When an employee is not meeting expectations, one of the first things we tend to hear is that there is a “performance issue”. It has become a bit of a catch-all term in workplaces, covering everything from missed deadlines and poor-quality work through to inappropriate behaviour, repeated lateness and refusing to follow a manager’s direction. The problem is that these things do not necessarily belong in the same bucket, and treating them as though they do can send a manager down the wrong path from the outset.
So what’s the difference?
Performance generally relates to an employee’s ability to carry out their role to the standard reasonably expected of them.
Conduct relates more to their behaviour at work and whether they are meeting the behavioural standards, policies and obligations that come with being an employee.
It sounds like a fairly technical distinction, but it has very practical consequences. If someone is struggling because they do not have the skills, knowledge or experience required to perform part of their role, the sensible response will usually involve clearer expectations, feedback, training and an opportunity to improve.
If that same person understands what is required, is capable of doing it and is deliberately refusing to do so, we’re potentially dealing with a conduct issue instead. The appropriate conversation, and potentially the process that follows it, may be quite different.
To put this into a clearer example, consider something as ordinary as an employee who repeatedly fails to submit a weekly report on time. There are any number of reasons this might be happening. They may be struggling with the system used to produce it, they may not understand which information needs to be included, or their workload may make the deadline unrealistic. It is also possible that nobody has ever clearly explained that Friday afternoon is a firm deadline rather than a general preference.
Now imagine that the employee has produced the report correctly many times before, understands the deadline, has been reminded about it and has responded that they do not see any value in the report and therefore do not intend to keep doing it. The observable problem is still a missing report, but the circumstances behind it are very different. Looking only at the outcome tells us very little about how the issue should actually be managed.
This is why it’s important for managers to be cautious about jumping immediately to labels. Before deciding whether something is poor performance, misconduct or potentially both, it is worth spending some time understanding what has actually happened and why.
When performance issues aren’t so obvious…
Sometimes there is a straightforward capability issue. An employee may have moved into a more senior position and be struggling with responsibilities they have not handled before. A new system may have been introduced without enough training. The employee may understand the technical side of the role but have difficulty prioritising a much larger workload. In other cases, the standard itself may never have been properly communicated.
Managers can underestimate this last point. Expectations that feel completely obvious to someone who has been in an organisation for years might not be as obvious to the person receiving the feedback. So in these cases, telling an employee that they need to “communicate better”, “show more initiative” or “be more proactive” may feel like clear feedback from the manager’s side of the desk, while leaving the employee with very little idea about what needs to change.
Useful performance feedback needs enough detail for the employee to understand the gap. If the concern is communication, for example, it is much more helpful to explain that project updates are regularly being provided after deadlines have passed and that risks need to be escalated earlier. The employee then has something concrete to work with, and both parties have a much clearer basis for assessing whether improvement occurs.
Performance management should therefore involve more than documenting what somebody is doing badly, and it’s important to note that none of this means an organisation has to accept poor performance indefinitely. Employees can and should be held to reasonable standards. It simply means they should know what those standards are and have a genuine opportunity to meet them.
Of course, not every failure to meet an expectation is a performance problem. There comes a point where capability may have very little to do with what is happening. An employee may understand the requirement, have the ability and resources to meet it, and still behave in a way that falls short of what the workplace reasonably expects.
That takes us into different territory. In Part Two, we’ll look at conduct, where the lines become less tidy and the questions managers need to ask start to change.
How Can We Help?
All performance management systems require encouragement from strong leaders to help drive a workplace culture that values improvement.
Workplace Wizards can assist you with creating and implementing performance management systems from the top down, protecting your business interests whilst saving you tens of thousands of dollars and hours in time.
For specialised assistance, contact us at support@workplacewizards.com.au to discuss how you can set the standard for your teams and make your organisation more effective.
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