Building Effective Teams & Managers and leaders

Whether we like it or not, there are always poor performers in any type of team or organization. These are employees or team members who do not meet the standards set by the organization. Commonly, poor performing employees are those who belong to Quartile Four when employees are force-ranked. Most managers and leaders agree that it’s not easy dealing with poor performers. As Levinson (2003) said, “it’s a wrenching task, but you have to face up to the need to confront poor performers, and either fix their shortcomings or fire them. ”

Poor performers, no matter how small in number they may be, still have a big impact in the performance of the whole team or organization. As the HR Manager of the company, I would advise each member of the team to help one another in their tasks and job responsibilities. If the team members notice that there are poor performers among them, they should take immediate action by working with these people and talking to them. Having a good peer-to-peer conversation may reveal the issues that the employee is facing, thus, affecting his/her performance at work. This can help getting to the root cause of the problem and help the member solve it.

Team members who are not performing well tend to share their problems and open up more easily with their peers than with their supervisor or manager. Poor performers can also be identified through feedback from peers and, if applicable, customers. The customers are the people who can see the outputs of the employee or member’s work. If it is unsatisfactory to the customer, then the employee must not be performing well. Peers are good sources of feedback when it comes to how the employee or team member really works when the boss is not around. The employee’s co-workers are the people s/he gets to work with day in and day out.
They are the ones who can immediately see where the employee is good at and where he is not. Thus, these people can better provide the data and the tools to determine the poor performers in the team or organization. Though co-workers may contribute to the improvement of a poor performer, still, the best person who could talk to the person and give relevant advices is the immediate superior. The member’s immediate superior would know the areas where s/he needs more improvement. Thus, the superior can give better advice pertaining to these areas and how to better improve on them.
The immediate superior can also give suggestions on some actions the member needs to do in order to improve on the areas identified. Coaching and mentoring are the key techniques in handling poor performers. Constant monitoring of the employee’s performance and regular coaching would do a lot of help in the improvement of the employee. People think that coaching is a negative thing when it is actually the opposite. Coaching provides a venue for both the employee and supervisor to talk about each other’s performance (Yes, employees get to speak to! ).
However, if several coaching have already been done and all other mentoring techniques and help are also tried but the performance of the employee remains the same, it will be best for both parties for the employee to just say goodbye. The job may just not really be for him/her. References Levinson, M. (2003, November 1). How to Find, Fix or Fire Your Poor Performers. CIO Magazine. Retrieved August 1, 2006 from http://www. cio. com/archive/110103/poor. html Time to Stop Tolerating Poor Performers. (2006, February 26). The Sunday Times. Retrieved August 1, 2006 from http://www. timesonline. co. uk/article/0,,8543-2057887_1,00. html