When an employee isn’t performing as expected, it can be very disapointing. When you consider the amount of time it takes to recruit, hire, and train someone, it can be disappointing to find that a person has performance issues. Sometimes performance issues can be related to something personal, such as drug or alchol abuse, but often it is a combination of factors. Some of these factors can be internal while others may be external. Internal factors may include the following:
- Career goals are not being met with the job.
- There is conflict with other employees or the manager.
- The goals or expectations are not in line with the employee’s abilities.
- The employee views unfairness in the workplace.
- The employee manages time poorly.
- The employee is dissatisfied with the job.
Some of the external factors may include the following:
- The employee doesn’t have correct equipment or tools to perform the job.
- The job design is incorrect.
- External motivation factors are absent.
- There is a lack of management support.
- The employee’s skills and job are mismatched.
All the internal reasons speak to the importance once again of hiring the right person to begin with. The external reasons may be something that can be easily addressed and fixed. Whether the reason is internal or external, performance issues must be handled in a timely manner. This is addressed in Defining Discipline. We discuss performance issues in greater detail in Employee Assessment.
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