As a manager or an HR person, you will definitely have to deal with low performing employees at some point. Dealing with under-performing employees can be quite challenging as no one likes to be the reason behind someone losing his/her job, and at the same time, you cannot overlook the fact that this kind of behavior will affect the rest of your team and the overall company goals.

It’s only fair to provide under-performers with a chance to improve their performance before you start looking into terminating them. ZenHR provides you with 5 smart tips to handle poor performing employees before you make your final call.

• Be Honest & Specific

The first step in addressing poor performance is to clearly identifying your expectations and how they were not met. Be honest with your under-performing employees, tell them what exactly could be improved in their performance, and backup your conversation with facts and documentation to highlight exactly where the problem lies.

• Improve Your Feedback

One of the most important strategies to handle poor performance is to provide immediate and frequent feedback. It’s recommended to provide your low performers with weekly or even daily feedback on how they can improve. Keep in mind that you should provide your feedback in a supportive way and avoid any emotional arguments.

• Create an Action Plan

It’s futile to provide feedback on bad performance without providing a solution and a plan. Once you identify where the performance problems lie, you have to create a plan (in collaboration with the employee) to overcome those problems. Your plan should include the needed training and mentoring that would help resolve this issue.

• Automate Performance Management Processes

An HRMS that offers automated performance and evaluation tools (like ZenHR) allows you to monitor the performance of your employees on an ongoing basis, which helps you handle any performance issue quickly and effectively. With Performance Management automation any kind of feedback that you provide regarding poor performance shouldn’t come as a surprise.

• Offers, Rewards & Recognition

A smart way to combat low-performance problems is to adopt an achievement recognition strategy that promotes public recognition for high achievers. When under performers do a good job, focus on recognising their efforts in order to motivate and encourage them to do more.

Haneen Ibrahim

Haneen Ibrahim is the Head of Communications at ZenHR, the award-winning HR Software, with a strong passion for HR. She creates engaging blog and social media content on HR topics, cutting-edge trends, and valuable tips for businesses and HR professionals.