The cost of labor in any type of business is an enormous expense and therefore, we must insure they are performing at their very best at all times. Anytime an employee or group of employees, are not producing up to an established standard it is very important to develop a performance improvement plan to reverse that trend immediately. Every day that we delay any action we are losing money which will be making it even harder to meet our budgeted financial goals.
Understanding that in order for us to know whether our employee or employees are performing to a set standard we must first develop and establish those standards. As we do develop those standards they must be measurable, or they will mean nothing. So if your company makes widgets then we must know how much labor it will take to produce those widgets.
It is important to know if our standard is measurable. The key to producing any performance standard is to separate all the tasks that are necessary to accomplish the overall objective into smaller individual measurable ones. By breaking the tasks down it will help us determine what the employee may need help with. For instance if we are comparing this with a sport like baseball and the player is having trouble with their swing we would break the swing down into individual movements, i.e., stance, foot movement, upper body movement, bat location, etc.
Therefore if we are trying to produce a widget like we talked about above it is crucial that we determine each step necessary that is required to accomplish making a great widget. The most effective way to accomplish this is to time and count every necessary step that is required in order to make an acceptable widget. The next important process is to record every step that must be performed so that you can then evaluate the employee performing them for you.
We are now at the point you can produce a formal employee performance improvement plan so that you are able to hold the employee accountable in order to meet the established standard. The best performance improvement plan will have established requirements that the employee must accomplish to bring them back up to standard, such as training classes. Those requirements must include reasonable completion dates that both you and the employee have agreed upon. In order to make sure that progress is being made during the process it is critical that you have regularly scheduled follow meetings.
Make sure that you document every step of the improvement process, and the employee's progress as you work through that plan with them. In the event the employee is unable to meet the standard after you have made a reasonable attempt to help them, you may have to let them go. Having sufficient documentation within your performance improvement plan, showing you gave the employee an opportunity to improve their performance will be a tremendous advantage in the unlikely event the employee should take legal action against you.
Understanding that in order for us to know whether our employee or employees are performing to a set standard we must first develop and establish those standards. As we do develop those standards they must be measurable, or they will mean nothing. So if your company makes widgets then we must know how much labor it will take to produce those widgets.
It is important to know if our standard is measurable. The key to producing any performance standard is to separate all the tasks that are necessary to accomplish the overall objective into smaller individual measurable ones. By breaking the tasks down it will help us determine what the employee may need help with. For instance if we are comparing this with a sport like baseball and the player is having trouble with their swing we would break the swing down into individual movements, i.e., stance, foot movement, upper body movement, bat location, etc.
Therefore if we are trying to produce a widget like we talked about above it is crucial that we determine each step necessary that is required to accomplish making a great widget. The most effective way to accomplish this is to time and count every necessary step that is required in order to make an acceptable widget. The next important process is to record every step that must be performed so that you can then evaluate the employee performing them for you.
We are now at the point you can produce a formal employee performance improvement plan so that you are able to hold the employee accountable in order to meet the established standard. The best performance improvement plan will have established requirements that the employee must accomplish to bring them back up to standard, such as training classes. Those requirements must include reasonable completion dates that both you and the employee have agreed upon. In order to make sure that progress is being made during the process it is critical that you have regularly scheduled follow meetings.
Make sure that you document every step of the improvement process, and the employee's progress as you work through that plan with them. In the event the employee is unable to meet the standard after you have made a reasonable attempt to help them, you may have to let them go. Having sufficient documentation within your performance improvement plan, showing you gave the employee an opportunity to improve their performance will be a tremendous advantage in the unlikely event the employee should take legal action against you.
About the Author:
Greg has provided information on how to develop an improvement plan on his website, Good Leadership Skills for Life. Greg has also provided many free improvement plan examples.
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