Good Job. Bad Job.

One of the simplest things a supervisor can do to keep the team activated is recognize good work.  “Good Job” goes a long way, especially when recognition is public and employee to employee recognition is encouraged.  Recognition creates satisfaction in employees, motivating them to continue their “Good Job” streak, resulting in high-quality productivity. 

The toughest thing a supervisor must do to keep the team activated is recognize bad work.  Bad work, although commonly ignored by supervisors, is always recognized by the team.  Employees won’t stop for employee to employee “bad work” recognition but they will stop working to gossip about the poor performance and the fact that the supervisor has not addressed the problem.  Employees will then forget their motivation to continue their “Good Job” streak causing the quality in production to drop. 

 Last year Towers Watson conducted a Global Workforce Study that revealed 61% of employees questioned how well their managers dealt with poor performers.  An issue that even our federal workforce is weighed down by, Patricia Niehaus, national president of the Federal Managers Association, put it in perspective for me when she took the blame from the managers and laid it on the lack of training on tools available to deal with poor performers.  "It's not that managers are timid or willfully ignoring their responsibilities," Niehaus said in a statement to Government Executive, “but managers must know these avenues exist to utilize them." 

Wow! 

Have you ever been trained on how to handle poor performance or have you been shown the tools and resources your company offers to do so?  If your answer is yes: Where do you work?!  I’ve had to deal on my own and through trial and error; here are 3 steps that work for me:

1. Appraise:  Find value in the Job poorly done (at least two strengths).  Identify the cause and effect of the poor work performance.
2. Share:  Communicate with the poor performer.  Ask him/her to evaluate the work before sharing your evaluation.  It’s important not to make the employee feel like he/she is in the hot seat.  Remember, this is an opportunity to transform an employee into a better producer and not the time to make someone feel as though they've done something wrong.  You can use the following type of statements do so:

The invitation:

I’d like to get your opinion on something

Vs. 

I need to talk to you about your poor work performance

Meeting Opener:

I just want you to know that your ability to [insert strength 1] and [insert strength 2] does not go unnoticed.  I was hoping you might have some ideas to improve our department…”

Vs.

You’re doing a bad job.

Listen:

How can the improvements the employee mentions positively affect the poor work performance. 

Repeat: 

So what you’re saying is…

Vs. 

I know.

Evaluate Performance:  

I’ve noticed that some seem to be struggling with…

In fact, how would you rate your work on the subject?

Agreed.  I have also noticed…(include evaluation points not yet mentioned)

Do you think that your suggestions may help improve this struggle? 

What else can we do to make you better at it? 

Cause and Effect:

Did you know that you are such an important player to this company that when your performance drops, it actually costs the company…

The fact that you were able to provide solutions for our weakness will have a positive impact on the entire company. 

Recognize:

 Thank you for being such a valuable employee. 

     3.  Remark: After you share make sure you send out a thank you note that documents the need for improvement.  Email is better for documentation but if your employees do not have email, write a thank you card and make a copy for the file:

Thanks for taking the time to share your suggestions.  As I said yesterday I really appreciate your ability to [insert strength 1] and [insert strength 2].  I look forward to seeing the improvements we talked about specifically in your performance regarding X.  Let’s reconnect next week to talk about your progress.

This may seem like a whole lot but once you get in the habit of coaching your employees to be better at what they do, you’ll get it down to a 5 or 10 minute talk.