Defining poor performance

- You may be hesitant to say that you have poor performers on your team, but just because your employees aren't behaving like the employees in "Clerks," that doesn't mean you don't have any poor performers. Especially if you've built strong relationships with your team members, it can sometimes be difficult to recognize poor performance. But as you know, you can't leave poor performance unaddressed. Overlooking it can drain the morale of your other employees and tank your company's profits. In this lesson, I'll walk you through some qualities that regularly show up with poor performers so you'll be quick to recognize and respond to them right away. Now, as to be expected, a poor performer consistently fails to produce the results you expect from them. They miss deadlines, they don't hit their numbers, and they do these things on a regular basis. In the same vein, poor performers make more mistakes than others on your team. In other words, the quality of their work is poor. Presentations are sloppily done. Reports are thrown together last minute, and even important projects are riddled with errors. Some markers of poor performance, however, can fly under the radar. For example, is there an employee you just find yourself talking to all the time? You seem to spend much more time handling them than you do anyone else. That's a sign they're struggling to develop autonomy in their role. Similarly, poor performers will rely too heavily on others to meet their goals. And of course, if an employee consistently struggles to maintain good relationships with you or with their coworkers, they're performing poorly even if they're producing seemingly great work. Ultimately, their inability to get along with their team members will have an effect on the work they have to produce collaboratively, and their bad attitude will affect everyone near them. If you're seeing these signs in an employee, ask yourself, "Knowing what I know about them, if they had applied for the job today, would I hire them?" If there are people working for you that you wouldn't rehire if given the opportunity, you have an unacceptable situation. You cannot allow mediocrity into the workplace. If you do, it will spread and ultimately infect the whole environment. When high performers see that you tolerate poor performers and the poor performance, you run the risk of them becoming less engaged. Your leadership will be questioned when you don't take action on poor performance or poor behavior. Being able to identify the characteristics of poor performers early will help you address the issues early and turn around the poor performance.