Did you know that three out of four employees report that their boss is the worst and most stressful part about their jobs?1 And that poor-performing managers can cost businesses millions of dollars each year?
Before you terminate your poor-performing managers, you might consider retraining them. But how will you know when it’s worth it and when it’s not?
Signs of a Poor-Performing Manager
Before you consider whether it’ll be beneficial to retrain a poor-performing manager, you’ll want to keep an eye out for the diverse signs that a manager is in fact performing poorly. Here are a few:
- Employees start calling in sick more often.
- More employees are leaving to work somewhere else.
- Human Resources is receiving more complaints from employees.
- Teams of employees stop talking to one another and collaborate less.
- Fewer projects get done or start to take much longer to complete.
- Sales numbers and revenue start to decline.
Evaluate and Assess Your Poor-Performing Managers
From the list above, it’s important to recognize that managers can perform poorly regarding their ability to keep their employees present and engaged. And they can perform poorly at meeting certain tasks and duties (i.e., meeting a sales quota). Before you decide to retrain your poor-performing managers, first evaluate where exactly they are performing poorly. You can either send them and their employees assessments and surveys, or you can observe them.
Be sure to collect tangible data and information about where and how your managers are performing poorly before you do anything. For instance, know a dollar amount they’re not reaching in sales, the number of hours lost due to employees calling in sick more often, how many employees rated their effectiveness with a low score, etc. Otherwise, you may receive a lot of pushback.
Next, you’ll want to determine whether they’ve been trained or have received clear guidelines in the past in the areas where the metrics indicate they’re falling short. If they haven’t, it’s probably time to train them and provide guidance. If they have, you may want to reach out to them to see how they respond to the information and data about their performance you have collected before you retrain them to see if it will be beneficial for everyone. Managers who will benefit from retraining will appreciate the information you’re sharing with them and will actively seek out ways to improve their performance. They will not ignore it or scoff at it.
Conclusion
Sometimes managers perform poorly because they were never provided with adequate training or guidelines in the first place. And sometimes managers may be a little clueless when it comes to how their performance is being measured and evaluated.
Succinctly put, it will be worth investing more time and money into retraining managers who demonstrate a good work ethic, who really want to improve, and who care about their relationship with their employees.
- , “The Real Productivity-Killer: Jerks” https://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/real-cost-bad-bosses.html. Accessed 1/26/2018.