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Manage performance: Content guide

Contents

Manage performance: Content guide

Overview

Key terms

Indicators of poor work performance

Promoting performance and productivity

The cycle of performance improvement

Performance improvement processes

Coaching

Training

Mentoring

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

Policies and procedures

Work environment

Performance development plans

Benefits of development planning

Creating development objectives

Devising and implementing a development plan

A sample development plan template

Performance counselling and discipline

Performance counselling

Standard counselling procedure

Final counselling

Summary dismissal

Guidelines for effective dismissal

Reference

Sample answers for ‘My workplace’ questions

Overview

People do not work at their peak performance all the time. They make mistakes. Sometimes these mistakes have tragic consequences, for example, in the case of the Challenger space shuttle which burst into flames after being airborne after less than one minute.

The consequence of poor work performance is not always as crucial as this. However, poor work performance at the very least lets the work team down. It may mean that the team does not meet its required level of performance, and that effective working relationships are impaired.

This content guide contains information, resources and activities to help you to address performance issues in your team that may be impacting on achieving the goals of your operational plan.

Key terms

Coaching

Coaching involves training learners, and encouraging them throughout the learning process. Coaching is offered to individuals and teams with the aim of achieving superior performance or achieving a set goal.

Mentor

An experienced person who provides advice and support to a less experienced person.

Performance counselling

A structured discussion between an employee and their supervisor to determine the cause of a performance problem and to generate solutions.

Performance Development Plan

An action plan that provides a means of helping an employee maintain or enhance the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do the current job.

Performance gap

The difference between the required performance and the actual performance.

Performance standards

The level of performance set for an individual or group.

Summary dismissal

When the decision to dismiss is taken ‘on the spot’, it is described as summary dismissal. This must be done in accordance with organisational procedures and Federal and State employment laws.

Indicators of poor work performance

Some of the indicators of poor work performance by team members are:

Failure to meet performance or productivity targets
Loss of morale
Conflict
Impaired relationships
Cost blow-outs
Customer complaints
Loss of customers
Accidents and mistakes
Absenteeism
Resignations or transfers
Failure to observe policies and procedures
Low efficiency.

You’ll note that these indicators of poor work performance can also be viewed as the results of problems within the team. As the frontline manager, it is your role to find the causes of these problems and develop ways to reduce or eliminate their effects on team performance.

Promoting performance and productivity

There are certain things that must be present in our workplaces if we are going to do our jobs well and perform to the best of our ability:

Clear goals: we must know what is expected of us in terms of clear standards and targets to achieve.
Motivation: we must be motivated to perform well. This means we must know that the job is worth doing and worth doing well and that this will be worth our effort. We must also believe that we can do the job well.
Training: we must know how to do the job. This requires experience to reinforce our training, skills and knowledge.
The right tools, equipment and environment: the necessary tools, equipment and materials, work systems and other job conditions, such as time and information, must support us.
Good leadership: we must also have leaders who set clear directions and positive visions, who coach us, and who set a good example.

And who is responsible for putting these five conditions in place for your team? You are, as the frontline manager.

The cycle of performance improvement

In addition to ensuring that the five conditions described above are present in the workplace, frontline managers can use a systematic sequence for improving the work performance of a team member. This cycle can be used as a general guide in coaching and counselling for performance improvement.

Analyse your information. Make sure you know exactly what behaviour you expect of your team member, and be able to describe your team member’s behaviour in relation to the standard required. Your description should be factual and not based on hearsay. Gather your facts and prepare for the discussion.
Give good information.Sit down with the team member and calmly discuss the situation. Present your information and describe the performance gap clearly. Explain why it’s important that the team member reaches the required standard of behaviour or targets.
Gather good information. Ask for the team member’s point of view and listen without interrupting. Try to see things from the team member’s point of view — this doesn’t mean you have to agree.
Problem-solve. Try to find the cause of the poor performance by working through the five keys or conditions described earlier. What’s preventing the team member from reaching the required standard?
Agree actions. Focus on the future and the solution to the problem. Decide what steps you will each need to take to improve the team member’s performance. Some of these performance improvement processes are described in the next section.

