How Do We Improve An Employees Performance?

By Gregory Covey

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Labor is an enormous cost for businesses of all types and knowing this it makes it that much more important that those employees are performing to a desired standard continuously. If we ever discover that a staff member(s) is falling short of the desired standard we have established we must produce a plan to improve their performance. For each day that we allow to pass by without taking action is another day our company is losing money that is hard to come by.

Understanding that in order for us to know whether our employee or employees are performing to a set standard we must first develop and establish those standards. As we do develop those standards they must be measurable, or they will mean nothing. So if your company makes widgets then we must know how much labor it will take to produce those widgets.

It is important to know if our standard is measurable. The key to producing any performance standard is to separate all the tasks that are necessary to accomplish the overall objective into smaller individual measurable ones. By breaking the tasks down it will help us determine what the employee may need help with. For instance if we are comparing this with a sport like baseball and the player is having trouble with their swing we would break the swing down into individual movements, i.e., stance, foot movement, upper body movement, bat location, etc.

So if we use the example of producing a widget that we spoke of earlier it is important that we separate out each individual step that must be performed to produce a widget. In order to do this right you must track and time each movement that is required in order to produce a widget that meets the standard. As your doing this record every necessary action that must be accomplished so that you can then ask the employee to perform them for you.

Now that you are able to determine what the problem is it is the time to formally produce an employee performance improvement plan so that you can hold the employee accountable. The performance plan should list the necessary steps, such as training, that you have determined will bring the employee up to standard. The plan should also have agreed upon time tables, provided they are reasonable, that the employee will have to meet. Those time tables should include several check points along the way to insure progress is being made.

Documentation of the progress an employee is making may be the most important piece of your performance improvement plan. Unfortunately there will be those staff members that no matter how much effort you put into improving their performance they will not be able to meet the standard and you will have to terminate their employment. There are also those employees that no matter how much you have tried to help them they will sue you; therefore, having every aspect of your improvement plan documented will be important.

About the Author:

Gregory Covey has provided a lot of information on a performance improvement plan on his website, Good Leadership Skills for Life. He has also provided several free performance plan examples.