How to Stop a Festering Performance Issue
Got a Performance Issue? DO NOT Ignore It!
This can be a difficult concept for some leaders to grasp. I’ve seen many leaders who don’t use the Corrective Action Process (CA) when they should. These leaders just don’t realize the negative impact of ignoring performance issues. The Corrective Action performance tool is designed to address subpar employee performance. Avoiding the CA tool is the same as ignoring performance issues.
When a supervisor ignores the CA process, it is usually because they experience high anxiety over it. You see, inexperienced leaders anticipate and fear a conflict if they formally address an employee performance issue. Often they have insecurities about learning how to administer it so they just totally avoid using it. But when a supervisor doesn’t effectively utilize the corrective action process, the consequences are detrimental to company performance. Over my 35 years of leadership experience, here's what I have seen when supervisors ignore the CA tool:
- The department will see recurring errors because poor performing employees experience no repercussions for their actions.
- The team will experience poor engagement and teamwork. You see good employees won’t engage because they see that performance, good or bad, gets treated equally. Without a corrective action process, there just doesn’t seem to be clear performance expectations within that department.
- The supervisor is considered a weak supervisor in the eyes of the company. Although they may not be fired, they probably will never get promoted either.
A Supervisor's Best Friend
As a supervisor, the Corrective Action (CA) process is your best friend. And here’s why:
Let's say something goes wrong in your department. Maybe your department produced some bad product. It is now your responsibility to find the root cause of the problem and the root cause may be from a variety of sources including poor raw materials, inaccurate data, malfunctioning equipment, a faulty process or even human error. Whatever the cause is, the company is looking to you to find the root cause and correct it so that it doesn’t happen again.
If the root cause is human error, meaning that one of your operators made a mistake that caused the costly issue, then your boss and the company are assigning the problem to you - not to your operator. It's like when an athlete makes a mental error on the athletic field, the coach takes the heat for that player's mistake because the mistake is a reflection of poor coaching.
However, if you appropriately investigate the issue, determine it to be an operator error, document it thoroughly in a corrective action letter and properly administer it to the employee - then you are absolved of fault. You see, a monkey is just another name for a problem, and when an employee performs poorly and you issue a corrective action to that employee for their mistake, you are transferring that monkey from you to them - which is exactly where it belongs.
But, if you don’t transfer the monkey to where it belongs, then you are carrying that monkey around and hence the operator error actually reflects on your own performance. Your boss and your company are thinking that a mistake was made in your department and you failed to address it, therefore your performance is lacking. If the same error happens again, you as a supervisor are definitely going to be in the hot seat and your job could even be in jeopardy. So, remember, when you issue a formal CA to an employee for a performance issue, then you are getting absolved as a leader. Your boss and the company will consider your action as a solid response to a problem, instead of problem avoidance.
The Corrective Action Process and Your Company
Your company should already have a formal Corrective Action (CA) process and it may even be in you employee handbook. Every company has slightly different CA policies and practices. Sometimes the company is very aggressive with its application and some companies are very conservative with it. But there are common features of every Corrective Action policy. Most typically there are four basic steps that supervisors administer to any poor performing employees. These typical steps include: Verbal Warning, Written Warning, Final Written Warning and Termination.
The goal is not to reprimand an employee but rather to get the employee to improve their performance, because when the employee improves, then it is a real win-win. Note however, that if the employee does eventually get terminated, they may file a lawsuit against the company for wrongful termination. If they do, then your formal documentation will be used by your company to defend its position in the case. Always be mindful that your documentation is extremely important!
Options to Handle a Minor Infraction
Let’s start at the very beginning of an employee performance issue before a documented corrective action is even required. Let’s say you're walking your production floor and you notice an employee taking a process short-cut. Now you have a couple of options. You could ignore it, which would be the totally wrong thing to do because then you are condoning the behavior and given time, that behavior will become the norm in your department. So you don’t want to ignore it.
The second option that you have is to address it right there on the spot and this has a few benefits. First the employee will understand your expectation. Second the employee will quickly correct the issue and third, other employees will see it and they too will understand your expectations.
Lastly, you can establish a clear expectation by asking the employee to meet with you in a conference room to discuss the issue one-on-one. Pulling an employee into a meeting room will have a much greater influence on the employee's behavior versus just a walk-by interaction. The formality of the meeting will open the employee’s eyes as to the seriousness of the issue.
Other than completely ignoring an issue, the solution to an employee performance problem comes down to company policy and supervisor wisdom. Remember, the optimal solution for human error always involves feedback with the goal of improving the employee's performance. Company policy may dictate the rules but it takes wisdom on the part of a supervisor to guide employees towards improvement.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Whether you address a minor performance issue on the production floor or in a conference room, you’ll want to drop a note in your files. This note will say something like this; “On 5/14/XX at 10:45am, I observed John Smith skipping steps during a set-up. I talked to him about not taking these process shortcuts because it is detrimental to product quality." This note is important because you may need to refer to this incident if you see the behavior again. Then, if you write a Verbal Warning on the second occurrence, you can refer to that original conversation. The file note will help you to justify the formality of the Verbal Warning.
How to Write the Corrective Action Memo
If the initial infraction is a more serious one or you find a repeat infraction, you’ll need to take formal performance improvement action and this is called an Employee Corrective Action step. Some company's use a standard form to do this but throughout my career I used a memo format which I'll describe below. This CA document needs to cover a few important points.
- Heading
- The Corrective Action Step (Verbal, Written, Final Written or Termination)
- The date of the incident
- Exactly what occurred
- A reference to any other documented occurrences
- The impact or potential impact of this performance issues
- Your expectations
- The repercussions of continued performance issues by this employee
- A Signature from both the employee and the supervisor
Partner with Human Resources
You’ll want to consult with you HR Representative in order to gain total alignment. You never want to terminate an employee without direct guidance from Human Resources. One of the most important aspects of the HR role is to keep the company out of legal trouble. Your HR Department will require thorough, well formatted, and accurate documentation throughout an employee's life cycle - from hiring through to retirement, resignation, or termination.
I’ve seen some poorly written corrective actions with spelling mistakes, incorrect information, missing information, and legally risky information. For that reason I recommend that you always have your Corrective Action documents reviewed and approved by HR before administering to employees. Additionally, it is very important that you apply corrective action consistently across your company. You cannot administer corrective actions to some employees and ignore the same behaviors by other employees. Inconsistent policy enforcement is a lawsuit waiting to happen. So be consistent in your enforcement and write clear and concise documents.
Remember that partnering is always the best approach, so always partner with your HR department and align on the proper application of your company’s policies.
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