In my travels, I often come across organizations and managers who go out of their way to recognize and reward employees so as to build a culture of what’s referred to as “engagement.” The premise of engagement is that if a worker feels connected deeply to their job, manager, or company, they’ll do their best work.
In the quest to gain engagement, companies and managers often resort to creative rewards in order to inspire great performance. I’ve worked with companies who go so far as to have meditation rooms, game rooms, free coke machines (the carbonated version), and a casual, fun environment. I have no issue with any of this.
The challenge with viewing workers and the workplace through this lens though is that it makes little provision for poor performers. Engagement strategies work so long as workers are skilled, motivated to perform, and have clear guidance on priorities. Poor performers are the outliers and because they are, often there is no strategy to deal with them.
Let me suggest one: Work or get fired.
I know this sounds calloused and is certainly out of step with some of my O.D. colleagues, coaches, and consultants who believe people are always salvageable. Let me suggest that if a person shows no will go get better, learn new skills, implement new procedures, obey standard policies, then they should be gone. Rapidly. Here’s how:
- Know your company’s progressive discipline process. Be clear on what steps need to be taken to attempt to rehab or terminate.
- Determine why the person isn’t performing. If it’s a skill problem, have you taken the time to train them? If it’s a focus problem, have you attempted to give feedback and coaching? If yes to all, then you have a WILL problem and that’s handled with discipline.
- Have you followed every step in the progressive discipline process and documented each step? Do your evaluation comments match the person’s actual performance? If they were on trial, charged with violating company policy or not performing, would there be enough evidence to convict them?
- If you’ve spent the time to perform each step, particularly Step 2, then you can be assured the firing is probably warranted, legal, and appropriate.
I know it sounds harsh to think about employees this way, but if you own, run, or manage a business, you know a poor performer is costing you money. Do yourself, your other employees, and the individual a favor and get rid of them. Employees who make the effort to perform are the ones who deserve the perks of attempted engagement anyway. It may just work for them. If they do perform well for you, they deserve it.