Performance improvement processes

The ways in which a manager monitors, assesses and manages the performance of team members need to be flexible, and should enable and encourage the continuous learning and development of individuals and teams.

Some of these processes include:

Performance and development planning
Providing regular feedback
Conducting progress reviews
Coaching
Counselling
Training
Performance appraisals and appraisal interviews.

Whatever action is taken to address poor performance, it should be done with objectivity, fairness and recognition of the feelings of the individual. Any other approach, besides being indicative of poor management practice and ethically unsound, might lead to legal problems.

To begin to manage this situation, you should consider the following:

How is the employee’s current performance not meeting the requirements of the job?
What is causing the ineffective performance?
What action can be taken to assist or support the employee in improving performance? What other resources are available?
What action should the employee take to improve performance?
How significant is the unacceptable performance? Is it in a critical area of the employee’s job? Does it affect other employees or customers?
What can be done if performance continues at an unacceptable level?

Here are some strategies for managing ineffective work performance. The best choice will be a result of correct diagnosis of the cause of ineffective performance.

Coaching

Coaching consists of frequent, specific feedback intended to raise the level of performance. It is an effective tool to improve performance of a team member that falls below expectations or that deteriorates.

Training

Training is an effective method of improving performance if a skills problem is the cause. Don’t assume that an employee is not performing well because of a lack of knowledge, ability or technical competence. Training will not fix problems associated with motivation (unless lack of motivation has been brought about by lack of confidence in doing the job), nor will it fix problems with the work environment.

In situations where training is indicated, there are a number of options. Someone skilled in the task and with good training skills — usually the manager, supervisor or a senior employee — may conduct training on-the-job. Formal training courses may be designed and delivered internally by HR, or by external providers.

It may suit some employees to undertake training on-line. There are many organisations that facilitate this for their staff through the purchase of self-paced training programs on CD-ROM, or through subscription to external companies that provide the training programs on the Internet.

Mentoring

Mentoring may be a solution for a team member whose performance was previously promising, but who has suffered a ‘performance slip’, perhaps because of boredom, a perceived lack of development or career opportunities, or personal problems. A mentor is generally someone other than the employee’s immediate supervisor who is an older and more experienced member of the organisation or profession.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

EAPs provide free, professional, confidential counselling for employees and their families to assist when personal or work-related problems are affecting work performance. This service may be provided internally by a dedicated EAP unit within your HR department, or externally by providers such as Industrial Program Service (IPS).

EAPs also organise practical assistance in addition to counselling for employees with problems such as drug and alcohol abuse, occupational trauma, communication difficulties, organisational change problems, redundancy or retirement.

In addition to providing assistance that addresses performance problems, EAPs help to ensure that an organisation’s legal responsibilities in relation to occupational health and safety are fulfilled, as physical and mental health are now covered by this legislation.

Policies and procedures

Sometimes poor performance occurs because there is a lack of knowledge about what constitutes good performance. If organisational policies and procedures, codes of conduct and workplace task standards are deficient, incomplete, unclear, ambiguous or not easily accessible, then poor performance could result.

It is your responsibility as a frontline manager to ensure that appropriate written instructions and documentation are available in the workplace. Senior managers or the Human Resources Department may be responsible for developing, broadly communicating and evaluating organisational performance requirements and standards.

Work environment

Similarly, you are responsible for providing and monitoring a work environment that is conducive to achieving required standards of performance. If the physical environment is uncomfortable or disruptive (noisy, hot/cold, unventilated, dark) then the performance of your team members may be adversely affected.

There are other conditions in the work environment over which you may have little or no direct control. Examples are:

unstable organisational structures that contribute to uncertainty
unclear or outdated job descriptions that lead to lack of role clarity
ineffective payroll systems that cause delays in payment or errors in calculations.

Your contribution towards improving the performance of your team members if these conditions are operating may be to report them to senior management.

My workplace

2. Review the examples of poor performance you listed in ‘My Workplace’ #1. Can you identify ways to address these performance issues from the information you have just read?

Answer:

Performance development plans

We mentioned previously the crucial role of coaching in improving performance. Often coaching will reveal the need for development plans, not only to address performance gaps in the case of poor performers, but also to further improve superior performance.

