As a business owner, you’ve likely had to deal with employees that are falling behind or not meeting performance standards. This can be a difficult and frustrating issue to deal with for both you and your employees. How can you help an unmotivated employee get back on track while still upholding your company standards? Here’s how:
Make Room for Progress
One reason an employee might lose energy and fall behind is because they do not have a clear understanding of their career path at your organization. If an employee feels like they won’t make any more progress, they may become unmotivated and less productive. To combat this, make sure employees have clear, attainable goals. These goals should be tailored to the employee’s interests and talents and tied back to shared company goals. Making progress toward goals will likely spur the employee to better productivity habits and greater happiness at work.
Set Clear Expectations
It is unfair to discipline employees for poor performance if productivity guidelines are vague or confusing. Take steps to ensure that your expectations are clear. Additionally, you will want to talk about performance with your employees frequently to ensure understanding. Poor performance might improve when employees have a better understanding of what is expected.
Document Infractions
Once you’ve set clear expectations with your employees, it will be easier to start documenting infractions. Having regular conversations about performance and goals with employees will give them space to ask for help and make the corrections needed to get back on track. Also, if the employee doesn’t change their behaviors, documenting performance conversations will allow you to terminate employment knowing you have done all you can to help them meet expectations.
Handling unmotivated employees can be challenging, but there are ways to get your employees back on track. Follow this advice to better deal with unmotivated employees.