Pull your workplace performance together

Managers must confront the problems. Photo / Thinkstock

Confronting workplace performance is not a task that anyone appears to relish.

It's avoided by chief executives of multinational companies just teaming with managers to disguise poor performance, right through to leaders of small businesses where lack-lustre effort is glaringly apparent.

But there is hope. Consciously framing a clear approach to ensure "due process" is equitably facilitated could transform a discomforting experience into an opportunity for business profit and growth.

At a time when the New Zealand economy is so tight the Government's only pleasure might be a spanking new 34-strong fleet of $230,000 plus BMWs, businesses need to look for dollars outside their appraisal comfort zone.

Upgrading a company's leadership talent pool could improve overall corporate performance dramatically; this is the sage advice offered in "A New Game Plan for C Players" featured in the Harvard Business Review 2005 edition of Appraising Poor Performance. "In two companies we studied, the A managers grew profits on average, 80 per cent in one company and 130 per cent in the other, while the C managers achieved no profit growth ... holding on to underperforming managers pulls down a company's performance."

Sure, that's America; won't "she be right" in Aotearoa? In a Labour Department study last year entitled "What do we know about NZ Workplaces?" the authors looked at performance and stated "in this area, the evidence consistently suggests that New Zealand workplaces lag behind their international counterparts".

Apparently a third of workplaces had no formal performance reviews for any employees, and only 37 per cent had them in place for more than 50 per cent of employees. They add that in a survey of 152 medium and large-sized manufacturing firms the six indicators of people management covered saw New Zealand placed 14th out of 16 countries.

The indicators considered company talent, rewards for top performance, the addressing of poor performance, promotion plus the attraction and retention of high performers.

"Dealing with poor performers in the workplace is certainly an emotive issue," muses Fred Adelhelm, owner and director of the Melbourne and Auckland-based Adelhelm Consultants. "But overseas my performance workshops are over-booked, here we struggle to fill them. New Zealanders don't like dealing with conflict and confrontation in the workplace."

Adelhelm began developing a simple and practical technique for dealing with poor work performers in the 90s. He sought to implement this in New Zealand when he immigrated.

Seasoned from years of working on bitter conflict resolution in an increasingly dangerous Southern Africa, he was unfazed when he saw many New Zealand executives and CEOs pulling their hair out in their efforts to lift performance.

A timely position at Air New Zealand in early 2000 meant he could help the company with the Ansett acquisition. It entailed union pressure, culture change and employee performance and motivation.

Adelhelm explains that during that turbulent period there were commonplace issues that required a stringent framework and practical processes to disentangle disputes. These are the tools that make up Adelhelm's workshop on how to deal with Poor Performers and, painful as it sounds, cut the deadwood from business.

"The first task is to see if we can turn these people around and get them delivering," says Adelhelm.

"The typical deadwood employee is someone who'll get all the raises accruing over the years and end up on a much higher rate of pay than someone with three times the output but much shorter service.

"Deadwooders often spend a lot of their working time on company politics, socialising with the right people and can be seen trawling the corridors of power spreading the latest bit of useless information in a bid to be noticed.

"These are comparatively unproductive individuals who always manage to look busy. No one knows what to do with them. It's not uncommon in the larger well known blue-chip iconic companies here."

Many performance-based practitioners stress the importance of differentiating between poor performance and misconduct. The latter constitutes a breach of contract and such behaviour is usually clearly outlined in the contractual document.

Performance issues, including appraisals, are typically cloaked in ambiguity so it's recommended they be accurately documented separately.

In Adelhelm's workshop you'll learn just that. Then you'll identify three things: Is this person able? Is this person willing? And is this person "allowed" to do their job?

While initial training and orientation are expected in any role the capability, experience, skill and aptitude must be noted. Some individuals can satisfy all of the above but lack motivation; this can be a combination of their own attitude as well as the manner in which they're being managed. Allowance relates to company culture, ie, does your office environment work for this employee?

Adelhelm makes it clear the employer needs to ensure the work environment supports maximum performance and employees understand how it will be measured. However, there are sinister alternatives to the rule.

An anonymous contractor for a multi-national food industry corporate says in New Zealand "performance management" is a phrase describing the process to move people out.

"It's my job to measure their performance when we've decided there's no hope for them. I'm legally obliged to tell them I want to help and the measures are being put in place to see them succeed but we've already closed the book on them."

Imagine a sales representative who isn't meeting targets yet has no clearly defined job parameters to prove it. In direct contrast to what you'd expect she suddenly gets a promotion.

There's no way she can satisfy the new impeccably laid-out job description. She's aware she can be hung, drawn and quartered on a number of measures in the 90-day probation period alone. She'll probably walk out before her role is terminated anyway.

The other common tactic is to create a new position which isn't actually a job at all. The sheer lack of work feeding the in-tray on a shabby desk at the end of a long, lonely corridor just breaks the spirit.

Chef Peter Chaplin, of Musical Knives, a specialist catering business bourgeoning once from his Ponsonby Rd, now Melbourne, restaurants says a busy boutique kitchen offers all the fundamental, immediate treatments of dealing with poor performance. For him, what underpins every level of performance is "intent".

"You can teach someone knife skills, but you can't teach them intent," says Peter. "Not everyone in my kitchen will have the same measure of passion as myself but they must have enough to intend to do their best!

"Once you've recognised intent, recognise people's strengths. This offers them the best chance for success, it means you can place them appropriately and lends to their confidence. Lack of confidence can suppress real ability and come out as poor performance."

He uses the example of empowering staff who are at the lower rung of what's acceptable for speed but at the top of the scale on quality and presentation. In contrast, some have a capacity to work well across the board at speed.

"When you need to do a critical appraisal it's very important to start positively; 'I'm happy with what you're doing but there are a couple of areas I feel you're dragging your feet.' Surprisingly, some people were never shown how to do something basic.

"If someone has shown over the course of reviews, retraining and counselling that they still can't do the job then it's perfectly fair to let them go. The reality is if you're playing in an A team you're accountable for a high standard. If someone's made a mistake they're unaware that they deserve a little grace. If that person was already aware of it and wasn't pro-active enough to correct it that's a significant problem."