How quickly things change: we’ve gone from impossible to get a job in 2020, to impossible to find staff in 2022 and who knows what 2023 will hold. Walk around any town centre these days and you will see numerous “staff wanted” signs in the windows of shops, bars, cafes and restaurants, tourism offices, workshops and factories. Immigration is slow, and the new work permit regime is cumbersome. Analysis of advertised jobs shows very few that comply with NZ Immigration’s strict requirements, suggesting these jobs are either paying huge salaries, or the new work permit regime has turned employers off from considering overseas candidates. The unemployment rate in September 2022 was 3.3% (next update 1 February). Software development and related jobs are incredibly difficult to fill and if you are in that industry, you might want to read on.
Retaining your top talent now is more important now than ever before. In fact, you need to retain everyone you have got, which also means the under performers. This means investing time and effort into transforming your lower performers to high performers rather than managing them out of your business.
So how do you make sure your top performers remain engaged and committed while you put your efforts into boosting your lower performers?
First, understand that when you manage your lower performers, you are indirectly engaging your top performers. Top performers will not tolerate you failing to address poor performance in others.
Different people need different tactics –
· Top performers – understand their underlying needs so that you can tailor your engagement tactics to retain them and ensure their performance and effort remain high.
· Middle performers – understand what is preventing them from being top performers. Is it skills and knowledge, or are there other elements of the job or your culture that prevents them from excelling or increasing their discretionary effort?
· Low performers – are likely to be disengaged, their values are misaligned with yours, or there is a serious skill and/or knowledge gap. Or there is something going on in their personal life which is affecting their work performance. With these people you may be getting into performance management territory, which should always start informally. While your end goal is to improve performance and engagement, an outcome would usually be an end to the employment relationship.
Here we outline the initial steps to begin turning your underperformers around. Some may never be able to be turned around, but some will.
What skills do you, as a manager or business owner, need to sharpen first?
Before you begin, how skilled are you in giving feedback to your underperformers, clarifying expectations and creating a plan to improve their performance? How good are you at using questioning techniques to get to the root causes of problems. And how good a listener are you? Could a lack of these things be part of the reason why some people are underperforming?
By the way, we can help you build those skills through training or one-on-one coaching!
Analyse performance against what your expectations are
You’re going to have to start by giving people an overview of their performance and where it falls short of expectations. Make sure you have objective evidence that you can present, otherwise you risk sounding vague when you go to have the first conversation.
Complete a skill-will matrix
These are great for deciding what the right course of action is. Low skill and low will is most difficult to turn around. Low will but high skill indicates disengagement or something is troubling them. High will and low skill indicates the need for training, mentoring, shadowing or some other way of upskilling; or simply clarifying expectations or performance standards. Knowing where they sit on the grid is also going to guide your line of questioning to find out what is holding back performance.
Bring it all together and plan your meeting
Based on the information you’ve gathered, you can work out a loose meeting plan. We never recommend writing a script, and this is for several reasons. The most important reason is that you should do less talking, more asking, and more listening. So plan out the type of questions you want to ask. The simple, act of making your employee feel really listened to can go a long way to engaging them.
Have your meeting
In your meeting, you are seeking to uncover the reasons for underperformance. Ask your questions, listen carefully, ask probing questions, ask the same question in different ways if you are not getting the information you need. If your employee has never had this type of meeting before, it may take a while to get them to open up to you.
In the meeting, you might get on to problem-solving or you may need to arrange another session. If you need to have another session, ask your employee to get back to you with their suggested solutions.
This is enough to get you on your way. If you need any coaching yourself, or your staff need training, we’re here to help. Contact us to find out how we can help.
Catering for different personalities
How you communicate with your people will differ between them. Just like everyone has a different personality, each person has a different Social Style – a preferred way of behaving at work. You need to adjust your approach for this. But how do you know what Social Style that person is, and even if you did know it, how would you adjust? Have a look at our social intelligence training program for the answers!
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-having-one-on-one-meeting-with-a-counselor-5711123/
