The Key to Fixing Employee Weaknesses

In a perfect world, managers would never have to worry about employees that don't meet performance expectations. Employees would come onboard with the requisite skills, they would easily adapt to change, and if there were any skill gaps, they would eagerly put in extra hours and training to reach their full potential. In the real world, however, employees manage to slip through the interview process and come into an organization under-prepared. Others fail to progress with changing times and responsibilities. And some just don’t get it, and they make no attempts to improve their performance (read: government employees within two years of retirement).

According to a nationwide survey from NFI Research, the top course of action for managers to deal with weaknesses in their subordinates is to discuss the weakness. The next leading courses of action are to provide additional training, support, regular meetings and then put them on notice.

Even with ongoing performance discussions, only 20 percent of senior executives and four percent of managers said they are extremely successful at correcting weaknesses in others to meet the manager’s expectations or requirements. There are also times that the person and the task or job are no longer a fit, but the challenge is to identify it sooner rather than later for the benefit of both parties.

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Shannon Lear Martin is the President of Austin, Texas based TrainUtopia (www.trainutopia.com) and has been helping companies improve their organizational performance to meet their business goals. She is also considered an expert in training effectiveness measurement. Shannon publishes a monthly newsletter “Training News You Can Use” , which is jammed with resources, articles and tips on performance improvement, training and development. She can be reached at smartin@trainutopia.com.