# Workplace Surgery: Underperforming Long-Term Employee

- **Episode:** [132](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/132.md) (2024-10-01)
- **Type:** workplace-surgery
- **Tags:** underperformer, performance-management, employee
- **Time:** 30:46–36:04 (start 1846s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/132?t=1846](https://truthliesandwork.com/132?t=1846)

---

[30:46] Leanne Elliott: Yes
[30:46] Al Elliott: One of my senior account managers who's been with us for 8 years has been underperforming for the last 6 months. Client feedback has been increasingly negative, and I've noticed a drop in the quality of their work. I've tried having informal chats and providing more support, But there's been no improvement. This employee was once a star performer and has strong relationships with long-term clients. I'm torn between loyalty to a longstanding team member and the need to maintain our agency's reputation. How do I address the situation without damaging team morale or losing valuable client relationships?
[31:22] Leanne Elliott: It sounds like you've done a lot of the, what, of the right things already, the more informal things, the kind of, I've noticed some change in your behaviour, I've noticed some You know shifts in in how you're managing work. Is everything okay? What's going on? Is there anything I can help you with? You know the the I guess the first the first assumption might always be that they're burning out, they're struggling with mental health, something is going on at home, something shifted, and these changes in behavior, these changes in performance are are a result of of these changes they've experienced. Once you've kind of gone past that, and depending on what the outcome of that was, it still sounds like there's something going on. So for whatever reason they're not telling you about it, you need to try and dig a little bit deeper, or indeed try and get somebody else to dig a little bit deeper. For example, if you have a mental health first aider, it might be worth putting them in contact. Equally, it could be an occupational health referral potentially, um, if there's something that's changed within their circumstances that's impacting their work. Um, ultimately it's a performance management issue at this point, isn't it? If you've kind of gone through all those routes, um, performance management always sounds a scary and like it's just a hop, skip, and a jump until you actually let somebody go, but it's not really. A great performance management process will actually help a person improve. A performance improvement plan, a PIP. So, I think we need to probably take a more formal route if we're exhausted the informal, more support-based options. We should still pursue them, but it sounds like we need to get out the performance management paperwork. The thing, the key to that is going to be doing it in collaboration with your member of staff, saying that, you know, it's a really hard situation to, for both of you to be there, for things to get to this point. Um, you're worried for them, you're worried for the performance of the team, you're worried for the experience of clients. It's, it's a critical point now where this needs to be, um, performance needs to be looked at. What can we do? What's, what's changed? What's changed in the clients you're working with, the work that you're doing, the people you're working with the tools and resources that you have, because you used to be a high performer and now you're not. So what's shifted? And by identifying that, you'll be able to put together a performance improvement plan in collaboration with that member of staff. Something has shifted, whether it's personal or professional, something has changed. And then I think once, you know, you go through that process, is sticking to it, having regular check-ins, having set targets that you agreed to meet. And if it goes down the route where they're not meeting those expectations, then it might be time to let them go. Usually, in my experience, at that point, people usually make the decision for themselves if it's no longer a sustainable position for them, for whatever reason that might be. But yeah, I think, I think we're there. What do you think, Al?
[34:16] Al Elliott: Yeah, I totally agree. I think you You hit the nail on the head there by saying, yes, all right, you can look at PIPs, you can look at performance, you can look at in collaboration with, but, but really, 7 and a half years they've been great, 6 months they've not. So Leanne says there's been something has happened 6 months ago. It could be personal, it could be that you brought on someone else, it could be perhaps that someone else got promoted and they weren't happy about it. There could be anything, but until you ask them what happened, You're not going to know. And so that seems to be your first port of call. Don't be subtle about that. Well, maybe speak to Leanne before you speak to them, but I wouldn't be subtle about it. I'd be sitting down and go, 6 months ago, talk me through. There must have been a point where something changed. Tell me honestly. You can tell me anything, even if something I've done
[34:59] Leanne Elliott: And expect this to be a pretty long conversation, a coaching conversation. If you've not got any coaching experience, that's okay. I would say, you know what, just, just find, find a coach, a Um, a career coach could be a good person to go to. A leadership coach could be good as well. Um, and just experience what it is to be coached. That's going to give you a good clue already into the types of questions that you want to be asking, asking how you can, um, how listening is going to be, going to be the key to that. Because it could be— well, yeah, it could take you half an hour before the person actually even starts to open up. So it's going to require a lot of patience as well. But yeah, it's, it's hard, isn't it? Because on one hand, it's like, I don't want to— you're right, Al, 7 and a half years versus 6 months, something, something shifted somewhere. And by understanding that, you'll probably have a better idea of what to do. Equally, you're right, it's 6 months of poor performance. You need to start putting steps in place to, to fix it because it's— it doesn't sound like it's going to get magically better overnight. It sounds like this is a sustained period of underperformance. So yeah, it needs, it needs addressing