What should a manager do when an employee is underperforming?
Managing work performance is a top concern for business owners. However, every company has underperforming employees who negatively impact the company’s overall growth. So, how can you assign tasks to employees effectively? In this article, 1Office will introduce the 3 Know principle to help managers solve the problem of managing underperforming employees in their business.
Mục lục
Identifying Underperforming Employees
Characteristic 1: Dislikes Criticism
One of the most recognizable traits of an underperforming employee is their ego and unwillingness to accept feedback. Criticism from a manager, even if it’s constructive, is immediately perceived by them as harsh criticism meant to “put them down” or suppress their abilities. This attitude is commonly found in recent graduates and long-term employees who rely heavily on their experience. With excessive self-confidence and a massive ego, they dislike being underestimated by others.
Characteristic 2: Doesn’t Admit Mistakes
Most underperforming employees lack the courage to take responsibility and evade it when mistakes occur at work. They don’t want to fix their errors or work to make amends; instead, they hope someone else will take the blame for them.
See more: 5 reasons why employees suddenly quit even when you think they are satisfied
Characteristic 3: Blames Others, Makes Excuses
When employees perform poorly, they are often stubborn about who is at fault for work-related mistakes. Stemming from a large ego and an attitude of evading responsibility, they don’t believe the mistake is theirs and instead find ways to blame others or make both objective and subjective excuses. For these employees, whether they realize the mistake is theirs or not, they will still evade it and find a reason to justify their actions.
Challenges managers face when dealing with underperforming employees
Challenge 1: Lack of evidence
In Vietnam, work processes are often overly formal, which frequently creates inadequacies in managing and supervising personnel as well as in the work implementation process. Managers often face difficulties in holding employees accountable due to a lack of solid grounds and specific evidence to prove their misconduct.
Challenge 2: Difficult conversations
Criticizing an employee, whether in front of the team or in private, can hurt the “fragile” morale of those with poor work performance. Combined with the lack of evidence, providing feedback for improvement becomes a difficult conversation for managers.
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Challenge 3: Fear of causing offense
In a relationship-oriented society like Vietnam, reprimanding underperforming employees is a difficult task for managers. The underlying resentment of these employees can reduce work efficiency, sabotage the company from within, and especially have a negative impact on other employees.
Challenge 4: Fear of them leaving
For SMEs and startups, a shortage of personnel is one of the biggest obstacles to business development. Even if an employee is underperforming, firing them will leave a significant gap in the workforce. Before a replacement can be found, the increased pressure and workload on other employees is inevitable, causing many problems for the business.
Challenge 5: Fear of affecting relationships
Some employees, despite their limited skills, have powerful connections that cannot be ignored. Dealing with them could lead to significant trouble for the manager. Additionally, a segment of underperforming employees often harbors resentment and can easily spread false rumors that damage the company’s image and reputation.
The 3-Know Principle – The Ultimate Secret to Delegating Tasks to Underperforming Employees
Know Why? – Why do it?
Target employee: Employees with a poor attitude.
Method: Employees with a poor attitude may reconsider when they understand why they have to do this job. When assigning tasks, managers should explain the importance, impact, and benefits they can receive from the work. If the employee has good qualifications and knowledge, don’t hesitate to assign them difficult or new tasks and require them to commit to completing the work on schedule.
Know How? – How to do it?
Target employee: Employees who lack knowledge.
Method: Employees who lack a foundational knowledge are often recent graduates working outside their field of study. The lack of specialized knowledge makes it difficult for them to find direction and solve problems, leading to job dissatisfaction. In this case, they are not employees who refuse to work or perform poorly; they need detailed guidance on work methods and tasks assigned through a process, allowing them to learn and apply new skills in their daily work.
Know What? – How to do this?
Target employee: Employees who lack skills.
Method: Most employees who lack skills are graduates who studied the right major but lack work experience. When assigning them tasks, clearly explain the purpose and provide guidance on how to perform the work.
Dealing with underperforming employees is a difficult problem for SMEs. Notably, up to 98.1% of businesses in Vietnam fall into this category (2017 data from the General Statistics Office).
To help solve human resource challenges, 1Office – Vietnam’s leading total business management solution – provides services to help monitor, manage, and evaluate employee performance and offers streamlined solutions to optimize work.
With 1Office, CEOs and managers can:
- Automatically collect, update, and manage accurate, detailed data, leaving no room for employees to argue.
- Visually track and monitor workflows, and know exactly who is performing the task using Kanban, Gantt charts, and Workflows from anywhere.
- Set up, evaluate, synthesize, and compare employee capabilities transparently and clearly with the KPI evaluation feature.
- Easily communicate and manage internal communications.
- Friendly, simple, and easy-to-use interface
Let 1Office help you easily manage underperforming employees and minimize unnecessary losses for your business.
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