Managing performance of staff is arguably one of the most critical aspects of your role as a people leader as it can have a drastic and lasting effect on the performance of individuals but also on the team as a whole.

Why is it important?

The performance and attitude of a poorly performing individual on your team can drag down the performance and engagement of the team as a whole.

Simon Sinek discusses high performing teams in his book “Leaders Eat Last” and often uses the Navy SEALS as key examples. High performing teams trust and support each other, they work together to achieve the common goal and are willing to be there for each other.

If one or several members of the team are under-performing in their role and you as a leader don’t help them to get back to an acceptable level or performance, it can also really harm the trust given to you by the rest of the team. By not managing individual performance on the team, you are basically telling everyone else that they will need to pick up the slack indefinitely.

How would that make you feel? To know that you had to come to work and expend 10% more effort every day just to get by?

Key principle – Work together

The key principle of the PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) is that the line manager and the individual work together to bring performance back up to standard.

The PIP is not a tool to fire someone or to punish someone… it is ONLY there to drive individual performance back to an acceptable level.

Make sure to go in to every conversation with a level-head and take a factual approach as a calm mind will help put you both at ease and will allow you to appraise the situation as objectively as possible.

What is causing the low performance?

There are many different reasons why someone could be under-performing; it could be that they are lacking a particular skill, have poor time-management, poor prioritisation, a bad fit for that particular role, lack of interest…

The hard part is pinning this down and sometimes the reason for the poor performance might not be immediately obvious by looking at the symptoms of the issue.

Finding out the reason for the under-performance can be done through observations and through conversations with the individual as well as other members of the team.

At the start of my career as a Project Engineer, I went through a period of under-performance; I wasn’t achieving the desired results and my projects weren’t progressing as they needed to. For me, the under-performance was due to poor time-management and poor planning (well… I planned but never stuck to them). This was the focus of my PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) and it only took me 4 weeks of conscious effort and coaching from my line manager to get everything back on track and to continue achieving at a high level.

The Process:

The process of a PIP is actually quite straightforward, I have included a template that you can download to go along with this post but your company will (should) have their own policy and procedure so make sure you pick up with HR and use this as a place to start. The one I have is the most comprehensive one I have come across and the one I use.

Current state:

Identify the current areas that need to be improved; make sure to have concrete examples of where you have observed the poor performance (Use the SBI model to keep it clear and concise).

Start by giving feedback:

It is important to give your team feedback when you see examples of under-performance. Sometimes this is all that is needed to bring the issue to the attention of the individual. Make sure to ask if they need any support, help or guidance from you at this stage.

Make a note of the conversation that you had with the individual as you might need to refer back to it at a later date if the poor performance (or behaviour) is repeated.

Repeated behaviour:

If you see the issue arising again, I would ask to see the individual away from their area of work (factory production line, their desk etc) and go somewhere you can have a private conversation.

Once again give feedback to the individual about what you have observed, ask if they need any further help and support and make sure to document the conversation. Make sure to remind the individual of the first conversation that you had regarding this issue and discuss why they think that the poor performance has continued.

Perhaps at this stage you might uncover something during the conversation that could be a relatively quick fix with a little more training, support or coaching.

Poor performance continues:

Repeat the step above and this is the stage where I would broach the subject of putting a formal PIP together.

The PIP:

Identify the current state (where is the individual starting from). This gives context to the PIP by highlighting the steps that have resulted in he PIP being formalised. Write down the examples of the poor performance and the summary of the conversations had up until now.

Identify the future state (where you want to get to). This makes it clear what “Good” performance looks like. Use metrics were possible to illustrate this (no more missed quality checks, no more late projects from lack of organisation etc etc).

Identify the key areas needed for improvement (Max 3). This is the top level skill that is required to put performance back on track (The Lominger 67 Competancies are a great place to start – Click here for a link to them with brief descriptions).

Create a 70/20/10 plan for each of the key areas needed for improvement. The 70/20/10 plan refers to the ways in which we can learn and the proportion of effort that needs to be put in to each (70% learn by doing ourselves, 20% learn from others, 10% learn from a course or a book etc).

List specifically WHAT they are going to do in their day to day jobs that will help bring performance back to an acceptable level. For each of the elements of the 70/20/10 plan, agree and write down HOW they will demonstrate that they have done that element of the plan and what they need to bring as evidence to the next meeting (this can be things that they do but also don’t be afraid to include things that you as the line manager are going to do / observe as well).

Agree a timeline (usually 12 weeks but can be more or less as required). Most often it will be hard to see a meaningful improvement in less than 12 weeks so I make this the standard. However for a particularly difficult case where I wasn’t confident that I would see ANY (let alone meaninful) improvement in 12 weeks I made the PIP 4 weeks long and the individual showed no willing to engage with the process at all.

Agree review dates. This is an important step because you need to agree on WHEN you will meet (what week number) and WHAT you will each bring to the review as evidence of improvement. With this, I ALWAYS put the responsibility on the individual to arrange the meeting and give them a 1 week window in which to do it. This puts further responsibility on them to own the process and be engaged in it. I also would put the reviews at no less than 4 weeks apart, once again to give the individual time to make some improvements and gather sufficient evidence.

Review the performance. At each review meeting, discuss how you feel the PIP is going, whether any changes need to be made and then further agree on WHEN you will next meet and WHAT you further evidence of improvement you’d like to see.

After the final review, assess the progress and extend as required (sometimes an extra 4 weeks is helpful to solidify the desired performance in place).

Closing the PIP:

If you are both satisfied after the final review that performance is back on track make sure to congratulate the individual for their efforts! This is likely to have been a stressful time for them and making a marked improvement (even if it’s back to performing well) so make sure you stress this point in the process.

Every time I have gone through this process with an individual (no matter the final outcome) they have shaken my hand and thanked me for my support and help as a line manager. This is a true testament of how well you managed the process and how much the individual felt supported by you as their line manager.

Of those who passed the PIP process, most went on to being amongst the highest performing members of my team and all of them sustained their new level of performance.

One final note:

Please let me know if you’d like me to dive deeper in to any aspect of the PIP or if you have any questions on the above.