New Hire Not Meeting Expectations? Ask Yogesh Sood.
Dear Yogesh,
I’ve been promoted to a managerial position in our growing not-for-profit organization that helps the underprivileged with basic needs. Whenever there is an opening, we prefer to take our interns or previous alumni of our various programs.
Six months ago, I hired an intern who had previously worked with us. During his internship, he showed sheer determination and high performance, because of which we were convinced that he would make a perfect fit for the position. He also had good grades in college and other recommendation letters, which further convinced us to take the decision.
As per past experience, I expected that he’d catch the work easily and blow us all away with his splendid performance. However, this never happened. He just doesn’t seem to get the work and is making silly mistakes every now and then. He doesn’t retain any learning and often forgets steps and simple processes to do certain tasks. I have to remind him to do tasks and also tell him the way they should be done over and over again.
The sole reason for hiring him was to free me up so that I could concentrate on other critical tasks. But, unlike I thought, I’m constantly struggling with explaining things to him along with re-teaching the basics, which are taking more time and have doubled my efforts.
Now I’m frustrated and confused about how to deal with my daily tasks and responsibilities. The job which I used to love now seems like a burden to me. I don’t know how to get up to him and convey that his performance is not up to the mark and is driving me crazy.
Any advice would be welcome.
Signed,
Shruti
Dear Shruti,
This really sounds frustrating. I can feel your agony through this message. However, I am pretty sure that your junior is equally frustrated about not being able to meet the desired results. Listening to criticism can be frustrating for him as well. This seems like the perfect opportunity to enroll in our time-tested, research-based development model, The SLII® program.
SLII® Model helps managers like you with breaking down the goal and targets along with diagnosing the competence and skills of an employee that provides confidence to each employee in relation to the task and identify what kind of leadership style will be suitable in that situation.
According to this time-tested model, your employee, let’s call him X, is stuck at the beginner level, which will be The Development Level One, “Enthusiastic Beginner.” He thinks it is required for him to seek approval for everything he’s doing. It’s either he is underconfident or can’t build competence to do the task. There can be a few solutions:
- It is fairly possible that X has a learning/retaining disability, which makes it hard for him to understand and retain information. For this, you’ll have to ask X to take notes and provide him with clear written instructions so as to make things better.
- Maybe X is still in the process of understanding things and sees himself as the naive intern who is still a subordinate and needs instructions for everything. Sometimes people who are new to the working environment just need heads up for things.
- Another case that could prevail is that your employee does not have a clear idea of what is to be done. This may sound surprising, but I once got a similar kind of situation where one of my colleagues was mad at her boss. Her boss kept saying things like, “we need to get this done and that done.” However, what he meant by ‘we’ was ‘you’. Probably he didn’t want to sound bossy, but this created confusion between the two. My friend kept waiting for the heads up but instead got angry texts asking her for the delay in the work. She was jilted to see such messages as she thought she’ll be getting clear instructions. Due to this indirect communication, things got delayed and messed up.
There are a lot of reasons we can think of, but the only solution to this is to clearly ask him. Forget about your past experiences with him and ask him directly. You can use the following questions.
I have clarified how this needs to be finished a few times now, which is alright. Notwithstanding, I had expected that you would have the option to do it all alone now. Would you be able to assist me with getting what is hindering that?
Is it conceivable that the manner in which I have clarified this isn't clear?
Would it be useful for me to make written guidelines for a portion of these works?
Is there something I am doing or saying that persuades you to think that I don't confide in you to do this assignment all alone?
What might give you the certainty you need to do this all alone?
What do you require from me that you are not getting?
The key is for you to sympathetically share your assumptions for how he ought to get done and ask him how you can make an arrangement to assist him. Imagining all is well won't get both of you to any place.
So do what needs to be done and raise the issue. The sooner you do, the sooner you will know what's going on with everything. I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Yogesh Sood
The above is inspired by a blog written by Madeleine Homan Blanchard on SEPTEMBER 4, 2021: