Hey there, welcome to Mak TV. My name is Mak,
and this is a channel for first time managers who are looking to just really
up-level their skills and build their confidence so that they can lead their
teams effectively.
So this video is all about the underperforming employee,
which I'm sure you already gathered from the title of the video.
So what we're going to be talking about is performance issues. And you know,
everything about performance issues,
like everything that kind of like falls under that umbrella. So maybe, you know,
the difficult conversation, the feedback conversation,
or performance improvement plans,
all that stuff usually falls under the category of what makes us
feel super uncomfortable at work. Right?
Most of us really hate this aspect. We really don't like engaging in this.
Which is totally normal. I mean, nobody wants to be perceived as the bad guy,
right? Like nobody wants to be that person that has to tell somebody that, Hey,
your work isn't necessarily meeting expectations, right?
We don't really want to be that bad guy.
Now I can't tell you that I can totally strip away that feeling
that you're having of, of being uncomfortable and engaging in this stuff,
because the truth of the matter is for anybody that truly cares,
it's going to feel a little bit uncomfortable.
But what I can tell you is that by what we're going to consider today in today's
video,
I can give you a couple of tidbits that will help you to just feel less
uncomfortable in the situation and handle the situation a little bit better.
Okay. So that everybody is moving ahead and progressing, um, in a better manner.
Now,
one of the things that has definitely helped me when it comes to dealing with
performance issues is actually like taking one step
backwards in order to gain perspective.
So what I mean by that is thinking through the why behind the what
or another, or in other words,
thinking about why is this employee underperforming rather than
just like accusing this person of not caring and not doing well.
I really found that thinking through why they're underperforming helped me
to address the issue better.
And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. You know,
the why behind the what,
and some of the most common reasons why employees underperform and then what you
can do to help them.
So one of the reasons for an underperforming employee is actually because there
is no room for growth. So as human beings,
we kind of like to feel like we are improving or progressing or striving for
more or achieving more. That's kind of how we're wired.
And so if we ever feel like we're in a situation where there is no room
for growth, or if we're kind of paddling in stagnant water,
then that naturally leads to us being stagnant, which is, you know,
the underperformance. And so I understand, right,
that sometimes we're in an organization that is simply just not growing.
And so the idea of promoting someone might not be in the cards
because the company isn't growing.
But we really do need to switch our mindset on this as managers,
because the truth of the matter is that a promotion or some sort of title change
or role change,
isn't necessarily the only way for growth.
There's plenty of other things that we can do to help someone feel as though
they are growing. For example, I was reading, I think it was an HBR.
It was a while back, but I think it was an HBR,
this article that talked about the fact that millennials such as myself,
as well as gen Zs love, love, love to learn.
Which means that you,
as a manager can help someone grow by helping them, you know,
with their professional development.
Maybe you can enroll them in some sort of course,
or maybe you can send them on some sort of, I don't know, like, um,
training day or something like that.
Although I understand that right now during COVID, that might not be possible,
but that can always, always be done virtual.
But all I'm saying is that you can think of like different creative ways to help
someone grow besides just giving them a promotion.
Another thing you can do is just like,
look at your task list and see what you have,
that you could delegate to your team member that will help them stretch a little
bit. Right? So you just want to be, like I said,
as creative as possible in looking at, you know,
where this person is and where you can help them develop a little bit more
because that'll definitely just, um, help them regain some of their energy.
Another reason for an underperforming employee is simply because there is
no challenge. Now this is big,
particularly in roles that are very monotonous.
And I understand there are just some jobs that are monotonous, right?
Like you just come in, you do the same thing every single day.
And that is actually what is expected of you. But with that,
like the downside of that is that people don't really like monotonous work,
you know, it can lead to you, um, being monotonous in your work,
um, hence the underperformance. And so if you are in a situation like that,
like if your team does monotonous work, then it's good to, again,
shake things up and be creative. Like for example, my team was like that,
even though the conversations that they were having were somewhat different at
the surface, things were pretty monotonous, right?
It was the same kind of thing that they were doing every single day.
And so as a leadership team, we had to shake things up a little bit.
And so what we tested and tried or played around with was actually like
shadowing. So like role switching and like having certain people like shadow,
like someone on the leadership team just to see how they do things just so that
they can change things up a little bit and keep the excitement going.
