Options for coping with under-performers.

When a staff member isn’t performing well, there are a number of options available to you.

1. Either let them go
2. Coach them to success
3. Or simply put up with it.

Options 1 and 3 aren’t exactly great ideas, but in some cases we do have to let under-performers go. Alternatively, we could put up with the situation, and this is surprisingly one of the most popular choices of practitioners.

We might complain to ourselves, as Partners, that we should expect a higher standard of work from ‘so and so’, but have we ever tried to help them improve?

Many would shamefully admit that, no, they haven’t done much to help improve the situation, preferring for the individuals to cure themselves!

Let’s face it, if we don’t make a big deal of something, it usually doesn’t change.

So let’s look at your options.

Option 1 – Letting Underperformers go.

Within the first three months of employment everyone is on a trial period. You can let them go if you know that they’re not going to work out and have nothing to fear. However, once they’ve been there for a while, you’ll need to ‘get your ducks in a row’ in order to create a paper trail if ever their dismissal went to an employment tribuneral.

You’ll need to show several complaints and document all of your meetings with the employee where the issues or complaints were discussed and where you have offered help to the individual.

Then you’ll need to issue a series of letters to them asking them to improve, offering help and stating that failure to bring their performance into line may result in their dismissal.

Then you really do need to do something positive.

Let’s face it, you would sooner have them up to standard and successful, right? Good. Then I would recommend that you offer some coaching, training or mentoring to them so that they have an opportunity to succeed.

Put them on a ‘performance management’ program where you set weekly goals and objectives and meet each Friday (for example) to discuss the challenges and successes of the week just ended and set goals for the coming week.
A series of these meetings (with notes made at each one, of course) are great evidence that you are trying to help the employee and will go a great way in helping you win a case if it ever came to court.

Before you decide to let an under-performer go, I strongly recommend that you discuss your situation with an employment Lawyer, who can give you legal advise (which this column certainly is not!) on your specific situation, the law as it stands at the time and what your options are.

But the real deal is that you should genuinely want your employee to succeed.

Change is disruptive for staff, for clients, and for you, so if the person in question really does try, and makes some progress, then you will be heading in the right direction.

Option 2 – Coaching people to success.

This is a very similar process to the one above, except in these circumstances, it is not anticipated that the individual might be facing termination.

A coaching culture in any firm will always provide a higher common denominator for staff standards than a firm without a coaching culture – it’s been proven time and again in the real world.

The secret to success in coaching is two-fold:

a) the quality of coaching received
b) the will of the recipients

Remember the GIGO principle? Well it not only applies to computers, but people too. Put garbage into their heads and that’s what you’ll get out of them, so be sure to select a coach who really knows the public accounting domain.

But the real successes come when the individuals receiving the coaching are willing participants. The old cliché that ‘you can lead a horse to water’ is still true today. But getting them to drink is sometimes a different matter altogether!

Some problem areas I have seen in public accounting firms include:

· Poor standards in working paper file preparation
· Poor communication skills in front of clients
· Lack of commitment in times of need (such as tax season)
· Making the same errors repeatedly in a number of different circumstances
· Unprofessional dress, appearance, demeanour and ‘body odour’

While at the time, they may seem like mountains, these problems, if handled tactfully and properly can be reduced to molehills, and then removed entirely, but the individual concerned has to have the will to change, understand what the problem is and why it is a problem, and make commitments to improve, which need to be recorded and monitored.

Option 3 – Putting up with it.

For those who would rather look away and hope that the situation, in time, resolves itself, just one piece of advice:

Hope is not a strategy!

© 2004, MFA Group Inc