PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT PLANS Are They Worth the Effort? GIVE EMPLOYEES A SECOND CHANCE AT SUCCESS By Paul Schaber O ver the decades, I’ve dealt with employees who have run afoul of their organization for various reasons. For the most part, these issues revolve around one or more of the following problems: 1. BEHAVIORAL: An employee behaves poorly, resulting in insubordination, poor communication, or inappropriate actions toward fellow employees and management. While this usually results in a bad outcome, it doesn’t have to. 2. PROCEDURAL: An employee doesn’t follow company rules or policies – for example, poor attendance, not completing paperwork on time, taking unauthorized breaks, etc. Again, while this normally results in a bad outcome, it doesn’t have to. 3. THE JOB: An employee isn’t capable of performing the job up to standard for whatever reason. While it can be any combination of things, it may only be because the employee is not capable of doing the job right, no matter how much training or support you are willing to provide. Whatever the cause, employee performance issues are upsetting to not just you and the employee, but all of your staff. They see what is going on and will wonder what you are going to do about it. You have a much bigger audience than just you two, and that audience is impatient. Employees pay more attention to your actions than your words. The best option is to say what you will do, then follow through. This will allow you to earn the respect of your employees while dealing with the performance issue. How Do I Get Started? The operative word here is started. You must have a plan and you must follow it. But simply following a process and completing the paperwork doesn’t guarantee a positive outcome. It’s not about the form or process; it’s about what you say to the employee and that you follow through on what you say. And remember, this is about changing behavior, not punishing it. Here are steps to take to get started on changing the employee’s behavior: 1. Zero in on what happened. Obtain details of the employee’s behavior with specific examples of what the employee said and what the employee did. Interview co-workers who were present or customers/vendors who know what happened. You need objective evidence before, during, and after the action to know what went wrong. By getting details, there will be little doubt in anyone’s mind what behavior or process needs to be corrected. 2. Make sure it is actually about behavior and not about a system failure or a lack of training. There can be a lot of reasons why an employee failed that may not have anything to do with the employee. Looking in the mirror can provide a lot of useful information for anyone willing to peek. If it isn’t 100 percent the employee’s fault, you must be willing to acknowledge that fact and share the blame with the employee. To do otherwise will guarantee the failure of any corrective action or performance improvement plan. If an employee can honestly say, “Yeah, but ... ,” you have a different problem to deal with. If you decide the employee can’t do the job because of outside matters, you have the ability to fix it by providing the training, equipment, or materials to get it done. If the employee knows how to do the job and chooses not to, then you have a more difficult problem to fix. Some say this is when you discipline. But, depending on the reason for willfully disobeying a rule or behaving badly, the employee may still be persuaded to change direction if they know their employment is in jeopardy. 3. Once you are on solid ground as to what happened and how it can best be corrected, you can start by plugging the employee into the process. A written performance improvement plan process results in precise documentation of the event, so you essentially combine two tasks into one. Any written plan from the employee should be signed by all parties and should be part of that employee’s records. It should include 20 HBMA BILLING • MARCH.APRIL.2015
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