 When you have employees on your team that are not hitting targets it is frustrating and a big headache. There are loads of reasons why employees miss targets and as a manager finding out the reasons quickly and taking the right action is good for everyone. Doing nothing and hoping employee performance improves by itself is the worst plan you can make. This doesn't help you nor the employee in question and your inaction will lose the trust of the team around you. There are eight actions to take for employees not hitting targets. The rest of your team will be watching your every action carefully. Taking fair reasonable action is very important for the remaining team. If you are heavy handed the rest of the team will be thinking when is it my turn and motivation and trust in you will drop. Take action and make that action fair and reasonable. My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25 year management career in corporates and household names through to SMEs. Learning how to assess employees not hitting their targets quickly and fairly and taking the right action reinforces to the team the expectations that you set out in a very positive way. And if you are new to this channel enhance.training shares, business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that of your team and business. And if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. Taking action with employees not hitting targets is often about removing all the potential excuses they might have and gradually increasing the pressure to improve as well as increasing the support levels alongside this. The first action to take for employees not hitting their targets is to ask them what the problems are. Asking the team member is a great starting point. Be upfront and say you are worried that they are not hitting targets and you want to understand what is causing this. Reach the conversation from the angle that you want to help them i.e. be supportive. Manage your body language and tone of voice carefully so you don't come across an accusatory checking up on them manner which will limit what you find out. The range of replies can be huge from a list of lame excuses to highlighting real problems that you are not aware of or didn't fully understand the impact on the employee. There will be times that the employee is not able to articulate any good reasons. Try not to make judgements at this point. Sometimes they just don't know or they are not brave enough to tell you directly. Asking the employee should point you in the right direction of the problems causing the employee to miss targets. The second action to take for employees not hitting targets is assess if the targets are unrealistic. You do take a proper look at targets and the circumstances the employee is in. If they are one of several team members with the same targets and the other employees are ahead of target then this check becomes really quick. If they are the only person with the targets, break down the target into the assumptions made when setting the target. Compare these assumptions to what has actually happened. Are the assumptions about right or are they way off? This approach gives you a much less subjective approach to assessing if the target is unrealistic. If the targets are unrealistic reset the target using the more accurate assumptions. If the targets are realistic move on to check other reasons for employees not hitting targets. The third action to take for team members not hitting targets is to check the employee has the right tools and resources. If the employee is being asked to hit targets but has limited budget or limited access to the right people or information then it's not surprising they're falling behind. Examples of resources include time, skills and knowledge, budget, manpower, system access, data insights etc. If a lack of tools or resources is an issue do what you can to fix this as quickly as possible. The fourth action to take for employees not hitting targets is to review if the employee has the right training. I've not had enough training is almost a standard excuse you hear from many employees who are not hitting their targets. Most of the time training is not the issue. Sometimes training is the issue so do carefully check to see if they have been trained at least as well as other people doing the same or similar roles. If the training might be the issue and it can be undertaken by you or another trusted team member then providing the training again is a sensible option. Not everyone learns in the same way or at the same speed so retraining can genuinely help and it sends a very positive message to the team member. If training is definitely not the issue then explain why you think training is not the issue to the employees missing targets and see what they say. You could say something like you've received the same training as the other three members of the team who are hitting their targets. Can you be more specific in explaining why you think lack of training is an issue for you? This approach will often stop further unnecessary training requests. The fifth action to take for employees not hitting targets is to assess if they have enough support. An action I often take with those struggling to hit targets is to book in extra one-on-one meetings and provide mentoring support. Or you could ask a trusted team member to do this for you. Providing additional support is a great way to really understand exactly what support they need and what the underlying reasons for not hitting targets actually are. Getting extra help is nearly always well received by a team member. You might not be the best person to provide support if specialist skills or experience would be useful. Work out with the employee who would be best to support them and get that support in place. Providing additional support is a good step to take as you will find out a lot more and you remove a potential excuse. The sixth action to take for employees not hitting targets is check if they are being pulled off the task or project. As a manager you should be aware of what your team members are working on. I always ask the employee if they have conflicting goals or if they are helping others out which is taking up a lot of their time or doing additional tasks etc. I have seen employees being pulled from pillar to post with urgent requests and changing goals. Make sure your employee has reasonable conditions in which to hit their targets and you are protecting them enough so they can hit their targets. Basically make sure they are not being prevented from hitting targets through workload issues. The seventh action to take for employees not hitting targets is to start a personal improvement plan. Take this step when you have gone through the previous checks and actions. A personal improvement plan or PIP is first and foremost about providing structured support and help to the individual. Your primary goal is improving their performance and helping them hit their targets. Work out where they are today and where they need to get to so they can hit their targets. Break this gap down into the activities and many projects to make up this gap. Take the employee through how they can improve their performance in each of the areas identified and show them what good looks like. Don't agree with the employee document each element, where they are now, where they need to get to and how they should improve. Add in milestones to the plan. Then book in a weekly one on one sessions with the employee to mentor and coach them. Also book in a monthly review meeting to check performance improvements. I normally run PIPs over three months which gives a reasonable timeframe for the employee to improve without it being too long if they don't. The eighth action to take for employees not hitting targets is take formal action. If you have removed all the potential barriers preventing the employee hitting targets and you have started or completed a three month PIP and you are not seeing any or enough improvement then I suggest you take formal action. This might be moving the PIP into a more formal process, for instance including HR in each of the review meetings and highlighting the consequences of not improving. Or you might move straight into a formal disciplinary process. You should definitely consult with your HR department on this process and make sure you comply with company policy and all your legal requirements. In my experience four out of five times taking a supportive approach while making expectations clear will result in the employee improving their performance. After all most employees want to do a good job. In the remaining cases just the action of setting out expectations clearly and then taking action against those expectations signals to any difficult employees that their behaviour or actions are not acceptable and you will be on their case. Most of the time they choose to move jobs seeking an easier life or an easier manager to deal with. In a few cases you will go through disciplinary processes to remove employees not hitting targets from your team. Make your actions about support first and foremost and don't let team members off the hook. There are lots of actions you can and should take with employees not hitting targets. Finding out what the actual cause of the missed targets is super important before deciding on the course of action to address these issues. You're in the spotlight at all times as a manager. Make sure you treat your employees fairly and offer support without letting poor work or behaviour continue. This balanced approach sends a very positive message to the other team members. To recap, the eight actions for employees not hitting targets are, firstly ask your employee what the problems are, secondly assess if the targets are unrealistic, third check the employee has the right tools and resources, fourth review if the employee has the right training, fifth assess if they have enough support, sixth check if they are being pulled off the task or project, seventh starter performance improvement plan and then eight take formal action. Good luck improving your employee's performance. If you have any questions please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.