The other thing that we did was microlearning just going back to what I was
saying previously, right? Millennials and gen Z are, is love to learn.
And so what we would try and do is spend just a couple of minutes, um,
during our team meetings to teach something real quick, um, five,
10 minutes, um, just to help someone, you know,
learn a new skill or help the team learn a new skill,
just that just kept things fresh.
Another reason for underperforming employees is unclear
expectations. I talk about this all, all the time.
If someone doesn't know what the target is,
then it's pretty much impossible for them to hit that target and nothing is more
frustrating than when a manager is not being clear about what's expected of
them. And I've been through this personally. In fact,
when I moved into senior management,
somehow I ended up with three unofficial bosses and it was extremely
frustrating for me because all three had a different vision.
They had different expectations and it was really,
really frustrating for me to get, you know, from one person, you know,
what they wanted me to do or execute on.
And I would get the team on that path and then hear from another person that
they wanted to do something else.
And then I had to unwind it and start over again. It was really,
really frustrating. In fact,
I got to a point where I stopped asking questions and, you know,
eventually I just honestly left the company because it was so frustrating having
to deal with three different people with three different types of expectations,
right.
I never knew where I stood and I never really understood what they wanted from
me. And so the same thing goes for your team members, right?
If you are not clear with what the expectations are,
then you can turn someone that is a high performer into an underperformer
because they're frustrated. So it's really,
really important as a manager of the team that you are always clear when it
comes to setting your standards and setting the expectation. Now,
I did a full video on this already, so I'm not going to go into depth on this,
in this video, but I will link the video for you here,
as well as in the description box below.
If you want to dive a little bit deeper into setting clear expectations,
reason number four for an underperforming employee is a lack of clear
communication. You know, communication really is King.
In fact, there is this great, great quote by George Bernard Shaw.
I believe that says that one of the biggest problems when it comes to
communication is the illusion that it's already been said, you know?
And it's so true. Oftentimes we think that we've said something and we haven't,
or we think that we've clearly explained something, but the other person,
the person who's on the receiving end didn't fully understand. You know, to me,
there is no such thing as over communication to me, right? And honestly,
some of the greatest communicators in the world, they repeat themselves.
And you'll often notice that like really good communicators are saying the same
thing over and over and over again. In fact,
it's a good technique because as human beings,
I think that we need to hear something. I think it's like seven or eight times.
We've actually truly heard it, which means that you,
as the manager of the team need to be repetitive and you actually need to be
intentional about your, about your communication.
So that the person on the receiving end is truly hearing what you're saying.
The fifth reason for an underperforming employee is personal issues.
Life is hard and everybody is fighting their own battles.
Half of which you probably do not even know about and even more so now,
because we're in the middle of a pandemic and stress and anxiety is at like a
all time high. And so it's causing a lot of distractions,
which can cause underperformance.
Now I am in no way saying that if someone's underperforming and they're having
personal issues that, you know,
you should give them a pass or ignore what they're doing.
I'm just saying that that needs to be taken into account as well. Right?
Because you know, whatever goes on at home does affect work.
The two cannot be separate.
It really does affect how you show up in your energy and how you perform.
And so you can't really ignore that. Now, of course, you know,
a lot of employees are not going to be comfortable with sharing with you,
their personal issues. I mean, some of them might, but a lot of them won't,
but if you sent something as off,
like if you're asking if everything is okay and you're kind of sensing that
something is off,
then maybe you can make a suggestion of them talking or taking
advantage of any counselling services that might be available through work, or,
you know, even talking to you, whatever you think right before you jump to,
you know, the chopping block of, you know,
the performance improvement plan part of your job is to really make sure
that they they're okay to, to do the work as well.
And so you really want to address that before you jump into addressing the
performance issue. So these are just a few of the reasons that, like I said,
lead to an underperforming employee.
And if you can identify those reasons and you're much better equipped
to handle the issue either before it arises or as you see it
arising, um,
in a far more productive and progressive manner. Okay.
So I hope this video was helpful for you, and if you enjoyed it,
please do give it a thumbs up and to subscribe.
And I hope you have a fantastic rest of the week.
Don't forget to keep smiling and I'll see you in the next one.