted in the lab? How far behind were assignments? How many times did the employee leave work early without asking permission?

You can rate abstract characteristics such as attitude, leadership, initiative, cooperation, and interpersonal skills. But when you do so, give the employee specific examples.

2. Identify specific causes of poor performance. Once you state a problem in specific terms, ask for the employee’s comments. If the employee can’t think of anything to add, you can ask, “Why didn’t you perform as well as anticipated?” Problems may be the fault of other employees or factors beyond the employee’s control.

Sometimes there are legitimate reasons why an employee doesn’t perform to the standards you have set. So give the employee a chance to address problems from his or her perspective. Perhaps there is a problem with the procedures required of the employee, or the goals set earlier may have been unrealistic. By soliciting comments you try to involve the employee in the evaluation and locate the root of problems.

3. Set specific performance goals. You can’t just cite the employee’s good and bad performance during the past year. Your evaluation must also include specific goals for the coming review period.

Start with a “vital tasks” list in which you outline every measurable high-priority task. Indicate the areas in which the employee performs poorly, and then work with him or her to set up a schedule for improvement. The schedule helps the employee avoid putting off action. As a manager, you also need a schedule so you can check with the employee and gauge his or her progress. I recommend you plan specific check-point meetings so you and the employee can discuss progress toward meeting the goals you set.

You’ll get the best results when you can have an employee set his or her own goals based on the points you raise during the review. Sometimes your questions alone will stimulate the employee to realizing what needs to be done.

4. Be sure you discuss how the employee can reach his or her goals. “Work out a development plan as part of the appraisal,” says Carl Johnson, president of Princeton Employee Relations (Princeton, NJ). First, ask how the employee plans to improve performance. Then ask what “tools” and resources you can provide to help him or her reach those goals. Write down the specific steps the employee will take to solve problems.

Employees may not know what you have available to help them, such as seminars, refresher courses, books, and so on. So you must go into an interview with your own ideas about how to help an employee who has performance problems. If an employee won’t address the problems or can’t come up with actions to help solve them, then you offer a course of action and set the goals. Johnson says, “When you have a poor performer, it’s your responsibility to counsel and coach that individual.”

5. Don’t give high ratings unless people deserve them. Many managers avoid giving honest evaluations because they fear confrontations. But when the manager avoids tackling problems, the employee’s performance doesn’t improve, and the business suffers.

A manager’s desire to avoid confrontation by handing out artificially high ratings can spark a lawsuit for wrongful discharge after you fire a “highly rated” employee. After all, if the employee has been performing well, how could you fire him or her for poor performance?

If you must fire an employee due to poor performance, be sure you have written performance evaluations that note deficiencies and what you did to help the employee improve. You should also have documentation that shows that the individual’s performance did not get better. Without such a file, you leave your business open to a wrongful-discharge lawsuit.

6. Don’t discuss pay and promotion during a performance review. Those subjects can keep the employee’s mind on money instead of his or her performance. When you discuss money during a review, employees hear only the words in which you discuss a raise—or a lack of a raise.

Tell employees that you’ll tackle raises in separate interviews. When you review a problem employee, you can say something like, “We’ll talk about your performance in detail so you understand I’m serious about addressing problems and helping you overcome them. And we’ll meet in 60 days to review the progress you’re making. But we won’t discuss salary until you correct the problems.”

In effect, you put the burden on the employee to make progress toward improvement. Employees should understand that they don’t get a raise automatically, and that you base raises on good performance.

7. Put evaluations in writing, and keep a copy in your files. Ensure that employees get a copy of their review, because they won’t remember everything you say a few weeks later.

You can also give an employee a copy of your notes. The copy sends a strong message that you aren’t kidding about the deficiencies raised in the evaluation. And by providing your notes, an employee can’t say later that he or she forgot about the evaluation.

It’s worthwhile having an employee sign your evaluation form. Place a sentence at the end of the form that says the employee’s signature does not necessarily mean agreement, only that the employee acknowledges that the review took place. If you end up in court, you can show that the employee was aware of the negative performance evaluation. And again, having the employee sign the form communicates that you’re serious about the review.

During a review that covers deficient performance, an employee may get angry and refuse to sign the form. If that happens, call in an assistant and have him or her write on the form, “The employee refuses to sign this review,” and then add their signature and the date. A third party can help you protect yourself and your company. T&MW

Phillip M. Perry is a New York-based writer who covers professional and business-related topics.
 

Some managers try to ease discord by giving employees some positive comments and even promotions after a negative review,” says Marianne Jennings, professor of business at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ).

That’s dangerous. The employee will believe that his or her performance improved dramatically and will forget about the guidance given during the official evaluation. Later, the manager may shock the employee by giving him or her another unfavorable performance review. And verbal praise can provide evidence of good performance, which can lead to lawsuits for wrongful discharge if you later fire the employee for poor performance.

Ensure that you don’t follow an evaluation of poor performance with a series of well-intentioned counseling sessions. During such sessions, you may try to bolster the employee’s morale by emphasizing performance improvements. Your statements can backfire if the individual believes that he or she has solved all the problems.

You have to handle a mentor relationship properly, says Jennings. Don’t use counseling sessions to smooth over the tension that arises during an evaluation. You should praise good performance, but you must also follow up to ensure that an employee stays on his or her performance-improvement schedule. —Phillip M. Perry