From an employer’s perspective, the incentive of an outstanding performance review has the potential to motivate. On the other hand, some employers use the other side of the coin-punishment. Unfortunately this usually yields poor results, and if you are about to disappoint and demotivate employees by decreasing salaries or berating them, I suggest you reconsider.

Let me start with a question for employers. Have you listened to employees who give reasons or excuses for not finishing their work properly? Most employers reply with a positive answer. However, by “listen” what I mean is not that you are taking phone calls, reading emails, or dealing with other work at the same time. We are talking about a serious performance review, and without contributing time and effort to employees, employers can hardly help them.

There are generally two types of employees who have difficulty in reaching a key performance index. The first has lazy genes coded into his DNA, while the other is the kind who is generally not clear about how to efficiently and effectively finish tasks at work. With my experience in meeting thousands of candidates and interviewees, the majority of employees belong to this second class. Employees in this group might think that they know how to finish their work properly, but in fact, they simply do not know any better or efficient ways to finish tasks. When you discover employees cannot reach targets due to a lack of efficiency, it is not too late to help solve the problem with employees, and I have summarized five typical flaws regarding employees’ daily working habits.

Difficulties in task arrangement

It is often the case that employees are assigned with many tasks at the beginning of the week. Some employees are well regulated in arranging assignments. However, a large number of employees have no clue which task they should start with. In this regard, it is important to introduce employees to the Pareto Principle, which is widely known as the Principle of 80/20. Ask employees to highlight those 20% of tasks which will be the most effective. Instead of directly telling employees which tasks to do, help them think for themselves. Management experience tells us people who focus on the 20% end up with much more efficient results compared to those who randomly start working.

Problems in time management

The second problem lies in time management, which is closely related to the first problem. A lot of employees have difficulty in arranging their time and workload because they do not fully understand urgency and importance. It is possible employees cannot differentiate which tasks are important and worthy of their time. Helping employees see how they spend their time and which tasks are worth spending time on will help them become more efficient.

Afternoon Farmers

Another common problem is that of “afternoon farmers”, which represents those who have difficulty in overcoming procrastination. Employers might need to be extra careful with this type of employee, as chronic time-wasters may be more trouble than they’re worth and need termination. On the other hand, if you simply find employees are addicted to social media during work hours, as many young people are, then simply communicating expectations with them can often solve the problem.

Thinking about tasks over and over again

“If in doubt, send it out” is a popular saying among employees in my company. I believe in the recruitment business it works well to send out candidate resumes, even when there are concerns or doubts, as opposed to wrestling with one resume for hours on end. We have limited time at work. Spending three hours thinking about various possibilities does not yield efficiency or results. When faced with a troublesome task, the key to the solution is quick action.

Stubborn about their“ideas”

The last problem generally exists among young people. Inspired by the“exciting” and “legendary” stories of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Steve Jobs, Jack Ma and so forth, many seem to misunderstand these pioneers’ sense of creation and innovation. Some even bring this type of spirit to their own work. Some young employees cannot get along well with other team members. Others are rather difficult because they do not listen to the experiences of their managers. Employers with entrepreneurial spirits like employees with creativity and innovation, but not those with stubborn attitudes. But try putting yourself in these young employees’ shoes. Often you can win sincere admiration and respect from them and then they are the most easy-to-manage employees in the company. There are any number of reasons for a poor performance review. In short, before getting angry with inefficient employees, you should look to discover the reasons behind this inefficiency. Helping employees is much more appreciated than criticizing or screaming at them.

The author is Robert Parkinson, CEO & Founder of RMG

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