BY Kathy Crosett
Sooner or later, most managers will face the task of helping an underperforming employee. It's not enough to recognize the underperformer’s impact on the team: The manager must help them correct their job performance. Here are a few strategies that managers can use to improve the situation.
Why Do Employees Underperform?
Employees who don’t meet the minimum required output of their positions are underperforming. They may come up with creative excuses about why they missed the month-end deadline for their report.
While the manager can be empathetic about an employee’s excuses, they must determine the cause of the problem. If they don’t, the performance of other employees on the team may soon slip.
When Poor Fit is the Problem
One key cause of poor performance is a bad job fit. You may have hired the employee to be a new business hunter. But they consistently return from conferences and industry events without the names of any potential prospects. On the other hand, this employee is the first to volunteer to help train employees on how to use new technology. In this case, the employee’s skills and interests are poorly matched to their job.
Managers can try to find a new job in the organization that better fits the employee’s interests and talents. To prevent this from happening again, the hiring manager should turn to TeamTraitTM and the Four FitsTM framework. The objective scoring generated by this sales skills assessment will reveal which candidates have the best fit for an open position.
When Training is the Problem
What prevents your team from achieving success? 26% of surveyed sales professionals say they want co-workers who are more proficient at their jobs. For millennials in our Voice of the Sales Rep survey, that data point is 29%.
This detail also suggests some team members don’t believe everyone is as effective as they are at completing assignments. Depending on how your department is organized, it could be very easy for reps to know who is not getting the job done.
And this includes the person(s) who is not working to expectation. Roxanne Calder labels these employees “the self-aware underperformer.” This person may be struggling because the standard training program didn’t meet their needs.
Our research shows that around 20% of sales reps also note that they want more personalized coaching. And 23% say they could benefit from playbooks that explain how to handle specific selling challenges.
These findings reveal that managers might be able to turn around an underperforming employee with additional coaching and training.
When Motivation is the Problem
The question of motivation should come into play when considering the best approach to help the underperforming employee. The sales skills assessment, from TeamTrait, will tell you if money or the desire to be creative is the main motivating force behind your employee’s work output. Adjusting what you offer this team member could improve their performance.
Why Accountability is Necessary
Changing an employee’s responsibilities represents a huge effort on the manager’s part. These adjustments shouldn’t be one-sided. During regular one-on-one meetings, managers must engage the employee about where their performance needs improvement.
While this doesn’t require establishing a formal performance improvement plan, managers should agree with the team member on what they will complete. The work plan should include specific goals and dates. And the manager should follow up regularly.
A sales manager may hesitate to release an underperformer. The typical sales manager experiences a 30% turnover rate, according to our research. The six-month process of offboarding a sales rep is typically followed by a three-month recruitment period. And then, there’s an average five-month training period. The time and money needed to find and get a new employee up to speed is significant.
Conclusion
But if the manager doesn’t address the issue, they risk losing more employees. The good news is that 45% of managers use sales skills assessments when hiring. This practice should reduce the number of underperforming employees in the department.
