Carol consistently comes to work late. She is often absent with “headaches” that seem to occur conveniently on non-payday Fridays. When she is at work, she flits from office to office, cheerily chatting with coworkers and visiting the breakroom for coffee. It takes her so long to do tasks that, eventually, others must pick up her slack.
Not surprisingly, Carol’s coworkers have become resentful about “carrying” her, and several have left for greener pastures. As her manager, you dearly wish she would join them. But it’s obvious she’ll never leave voluntarily; she’s been with the company longer than anyone else.
It’s ironic, but low performers have amazing power. Managers unwittingly align entire departments, entire companies, around them and spend an estimated 80 percent of their supervisory time on them. You dread working with them, so you give everything to your high performers, which overloads them and creates an unfair distribution of work.
Or, you keep devoting attention to them believing they’ll change, perhaps putting them on committees to try to engage them. It rarely works. Meanwhile, you alienate your good people and, eventually, find yourself in a situation where you can’t keep high performers.
So, what should you do with low performers? Here is the technique I share with my clients:
Resolve to take direct, decisive action now. Your goal is to be profitable. Take steps to bring low performers around, but don’t waste too much of your valuable time on them.
Schedule a DESK meeting with the low performer. Confront him or her and schedule a meeting right away. Be very specific in telling the person what he or she is doing wrong and what you expect to be done differently. Try the DESK approach:
D. Describe what has been observed
E. Evaluate how you feel
S. Show what needs to be done
K. Know the consequences of continued low performance
Set short evaluation periods. Ask yourself, How quickly do I need low performers to fall in line in order to hit my operational goals? However much time that takes is how much time you should give them. Just be sure he or she knows exactly what your expectations are.
Be relentless in your follow-up. If you see it, say it—both good and bad. If you see a marked improvement in the low performer’s behavior, acknowledge it. A sincere effort deserves a sincere compliment. However, the next time your “Carol” rolls into the parking lot at 8:45, takes a two-hour lunch, or comes up short at deadline time, be quick to submit the promised written warning. And if it happens again, fire her. I believe strongly in the adage, “Select slow, deselect fast.”