Dealing With Poor Employee

Performance: Is eLearning A
"Silver Bullet"?
According to a survey by international pollster Gallup, only 13% of the world's workforce is
"engaged" at work. Out of a roughly 180 million employees in 142 countries polled, a staggering
63% responded that they were not totally committed to their work. Invariably, that
"noncommittal" ultimately translates into poor performance.

So what drives employees to perform poorly? What interventions can organizations put in place
to deal with the challenge? And, is there room for eLearning and instructional design to deal
with declining employee performance?

Uprooting The Roots Of Poor Employee Performance

Very often, management equates poor employee performance to lack of training or experience.
However, poor employee performance is often a symptom of many underlying root causes and
unless those root causes are studied and addressed, spending time and effort on training and
education might not be the best use of limited corporate resources.

In fact, most poor employee performance situations need interventions other than training to
address them effectively.

Here are 5 Ways To Improve Employee Performance.

1. Leadership selection programs

Most employers do not realize it, but the biggest single driver of poor employee performance is
poor supervision. When employees are put in a situation where they lack effective leadership,
their performance often takes a hit. Nonetheless, a surprising number of employers still do not
give manager selection the attention it deserves. Often, leaders who inspire, motivate and
empower their teams are the best "cure" for poor performance. Along with leadership
responsibilities though, comes the need to interact more closely with team members. Select
the right leadership, equip them with appropriate people management soft skills, and your
employees will be top performers.

2. Employee support programs

When managers become aware of poor employee performance, the immediate reaction is
"How do I discipline" the employee for performing poorly - absenteeism, tardiness, missing
deadlines, not doing the work the right way, etc. Instead of taking that approach, why not focus
on the root cause of poor employee performance. What if there is a personal issue plaguing the
employee? If so, disciplining is not the right answer. Perhaps recommending counseling or
other interventions might help with poor employee performance. Investing in adequate
support programs, for instance to manage personal finance, to deal with new-parenting
situations, to confront addictions etc., can often lead to huge returns in the form of a peak
performing workforce.

3. Reward and recognition programs

Too often companies ignore the power of rewards and recognition. Implementing recognition
programs not only "pay" employees for past performance, but they also incentivize future
performance. Feeling respected and recognized amongst their peers inspires employees to
become better performers. Rewarding or recognizing an employee does not always have to be
monetary transactions. In fact, some employees would much rather have their
accomplishments published in the company’s newsletter than receive a $50 gift certificate.
Taylor your reward and recognition programs to fit the work environment, and they will have a
more positive impact on combating poor employee performance.

4. Performance review programs

Too often poor employee performance is flagged once it has already taken deep roots in the
employee’s psyche. Unfortunately, when that happens, addressing the issue is often harder
than addressing it in its early stages. That is where Performance Review Programs (PRPs) can
help. A good Performance Review plan should be designed not to actively seek out poor
employee performance, but to ensure that poor employee performance is highlighted well
before it becomes rampant. To be effective, performance reviews should be conducted at least
once a year (preferably twice), with more frequent (monthly or quarterly) feedback
mechanisms built into them. Managers must always go prepared to these sessions with specific
"evidence" of poor employee performance, or else the meetings could devolve into fruitless
accusation sessions.

5. Mentoring and Coaching Programs

Very few employers have formal mentoring or coaching programs in the workplace. However,
these programs can often offer grassroots intervention to poor performing employees. In some
instance, due to the environment of the work place, formal mentoring might not be possible. In
such environments, "informal" approaches could prove fruitful. Whether it is a formal ("Lets
meet in the conference room tomorrow....") or informal ("Lets chat at lunch break...") approach
that's used, the mere fact that employees have someone to turn to for assistance with poor
employee performance can be of tremendous value to the organization and the employee.

So when it comes to Performance Improvement, where does eLearning fit in?

There is no one who can rationally argue that eLearning does not have a role to play in
enhancing employee performance. It most certainly does! For instance, there are some poor
performance situations that can only be addressed through learning interventions. For instance,
the following poor performance situations can greatly benefit from eLearning and high-quality
instructional design techniques:

 When a new employee misses performance targets (perhaps they need some additional
training)

 When employees have just returned to the workforce after prolonged absence (perhaps
they need a refresher)

 When new techniques and technologies are introduced in the organization (perhaps
whole-scale training is needed)

 When an employee's roles/responsibilities have recently been revised (perhaps review

training may be in order)

All of the cases of poor performance highlighted above can most certainly benefit from
eLearning programs. However, to make a blanket statement that all employee performance
issues can be addressed by re-training or eLearning is a misnomer.

To effectively deal with poor performance, employers must realize the limitations of
organizational training initiatives. ELearning is not a "silver bullet" to cure all poor performance
ills! In some cases, even the best instructional design cannot always fix poor performance
issues. That is because the root causes of those issues are not training-related and may be
anchored to other organizational challenges. In such cases, other performance improvement
interventions, some of which have been discussed above, are needed to improve performance.