The worst experience for any manager is telling an employee that she or he is terminated from employment.
When a person is terminated for performance, and not conduct, it might be more difficult because the manager frequently wonders whether better or different management could have improved the performance and avoided termination.
After traveling last week through the national parks, a female rancher guided us on horseback through the canyons.
She had been at the canyon doing this work for six years. She is from Lynchburg, and said her family wanted her to go to nursing school. She tried it, hated it, and was fired from her entry level job in the medical field.
She said the medical field was not for her, and that she is now doing what she was born to do.
She said that the best thing to happen to her was that she was fired from her medical job because this motivated her to pursue her passion. Now she has a successful career and life doing the work she loves, and she is very good at.
Sometimes a person is hired for a sales position, but sales isn’t that person’s best skill set. Sometimes you promote a person to management, but the management is a skill not achievable by that person.
I’ve seen people not able to do the job they were hired for in 90 days, and have seen employees in a job, not fully performing, for 15 years.
When management enables poor performance through lack of action, neither the employer nor employee benefit.
Managers need to first identify the key deliverables in the job, and set clear metrics for what successful performance looks like. This could include customer service, production, timely deliverables, attention to detail and initiative.
Managers should meet regularly with their employees to make sure that identified performance metrics are met. Employees should be provided with the necessary training and tools to be successful.
Employees also have to take initiative to identify what they need to be successful, and where skills gaps exist. Sometimes employees need to invest in themselves to close those gaps.
Where performance issues arise, managers should coach and counsel their employees, identifying specific performance gaps.
If an employee rejects the feedback, deflects or refuses to accept the counseling, that employee will likely not succeed. The manager should be commended, not criticized, for caring enough about the success of that employee to tell that employee what he or she is doing, or not doing, to be successful.
After identifying these performance gaps, and providing opportunities to improve, the employee should be given approximately 30 to 90 days to improve performance.
Thereafter, the employee should be placed on formal discipline, including a performance improvement plan.
Performance that improves only in the short term, and then declines, is not acceptable. All discipline should include a statement that immediate and lasting improvement is expected.
We all have different passions and abilities. Our inability to perform one job doesn’t mean we can’t do any job.
Being terminated from a job for performance doesn’t mean general failure – it likely means that we are better at something else.
When a manager terminates an employee for performance, that employee will likely be entitled to unemployment compensation for the period that the employee is looking for another job.