I had someone ask me how you go about “saving” a good employee who isn’t performing at their potential. This is a rather loaded question to address. One can argue for the efforts to turn-around employees, and I have been known to work hard to try to redeem someone that I believe in. You can also argue that “saving” an employee may involve a level of effort that is better suited to other endeavors, or that focus on turning around an employee may cause other staff members to harbor negative emotions. I say that we first start by discussing overall employee engagement.
The more engaged the employee, the greater level of effort they will put in towards their job (generally speaking). I have witnessed more than one person who was amazing when they were engaged and energized at work, only to be indifferent or detrimental towards the organization when they became disengaged. There are some people who vacillate between these two states. This can cause the leader to be in a difficult place. Does the leader end the relationship when the person is not performing well, or do they try to correct things back to a high performing state if the employee has repeat challenges?
Culture of Engagement
Long before you go down the path of individual engagement in an attempt to drive performance, loyalty, or energy from a single employee, you must consider the overall culture you are creating within the workplace. At minimum you should look at the culture within your team. Are you creating an overarching culture of engagement? It is far easier to set this tone up front and keep up the maintenance than it is to try to repair and “save” employees who have become disenchanted and disengaged.
So, let’s take a quick look some of the key factors that lead to a culture of engagement:
- A Feedback-based Environment: It is not enough to simply provide feedback to your employees. You must have a culture that values omni-directional feedback, and solicits it. Your employees are a primary source of information on what is going well or not. Taking their thoughts into consideration is a key part of creating an engaging environment.
- Note! It’s important that you take timely action on feedback. Nothing is more disheartening than making a fuss over an employee survey only to have no discernible action taken from it. When people take time, energy, and care to provide feedback to their employer, they want to know that it made a difference.
- Celebrate successes; recognize (and discuss) the problems: Create a culture that recognizes and celebrates successes. Big or small, take the time to recognize people for things. Vary the level of celebration but make it visible and make it often. People are more engaged when they feel like their work matters. So take the time to help people see how they fit into the big picture. Be sure that you let them see how they make a difference. When your teams feel like replaceable cogs, they start to act like them too.
- Don’t sweep problems under the rug. Nobody wants to be blindsided with really bad news. And if you’re open about challenges, your team may have ideas on how to fix them. Engaged cultures are transparent on both ends of the spectrum. After all, everybody knows that nothing is perfect… or perfectly bad!
- Value and Encourage People to Disconnect: Create a culture that values a separation of work and non-work. This may sound counter-intuitive to some. All people are more than their jobs, and need to have that break away from work in order to recharge. Particularly if you work in a stressful industry or environment! And not just by utilizing once or twice a year breaks, but by being able to disengage during their off time outside of the office. Placing value in the lives people lead outside the office shows that you care about them as a person, and not just what they can do for you. This care leads to loyal and engaged teams.
- Help teams connect – create a sense of community: We have seen a rapidly evolving workplace environment over the past few years, and the rate of change is not slowing down. As we continue to operate in a more global, remote, and technologically driven world, having a sense of community helps us feel connected. This doesn’t mean that you need to, or should, create big group events and force people to participate. Although if that’s what your team really wants, and these types of events help them feel connected, have fun! However, for many, forcing large team events is sure to backfire on you as not everyone enjoys that setup. Work with your teams to identify what helps them feel more connected. Maybe they want a smaller network of people with similar backgrounds. Some of them may want to participate in volunteer or awareness campaigns. Or maybe they just need some regular time in the breakroom to chat with each other and feel connected.
Individual Engagement
But having the culture is only part of the challenge, you must also engage with the individual. It’s an interconnected puzzle, where each piece feeds a portion of the other. Note that I said with someone. You cannot engage “at” or “to” your employee. These are things that require discussion and interaction on both sides.
- Get to know and understand the individual: You likely already have an idea of who they are and how they act while at the office. But to really engage with your team members, we need to look a little deeper. What drives and motivates them? Are they a private person, or do they like being “on stage” more? How much structure do they need? Do they thrive when given creativity and ability to find their own way, or are they a paint-by-numbers type of person? Take an interest in their personal lives. You don’t have to be friends and involved with each other outside of work, but understanding if they have stressors at home can help you anticipate when that stress leaks into the work environment (and vice versa!). As we noted above, people are more than their jobs!
