Whose Job is it to Manage Poor Performers?

I was reading about a survey today from Robert Half International about how much time supervisors spend managing poor performers (17%). I hear staff members in many organizations complain about poor performers and their negative effect on the workplace.

Why are these poor performers still working for your organization?

Some would say that HR doesn’t “let” the managers fire folks. Others would say that managers are scared to have the difficult conversations. And another group would say, “it’s not my job to hold my coworkers accountable – it’s my manager’s”. Yikes – this is a dilemma indeed. Everyone is pointing fingers and no one is doing the work.

Who’s paying the price? We are…that is when we are customers or coworkers or supervisors of the poor performers.

We are the ones who get frustrated when the performance is poor. My husband, Alan,  just told me about an experience he had this morning at a local bagel shop. This is the second store location for this particular business. The “flagship” location has fast and friendly service. Apparently the new location is not so great. Alan said that “Larry and Curly and Mo” were working this morning. He called the first location and the manager “begged” him to call back and talk to the owner. The manager said, “the owner doesn’t have a clue how bad these people are…PLEASE call him“. We are all paying the price.

So speak up if you are the coworker or supervisor or owner. So what if it’s a little uncomfortable. You can be respectful, results oriented and positive when sharing news about poor performance with poor performers. (If you want specific steps for how to have the conversation, check out the DATA Driven Discussion Model that is one of the free Timesaver Tools for leaders from my second book. Just click HERE and sign in to download the model.)

We can all think of a poor performer who negatively affects our work – day after day after day. Today is the day to address it. Don’t wait, don’t sit back and think someone else is going to take care of it. Have the conversation now. You’ll be glad you did in the long run.