Welcome to The Navigator, our monthly video series dedicated to helping integrators achieve better business results.
On this episode, Brad Malone is joined by Brad Dempsey, CEO of Solutions360, to talk about performance standards and what to do when employees do not meet expectations.
A question Navigate often hears is –
When people don’t perform to standards, who do we blame?
Is it the Manager’s fault, or the employee?
Ultimately, responsibility always goes to the highest level of authority.
It is the Manager’s responsibility to set realistic expectations, provide the necessary resources, measure to the expectations, and then communicate with people on how they did against those expectations.
We have this yearly performance review. But that ought to happen daily. Either I thank you, or I call you out and go, “Could be better, or we could improve.”
“That’s the pride that I bring when I work with employees is I’m holding them accountable,” says Malone. “But I’m also thanking them incredibly. And I’m trying to grow them to perform to standards.”
It comes back to communicating expectations and accountability, which is very different from placing blame.
In another blog post, we discuss why standards are important and how to get employees to follow them. We conclude that when we follow standards, it allows us to establish, measure, and assure a level of quality and predictability to our clients, and to one another.
Just like we have talked about on so many previous podcasts, it all goes back to culture. And a strong culture is something you create every day.
Also on the podcast, Brad and Brad debate the difference between ‘caring’ and ‘coddling.’