- Let them have a voice regarding their path: Help your team members have a say in what goes on around them.
- Make sure the team members have a voice in goals as much as is realistic. There may be certain targets or objectives that are non-negotiable. However, give your team some opportunity to add in their own goals and express concern if something feels unrealistic. Look for possible objectives that help the employee feel like they are making a difference. People like to feel that they are important, and that they are not just a body sitting in a seat.
- Take time to discuss the person’s long-term goals and aspirations. Where do they ultimately want to go? What kinds of activities can they do to help them progress? You may be able to find something unique that helps your team or your org, and also helps your team member learn or practice something new, even if it’s not part of the regular business.
- Listen to ideas from your team members. Maybe one of them will have a brilliant idea for a new procedure, or an automation, or an initiative that can really help out the team or the business. You hired your teams to be experts at their jobs, so listen to the experts.
- Show appreciation and recognize their efforts: As we noted in the culture section, take the time to celebrate success. Thank your team member! Recognize them! If they’ve come up with a great idea, had a resounding success, or other major accomplishment, look for opportunities for them to shine in front of your senior leadership, who can also show appreciation.
And Finally, Back to “Saving” An Employee
“Saving” a disengaged employee is challenging. It can be rewarding. Occasionally these people later turn into rock stars that are indispensable to the team. It can also be frustrating. There are times when instead of re-engaging, they become a drain on time, energy, and resources. Additionally, leaders must be aware of how their efforts to turn around certain team members will be perceived by other employees. There is a risk of negative perceptions. Your other team members may view this as a form of favoritism, failure on the part of management to uphold standards, or that a poor performer is given attention while their own efforts are overlooked. You must take care not to dishearten and disengage the rest of your team while working with a particular team member.
- Look for patterns: Is this a formerly high performing employee, or a perpetually low performing one? Is this someone who regularly swings from one extreme to another? It is not uncommon for people to go through periods of high engagement to disenchantment. Many people have a certain amount of variance from the middle that is affected by home or work events, stress, and the like. What you should look for here are movements far outside the norm.
- Investigate the “why” – what might be driving the behavior: There can be any number of “whys” ranging from the deeply personal to something well within management control. You can ask the employee directly (and in most cases, this is preferred rather than guessing), but you also can, and should, look at the surrounding situation. Has something changed? New leader, new role, new responsibilities, change in procedure, poor review, change in team, and many other environmental changes have all been known to lead to disengagement. There may also be factors tied to wages and benefits, which may be a “lack of change” more than something new.
- Determine Corrective Courses: With your collected information, you can begin to plan a course of action. You can determine if this is a temporary issue that can be addressed with some “shot in the arm” efforts, or if this is indicative of a longer-term issue. Not all of the “whys” we noted can be easily (or even should be) addressed directly… you cannot undo some changes because a single team member is unhappy! Even if you can’t fix or undo, still take an opportunity to discuss with your team member. Sometimes feeling like someone is listening helps.
- Overall / non-specific corrections: There are some general principles that can be applied to try to re-engage your staff member if there is not a recent change or an easily identifiable cause. Most of this goes back to the culture and individual engagement we noted earlier:
- First, back to basics! Make sure you are caring for the individual engagement practices we noted above. Connect, recognize, and appreciate, look towards development, etc.
- Check to see how well things align to the individual. If they thrive on creativity, is there any autonomy or latitude you can give them to find their own way? Conversely, watch for things that may be too vague for someone who craves clearer direction. Take a look at the goals set for the employee and set aside time to review and discuss. Is there something that needs updated to reinvigorate someone?
- If there is something specific that is falling short, chat about what problems they are facing. Is there challenge that you can help knock down or work around? Sometimes disengagement comes from discouragement, particularly if your team member feels they are having to “go it alone” and don’t know how to get support. If they feel doomed to fail, the level of energy is definitely going to lag.
“Saving” a disengaged employee may not always be the right course for you to take. However, if you create an overall culture of engagement and you take the time to work closely with your team members, you are more likely to create loyal teams where disengagement is less likely to happen.
