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7 Practical Proven Actions To Improve Your Worst Employee Quickly · Enhance.training

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Every team has a worst employee.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: When you improve your worst employee, you increase overall team performance, usually by a lot more than the contribution of one person.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your worst employee might be doing an okay job relative to other team members, all the way through to being a nightmare employee.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: These proven actions will help you improve the situation for you, your team, for your business and often for the individual as well.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your worst employee sets the level of expectations for the rest of the team.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Your worst employee performs or behaves at the lowest level your team perceives is acceptable to you if you don't take action as a manager.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, are you happy with this level?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to improve team performance, you must improve the level of expectations you set and demand from the whole team, which means improving your worst team member.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have transformed the worst team into one of the best teams in multiple different companies.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've won best team prizes with these teams too, and I've worked in many amazing companies in 20 plus years of managing teams.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have learnt exactly how to handle low performance in a team.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: To improve team performance, work on improving the worst employee in the team, no matter if they are worse by a little bit or by a lot.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: One other important fact as a manager you are very much on your own for how to handle your worst team member.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You are the one having the difficult conversations, deciding on what action to take and taking that action.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your manager, HR, and official procedures usually offer very limited support to you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: They won't do this work for you.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So learn what to do about low performance in your team.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: The seven practical proven actions to improve your worst employee quickly are firstly, don't ignore the problems your worst employee creates.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, understand what makes them your worst team member.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Third, ask yourself is their potential worth developing.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, set out your expectations and create clear goals.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, give your worst staff member a lot of direct, honest feedback.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, help your worst employee with how to improve.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And seventh, take formal action to improve or remove your worst employee.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: For each, I share practical tips and actions that will make improving your worst employee pretty straightforward.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: There is no need to risk damaging relationships or damaging trust with the rest of the team.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nor should you let them off the hook for improvement at any point.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Can I ask that you put into practice as many of the actions and tips that we talk about today as you can?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Start small if need be, but keep at it.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You will see improvement in weeks, if not days.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing you can do is to take action to get a different result.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, don't ignore the problems your worst employee creates.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Even if the problems your worst employee creates are relatively minor, you can't ignore them.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: For example, making mistakes, annoying team members, undermining others, doing less work than other team members, etc.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: These all have an impact on the performance and the behaviour of the whole team.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the lowest level of performance or behaviour that you accept in the team sets the expectations for the rest of your team.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Actions or lack of actions speak a lot louder than words when setting expectations.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The further below the team average your worst employee's behaviour or performance is, the harder it will be to ignore.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Other team members and your boss will pressurize or demand you take action.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, human behaviour is pattern-based.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Once those patterns become established, they are a lot harder to change.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Acting quickly before patterns become established makes creating change and improvement a lot easier.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Always take action with your worst employee quickly to make your life better as a manager and to increase team performance.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jess Coles, and if you're new to this podcast, Enhanced.training provides resources and courses for you to build management expertise and confidence to lead any team to their best performance.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing how to approach and tackle your worst employee so they feel that you are on their side, that you'll give them a chance and will help them improve.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: In parallel, also being able to convey the consequences of not improving and showing that you are unafraid to remove them if that is in the best interest of the team.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Getting this right is a lot more straightforward, achievable and probable for any manager when you have a system to follow and work within.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Take a look at our How to Manage Difficult Employees course for the mindset approach and detailed steps of exactly how to improve your worst employee.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Type into your browser enhance.training backslash F02 to learn more for you or for managers in your team.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The second action is to understand what makes them your worst employee.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what the problems are, finding the best or even a good solution will be extremely hard.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: In private, talk to your worst employee.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Tell them about your concerns and ask them what the issues are, making them the worst team member for performance, behaviour or attitude.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Keep asking questions and listening until you feel you understand their situation.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Be nice, show you care, demonstrate your empathy, put yourself in their shoes.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: These are important for how to handle your worst employee.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the common problems that your worst employee might be facing include, you know, firstly, they are unsure or confused as to what is expected from them.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or they might be bored or have lack of challenge or lack of development.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or your employee is incapable of actually doing a better job.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or they might have a lack of vital skills or knowledge to do a better job.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or fifth, their attitude or approach to work might be poor.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or they might have personal issues outside of work which is distracting them in work.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Seventh, they may be having problems with you, their manager, or other staff members.