Managing poor performance.

To deal with an underperforming team member, do four things in one conversation: describe the specific behaviour with examples and dates, explain the effect it is having on clients, colleagues or the business, ask for their side and listen to it, then agree what good looks like and the date you will both review it. Follow it up the same day with a short email confirming what was agreed. That turns a vague sense of disappointment into a standard, a deadline and a written record.

Performance problems drag on when the first conversation never happens, so the second has to carry months of accumulated frustration. Have the first conversation early, while it is still ordinary management.

Why do owners leave it so long?

Owners delay for four reasons. The conversation is unpleasant and there is always something more urgent. There is a fear of legal risk, although doing nothing creates more risk. There is the hope it will sort itself out, which it rarely does. And there is not knowing what to say.

Meanwhile the rest of the team learns that the standard is optional, and the strongest person often absorbs the extra work. Left long enough, the owner becomes the only person who visibly cares about quality, and ends up as the bottleneck in their own business.

What are the early warning signs?

Early signs include work arriving late or incomplete more than occasionally, output below the agreed standard, a change in how someone shows up in team meetings, and clients or colleagues raising things sideways rather than directly.

At this stage it is a five-minute conversation. Say something the second time you notice the same thing.

Step 1: Check it is a performance problem and not a management one

Before the conversation, ask whether the person knows what good looks like, has been trained to do it, has the tools and time to do it, and has ever been told they are falling short. If the answer to any of those is no, part of this is yours. The will and skill model is the fastest way to sort it: low skill and high will needs training and closer direction; high skill and low will is a motivation or expectation problem and needs a different conversation; low on both often means the person is in the wrong role.

Getting this wrong is expensive in both directions. Training someone who is not willing is money spent on the wrong problem, and disciplining someone who was never properly shown the job is unfair and will be seen as unfair by everyone watching.

Step 2: Gather specifics rather than impressions

Write down three or four concrete instances with dates before you go in. For example: Three of the last five reports arrived after the agreed deadline. Two clients had to chase for a response last month. The handover notes for the March job were not written and someone else spent a day reconstructing them.

Specifics do three things: they make the problem discussable, they stop the conversation becoming about character, and they protect you if the matter later becomes formal. If you cannot produce three examples, you are not ready, or the problem is smaller than it feels.

Step 3: Run the four-part conversation

Do it in private, sitting down, with the door shut and the phone away. Allow twenty minutes.

• Describe the behaviour. Factually, with the examples and dates you prepared, and without interpreting motive. "Three of the last five reports arrived after the agreed deadline" — not "you do not seem to care about deadlines".
• Explain the impact. What it costs the client, the team or the business. This step is often skipped, and it shows why the standard matters.
• Ask for their perspective, then be quiet. There may be a reason you do not know about — a process that changed, a health issue, a problem with someone else in the team, or something at home. Listen properly.
• Agree the standard and the date. What good looks like, in observable terms, by when, and when the two of you will sit down and review it. Put the review in the diary before you leave the room.

If you want a structure for the whole thing, the OARBED model is a useful frame for keeping the conversation above the line — dealing with ownership and accountability rather than blame, excuses and denial.

Step 4: Confirm it in writing the same day

Send a short email that afternoon: what was discussed, what was agreed, what the standard is, and the review date. Six lines is plenty. It records what was understood and gives the person something to work from.

Keep the emails, because they form the record if the situation becomes formal.

Step 5: Hold the review

Hold the review on the date you set, whatever has happened, even if things improved for a fortnight. If it has improved, say so plainly and specifically. If it has partly improved, name which part and reset the rest with a new date.

Step 6: What if it does not improve?

Then you are into a formal process, and this is the point to get proper advice rather than improvising. In Great Britain the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures sets out what a reasonable process looks like, and Northern Ireland has its own LRA code. An employment tribunal can adjust an award by up to 25 per cent where an employer has unreasonably failed to follow the relevant code, so do the process properly from the start.

The formal stage is easier if you have done steps three to five and started early.

What does leaving it cost?

These numbers are illustrative. Take someone on £30,000 a year. With employer National Insurance, pension and the usual overhead, the fully loaded cost is roughly £36,000, or about £3,000 a month. Suppose they are producing around 60 per cent of what the role needs. That gap is worth in the region of £1,200 a month — call it £14,400 over a year of not saying anything.

Add the hours you or a senior colleague spend correcting the work, the client goodwill spent on late delivery, and the effect on the person picking up the slack. Run the same arithmetic on your own figures.

The mistakes to avoid

• Waiting. Every week you wait makes the conversation bigger and your own tone worse.
• Being vague. If the person cannot repeat back what needs to change, you have not said it.
• Doing it in front of others. Correcting someone in a group costs you their trust.
• Not following up. Without a review date there is no conclusion.
• Accepting the first flicker of improvement as resolution. Two good weeks is not a fixed problem.
• Promoting or reorganising around it. Moving someone sideways to avoid a conversation leaves the problem in place.

Performance management is a leadership skill that improves with practice and feedback. Leadership coaching works on it directly, often starting with the conversation you have been putting off for months. If the underlying problem is that too much runs through you in the first place, our guide to building a high-performing team and the post on what good delegation looks like are the natural next reads.