First find out what is actually going on
According to Business2Community, you must first of all find out what is happening. If an employee shows bad results, why is that? Might it just be that data is being reported differently or incorrectly interpreted? Or is the employee really underperforming?
The best way to work with facts rather than assumptions is to sit down with the employee and discuss the whole issue with them. First of all, you must understand what is happening, how the situation is perceived by the given employee and to what extent you can objectively say that the worker's results are unsatisfactory.
Possible reasons
If you do manage to ascertain how things are, talk to the employee about the reasons for it. There may be several causes acting in combination. Here are a few possibilities.
- Bad organisation of work. Maybe the employee has too much on their plate or too many things converging at one time.
- Problems in personal life. Even if the employee is trying to separate work from personal life, personal problems still tend to show at work.
- Bad mental health. The current situation may lead to a deterioration in the mental health of workers.
- Lack of knowledge. Maybe the employee just does not know what to do and unwittingly makes mistakes in the process.
- Conscious rebellion against requested processes. It is also possible that the employee disagrees with certain procedures and duties and they show this by rebelling against the system.
Possible solutions
If you and the employee can agree on what is happening and the reasons for it, now comes the time to decide how you will deal with the situation. Again it is necessary to proceed in cooperation with the employee because if you alone come up with a solution and then force it on them, it is highly likely the employee will not adhere to the plan.
In any case you must create an action plan with specific steps, specific measurable values and, most importantly, specific deadlines and dates. Check on this plan from then on, see how it goes and meet regularly with the employee to assess how you are managing the process.
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