Knowledge and skills are only a small part of the puzzle regarding why someone isn’t performing on the job. Feeling unappreciated, underpaid, having a poor relationship and rapport with management, stalled career growth, working conditions, no standards in place for the job, limited meaningful feedback, experiencing isolation, and a poor work-life balance are many other causes. What’s more, these factors have spiked post the COVID-19 pandemic.
The underlying reason for poor performance is often assumed to be the employee’s fault. This concept was introduced in 1998 in an article from the Harvard Business Review. This boldly states that “bosses—albeit accidentally and usually with the best intentions—are often complicit in an employee’s lack of success. How? By creating and reinforcing a dynamic that essentially sets up perceived underperformers to fail.” This topic has multiple articles written, yet it is something that is still prevalent more than 25 years later.
Once a manager has the perception that an employee is not performing, unfortunately, the employee starts to live down to the manager’s lowered expectations of them. The result is the boss often begins to micromanage, the employee begins to feel the lack of trust, likely distances themselves and often leaves the organization, whether of their own choice or not.
In this era of high turnover, we can’t afford to create the catalyst for employees wanting to leave. As leaders our actions can make employees smarter, causing them to raise or lower their performance to meet our expectations.
Where do we fit in?
For our part, as learning and development professionals, we can help businesses improve employee engagement through robust and effective training programs with manager involvement. The most critical component of success happens during the Discovery phase of learning design. During Discovery, we delve into the organization’s culture to accurately understand why the required skills are not being performed to the necessary standard and develop a solution that addresses the right need for each level.
Contact us for more details on why your employees may not be performing on the job.
