How to Respond When Staff Aren’t Accomplishing Company Goals

If your employees can’t seem to be hitting the mark, it may be time for a more serious sit-down. Conversations revolving around employee performance can be uncomfortable to have. After all, it can be awfully personal to tell someone they’re not pulling their weight but bringing everyone up to the appropriate playing field – no matter how agonizing the conversation might be – can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

How to Have the Performance Talk with Your Employees

Being a leader means doing your part to bring out the best in your staff. It’s not an easy job! Especially when you’re managing all the other aspects of running a business. But the truth is, you need your team in order for your business to succeed, so doing what you can to train and develop them [link to Nov. “How to Train Staff to Level Up”] has to be a priority.

When an employee is struggling to achieve company goals, it’s time to have a conversation. Here’s how you can broach the performance topic with ease, empathy and effectiveness.

Listen First

Before launching into a monologue about their poor performance, first ask them how they think they’re doing. When you ask before immediately telling them where they’re failing, you open the door to cooperation. It also gives you a chance to see how your perceptions align. You may both already be on the same page about performance and your employee just needs a little help getting where they need to be.

If perceptions are out of alignment, then it’s your time to speak up. “Thanks for sharing how you think you’re performing. I appreciate the work you do. Unfortunately, my perception of your performance is different.” From there, follow up with specific examples of where there are gaps and how you can work together to accomplish your goals.

Make a Plan

When it comes to accomplishing goals, there’s no room for ambiguity. Everyone on your team should know exactly what they need to do and by when in order to hit their target. If goals are too broad or an employee doesn’t understand the big-picture strategy [link to Dec. 21: Growing Employees the Right Way”] – the “why” for the work – then it can be much harder to achieve.

Get an employee back on track by working together to develop a plan. Along the way, stay in communication so that if an issue arises, you can quickly nip it in the bud. By listening first, you can open the door to a productive conversation that is not adversarial but effective.