Development planning provides a means of helping an employee maintain or enhance the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to do the current job. As jobs change, it is also necessary to help the employee to identify and obtain new skills and knowledge.

As we have seen, some development options include:

On-the-job training
Special projects and assignments
Cross-training or rotations to other jobs
Self-study
Training (internal and external courses)
Mentoring
Attendance at conferences, seminars and workshops
Reading material
Membership in professional organisations or associations.

Creating a performance development plan is both the end of the current performance planning process, and the beginning of the next. It addresses the needs identified during the previous performance period, and provides for the needs anticipated during the next performance period.

Benefits of development planning

Besides being ‘best practice’, there are a number of other reasons why employees need development plans, including:

The employee knows what they need to do to build their skills and knowledge
The individual/team/department performs well
It is satisfying for managers to know they are having a real input into the way employees approach their work
It is satisfying for employees to be able to do their jobs better, and to know that their manager has a genuine interest in their progress
Employee development is a managerial responsibility.

Creating development objectives

Creating development objectives is very similar to the creation of performance objectives. The needs and priorities of the workgroup, the specific knowledge and skills that need developing, and the involvement of the employee all need to be considered.

Development objectives are specific statements that describe results to be achieved through development activities, when, and by whom, in order for development goals to be accomplished. They describe quantifiable and/or observable achievements that can be measured; they describe what will be achieved, not how they will be achieved.

Goals and objective are more helpful to everyone if they are clear and concise. A popular way to remember what should be in your goals and objectives is to use the SMARTT method — it stands for:

Specific and concise (the goal is not long-winded, people can understand it)
Measurable (there's a way of knowing whether or not we've achieved the goal)
Achievable (the goal is do-able, it's possible with the resources we have available)
Related (to the overall department and organisational goals, the goal is part of a bigger picture)
Time-framed (we know when the end-date for the goal is)
Trackable (we can easily monitor how we're going — daily, weekly or monthly)

Look at the following development objective:

(Sales Team Member): To increase my ability to turn sales enquiries into sales by participating in at least six sales training seminars conducted by Sales Training International this year.

To check that this objective is well-written, answer the following questions:

Who is responsible for achieving the objective?
What will be accomplished? (the action expected)
What is the time element? (when)
How will evaluation be determined?

Devising and implementing a development plan

There are five main steps in the development planning process:

Gather information: collect facts about what elements of the employee’s performance need to improve.
Interpret the data: identify specific areas of need and prioritise the information into what must be attended to immediately, in the medium-term, and in the long-term.
Draft the plan: formulate objectives and plan the strategy for achieving them. The strategy should be justifiable and appropriate to the achievement of the plan. Some of the identified weaknesses may be able to be strengthened through the normal course of work rather than through specific developmental activities. See below for more detail about drafting a development plan.
Implement the plan: implementation should be discussed with the team member, but should commence as soon as possible after the plan has been drafted. Delaying implementation can result in either you or the team member forgetting about it, and performance will not improve.
Evaluate the process: evaluation should be built in to the plan and be on-going, given that the development plan is usually a series of integrated events rather than just one-offs.

A sample development plan template

Documentation of development plans is essential, and can take many forms depending on the needs and procedures of the organisation or workgroup.

Table: A template for a development plan

Performance outcome
(Objective) / Performance required
(Specific standard of future performance) / Current performance
(What is being observed now) / Development strategies
(How will improvement be learned) / Timeframes for learning & method of evaluation
The development objective. Must be
Clear
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound / This is the standard that will be used to measure if the objective has been achieved. This is the exact behaviour the employee needs to demonstrate, the way the job/task is to be performed, the procedure to be used / This is specifically what the employee is currently doing/not doing that needs to be improved / This is the pathway to achieving the goal; what the employee has to do to improve performance; how they will be supported eg with a buddy, coach or mentor; what resources the employee will need to achieve the objective / This is:
How long the employee has to learn the task/job or to improve performance
How it will be measured eg what will be seen, produced, or reported on and by whom

Here is an example of a development plan for the achievement of one objective — improved customer service — using the above template.

Table: A development plan for improving customer service