Having to hire and train a new employee is expensive and disruptive. When you bring in a new employee, it takes time to onboard and train them. You hope that you have hired the right person and they will be able to do the job adequately, but sometimes someone who seemed like a great hire will turn out to be an underperformer. What happens then?
In global organizations, there may be a philosophy that everyone is replaceable. Large organizations may be able to afford the cost and loss of productivity associated with replacing an underperformer, but small businesses will be more severely impacted.
Yes, sometimes a good professional will be in the wrong job and a change will need to be made. But there are many situations where an employee was not trained or supported and were basically left to drown.
I loved this post by Isabelle Papoulias, a global marketing and operations executive, on LinkedIn here (you can scroll down below to read the entire post).
I don’t have a lot of management experience, but I have reported to several truly awful managers and a very few great ones, so I was very interested in Papoulias’s perspective. I want to pull out a few points from her post.
Can a good manager help underperformers to be successful? Papoulias writes:
I have witnessed literally overnight transformations in behaviors and outcomes from employees that were previously considered “underperforming.” Why the sudden change? Simply because we took the time to have frank conversations about mutual expectations, how to work better together, what motivated them, and in some cases to adjust their role in a way that better served them and the needs of the business.
Communication is critical in these situations. Getting an understanding of what is not working and why is the place to start. Ensuring everyone agrees on what is expected is so important. Job descriptions may not be correct, especially for a new postion. A new manager may have different expectations from the previous manager. Honest conversationa can lead to breakthroughs.
Good leaders will make time to get to know members of their team on a deeper level. Papoupias writes:
Respectfully, I can’t help wonder if managers took/had the time to set up these folks for success. Did they take the time to understand their strengths and shortcomings to help them? And more importantly what they aspire to and motivates them?
I say this because in my (surprisingly frequent!) experience, most people want to be their best at their job and create value for the organization. When they aren’t, it isn’t because they are not qualified for the role or lazy, but often because they aren’t led in a way that resonates.
I agree that most people want to do a good job. I am not sure I have ever had a manager take the time to understand what made me tick. Maybe one or two over 30 years. I’ll bet it would be a great way to get the most out of your people.
Your employees will make or break your business. Time invested in supporting them to be their best will make your business more successful.
Photo by Michael DeMoya on Unsplash
