We have an employee who’s just not up to par. We’ve tried to explain his shortcomings in disciplinary meetings and performance reviews, but he just refuses to acknowledge his performance problems. What do we do? — Anonymous
10 Tips for Effective, Legal Performance Appraisals
Don’t let your performance appraisals fall by the wayside. Learn how to make them effective and legal with our exclusive White Paper, 10 Tips for Effective, Legal Performance Appraisals.
To address this frequent headache for employers, we spoke to Rhoma Young of Rhoma Young & Associates and Tom Makris of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
Rhoma: I think you need to be very forthright and very clear. You really need to say, look, this is what is expected from you, and put that in writing as specifically as you can. It’s very difficult for an employee to continue to ignore something that’s sitting right in front of them that’s in very specific language. You should explain the impact of the employee’s behavior on the organization. If the person’s behavior is really unacceptable, you should address it immediately. If the person’s performance fails to improve, then you should outline the consequences of continued poor performance/not meeting expectations—up to and including termination. Tell the person, if this is not improved within a reasonable period of time—and be specific, 30 days, 60 days—on a sufficient basis, then you will no longer be employed here.
Tom: Every employer has dealt with situations where the employee is just either unwilling or unable to recognize problems to a point where you just shake your head—you can’t believe that the person doesn’t get it. Or, the employee may recognize that there are issues, but the person has a very long list of reasons that it’s not his/her fault—that their problems are the fault of other people or the result of circumstances beyond their control. The are not willing to accept responsibility. At some level, you may not be able to completely overcome that, but I agree with Rhoma. The best and most effective way is putting things very frankly—particularly the process of sitting down and working in partnership with the employee, setting the employee’s goals, emphasizing the significance of achieving those goals or avoiding the problems, identifying the problems, and then emphasizing the significance of avoiding those problems going forward—and the consequences. The prospective identification of what needs to be done going forward is often a more effective way of getting through to people who don’t recognize their shortcomings than the retrospective—for example, here’s what went wrong in the last quarter.
Rhoma: The other thing is that if you are going to really try to make sure that person understands, bring another person in to that conversation—a manager, an HR rep, someone—because that shows the employee that this is a matter of importance. It gets their attention. It also can act to protect you, and it kind of takes away or minimizes the fact that the employee might be viewing this as a contest between them and their manager, or a disapproval kind of a thing. The minute that you start bringing in additional people, you make it more apparent to the employee that this is an organizational issue, not just a personal issue between a manager and his or her employee.
Rhoma Young is the founder and head of HR consulting firm Rhoma Young & Associates in Oakland.
Tom Makris is counsel at the Sacramento office of law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.