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Eighth, they may lack vital resources to do their role properly.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Find out what the underlying problems are that are making them your worst team member.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: The third action is to ask yourself, is their potential worth developing?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really important step to take early in this process.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: For example, there is little point in trying to improve a low-performing team member who is slow to learn and doesn't have the appetite to improve.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You should transfer them to a more appropriate job or remove them from your team at this point.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is really important to work hard to really understand the problems causing them to be your worst team member.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: This will enable you to make a good decision at this point.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, sometimes your worst employee has a lot of potential to get better, but this may not always be apparent.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: When in doubt, give them a chance.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have had my worst team member transform into a team star in three to six months and in the process help smash team targets.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth action is to set out your expectations and create clear goals.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You must be very clear what you want from your team member.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Tell them directly, put it in writing via email, keep repeating the communication of your expectations again and again.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Most importantly, demonstrate your expectations through your own actions and behaviours in front of the whole team.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Next, set measurable clear goals together.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer to set out the rough level I expect and then ask my worst team member to work with me to come up with clear specific goals for them to achieve.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I actively want them to participate because then the goals are theirs as much as mine and they are a lot more likely to try to reach them.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Setting clear goals and expectations enables you to track their performance against those goals and assess their progress fairly.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Clear goals enables you to hold them to account and encourages ownership from your worst performer.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth action is to give your worst team member a lot of direct, honest feedback.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Useful feedback is not good job or well done or work harder.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: The feedback has to be specific and detailed to be useful to the other person.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: You should be educating them on what the gap is between where they are performing or behaving right now and your expectations.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't give them clear, direct, honest feedback, expecting them to improve is unfair.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is like asking your worst employee to drive down a windy mountainous road in the dark and rain and not turn their car lights on.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are very unlikely to reach the destination that you want them to reach.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Give a lot of clear, detailed feedback to your worst employee.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: The sixth action is to help your worst employee with how to improve.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: In nearly every team that I have taken on as a manager, there are several team members who don't know how to do their jobs well.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Teach them what they need to do better and suddenly their performance jumps up.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not by 5 or 10%, it can literally double in terms of the value of their output.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: This has a huge impact on teams' performance.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Teach and mentor those that don't know what to do, i.e.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: tell them what to do.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Use a coaching approach for those that do know what to do but lack the confidence or experience to do it well.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't assume that your worst team member knows exactly what to do.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Understand their capability level and help them improve it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You are in the manager position for many reasons, some of which are that your people's skills, organizational skills, communication skills, etc.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: are better than theirs.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Pass on what you know.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: To increase the capability of a team, you need to teach and coach as a manager or you have to hire more skilled people into the team.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching and coaching is a lot quicker, a lot cheaper, and a lot more motivating than hiring in lots of new staff to try to increase team performance.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, if you are still not getting improvement, take formal action to improve or remove your worst employee.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you're working to help improve your worst employee and they are not putting in much effort to improve, you need to change what you are doing to get a different result.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do not carry on trying to help them if they don't want to help themselves.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Increase the pressure on your worst team member to improve by making the process more formal with more serious consequences.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: A great option is to start a performance improvement plan.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is doing everything we have talked about, but in a more structured and documented way.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: This also means your worst employee is closer to losing their job.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: If all this effort still doesn't improve your worst employee enough, then take action to remove them from the team and hire a more talented and motivated person to lift the performance and behaviour standards of the whole team.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, to improve the performance of any team, you need to improve the performance of your worst employee.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your worst employee acts as an anchor for expectations for the whole of the team if you don't take action to improve or remove them.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder, here are the seven practical proven actions to improve your worst employee quickly.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, don't ignore the problems your worst employee creates.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, understand what makes them your worst employee.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Third, ask yourself, is their potential worth developing?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, set out your expectations and create clear goals.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, give them a lot of direct, honest feedback.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, help your worst employee with how to improve.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And seventh, take formal action to improve or remove your worst employee.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget if you want to learn exactly how to resolve the people problems in any team, you know, difficult behaviour, underperformance, or just to increase team performance in a fair and effective way, do type enhance.training backslash f02 into your browser to learn more for you or managers in your team to be a lot more successful with the worst employee in your team.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you have questions on seven practical proven actions to improve your worst employee quickly, please email me at support at enhance.training and I'll get back to you.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much for listening, and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.