[larry@larrylitwin.com]
From Dale Carnegie
As Covid-19 disappears, working from home isn’t going to as there will be a large percentage of the workforce who will still work from home on a full-time or part-time basis. And if you are a manager of a remote team(s), you still need to deal with underperforming team members.
The good news is this: Dealing with underperforming people in a remote work environment allows you to have specific conversations versus mentioning performance issues too casually.
3 Tips To Help Manage An Underperforming Staff Member.
Tip #1: Set Expectations – This is the first step as it allows you to set concrete deliverables or expectations. Plus, it helps you from being ambiguous when it comes to what is expected.
Tip #2: Learn About Their Work From Home Situation Take the time to learn what their work from home issues are, as it can help you better understand what is going on with them. Alternatively, you might want the person to come into the office X hours/days a week to help offset their performance issues.
Tip #3: Help To Improve Their Performance – After determining what their current challenges are, it would pay huge dividends to you if you would give them guidance with learning a new skill. Whether this is regular meetings or setting up a mentor program, there are many low-cost ways to help someone.
Other Tips To Consider When Managing Remote Workers.
- Look for signs of distress in your employees.
- Equip your team with the right technology.
- Promote dialogue with one-on-one conversations.
- Tell your employees that you trust them to work independently.
- Reinforce organizational values.
- Use objectives to create clarity.
- Focus on outputs, not time worked.
- Increase recognition for successes.
- Catch your staff doing things right.
- Proactively survey your team to see if they need help.
- Encourage innovation in new AND old systems and processes.
- Provide opportunities to share successes.
Why Workplace Performance Matters.
Here are four reasons why performance matters in the workplace:
- Poor performers lower workplace morale.
- Low performers increase the workload for everyone else.
- Managers spend too much time dealing with underperformers.
- Poor performers cost organizations tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity, sales opportunities, social media issues, and word-of-mouth referrals.
Executive Summary: Working remotely has its challenges, but remote workers can be more productive than traditional in-office workers; therefore, address performance issues sooner versus later as the good performers will help your company grow and thrive no matter the circumstances.
[larry@larrylitwin.com]