9 Ways to Help an Underperforming Employee Succeed

Employee engagement levels dropped to the lowest in over a decade in 2024, according to research from Gallup. It’s no secret that keeping morale high across your workforce is a difficult job for any manager—let alone engaging employees who are underperforming at work. Recent reports from Gallup have also highlighted that a fully engaged workforce would add $9.6 trillion to the global economy.

Developing a good framework where activities can be analyzed and responsibility is taken effectively should help to avoid situations in which employees are underperforming at work. But it’s inevitable that every so often someone on the team will need a pep talk.

Find the cure with our guide, where we’ve looked at how to identify underperformance, considered the impact of underperforming employees, and provided nine ways to support an underperforming employee.

What is an underperforming employee?

An underperforming employee isn’t meeting the standard required of their role according to specific employee performance metrics.

When an employee underperforms, they may fail to meet the expectations of their position, and their work might be incomplete, late, or poorly done. Although the employee may view this issue as something solely relevant to their personal work level, it can reflect poorly on the whole organization.

How to identify underperforming employees

Here are three key signs of a poor-performing employee in the workplace:

1. Inability to meet deadlines.  When employees cannot regularly do their work within the set time, there could be a problem with productivity. While managers should first ensure that there is adequate time allotted, it’s also the employee’s responsibility to manage their time as required.
2. Low-quality work.  The amount of work completed is not the only factor to consider. If employee output is of low quality, managers should know the right questions to ask an underperforming employee to get back on track.
3. Low morale.  Disinterest and underperformance can fester and slowly become a more permanent issue if low morale is not managed. A lack of accountability for underperformance can spread frustration that negatively impacts the team’s positive energy.

What is the impact of underperforming employees?

The impact of underperforming employees goes far beyond the employees themselves and could be a costly disadvantage to an organization. For example, underperforming employees can contribute to:

• Low productivity. Underperforming employees could contribute less to your team’s output. If they’re unable to meet deadlines or targets, it can delay client deliverables and lead to dissatisfaction.
• Increased pressure on teammates. If an employee isn’t pulling their weight, there may be occasions when it falls on the rest of the team to pick up the slack. This may lead to resentment among other workers and a negative workplace culture.
• Poor morale. If other team members are overworked because of another’s poor performance, it may negatively impact team morale.
• Higher employee turnover. Underperforming employees may be more likely to leave the company. Reduced morale in the team may also lead to your top talent looking for roles elsewhere.

The most common causes of underperforming employees

To deal with an underperforming employee, managers must first identify the root of the problem. Underperformance can be a result of many factors, including:

• Lack of skills
• Unclear expectations of results
• Lack of motivation, incentives, or job dissatisfaction
• Mismatch of culture and mindset
• Mental health issues caused by stress, personal issues, or other medical conditions
• Repetitive or mundane work
• Improper onboarding of new employees.

How remote work can contribute to underperforming employees

The working-from-home revolution has changed the game, in many ways positively, but it can also bring challenges to productivity due to potential distractions and technical issues.

• Work environment changes.  With remote and hybrid work now common, employees need to be trained on how to collaborate with teams across various locations.
• Unclear accountability.  A lack of active supervision can lead to inefficiencies in working methods if they are not correctly set up. HR should encourage regular check-ins with remote and hybrid employees to promote greater accountability.
• Lack of structure.  Your employees may need support in creating a working-from-home setup to thrive. Proximity to disturbances or sharing the workspace with children, partners, and pets can all impede concentration and quality of work. Remote working requires maintaining a good level of discipline to keep work and home life separate.

How to handle underperforming employees

Organizations should introduce actionable strategies that focus on feedback and improvement rather than punishments and penalization. While competitive approaches may energize some employees, they can discourage others and even encourage unethical behavior.

By creating an atmosphere that aligns with the company’s long-term goals, you can iron out uncertainty as employees find their rightful place. This includes:

• Informing employees of the overarching culture and finding the right fit for them
• Honest conversations for helping employees sort through personal issues
• Fostering teamwork through clear lines of communication between members
• Developing a framework of positive feedback that shows definitive results.

9 collaborative ways to support underperforming employees

1. Assume the best

One of our company values at BambooHR is "Assume the Best." That doesn’t mean ignoring problems or letting poor performance slide—but it does mean giving an employee the time and space to practice and improve. After identifying areas for improvement in one-on-one meetings or in a performance improvement plan (PIP), it’s important to give employees opportunities to improve without undue scrutiny or micromanagement. This is where using SMART goals can be helpful.

2. Try the SMART system

Sometimes all you need is the right acronym. The SMART system is a tried and tested management technique that stands for:

• S pecific
• M easurable
• A chievable
• R elevant
• T ime-bound

With clear goals in mind, employees can quickly develop plans to achieve results while managers can provide real-time feedback on their work. With time, this focused way of working can boost results and morale.

3. Connect performance measurement to larger goals

Take a moment to review your goals and how they interconnect and align.

For example, what is your current office attendance policy trying to achieve? Are you trying to improve office culture or collaboration between teams? When it comes to development, is the goal of your performance review process to justify someone’s current compensation or to develop their career in your organization? Over time, asking these questions will help these goals become clear to your employees as they experience your day-to-day culture.

4. Recognize and account for manager subjectivity

The flipside of an underperforming employee can be an overly subjective manager. While there’s no escaping manager subjectivity with standardized employee assessment practices, a manager’s opinion may be helpful when an employee’s contributions aren’t easy to quantify.

5. Communicate frequently and openly

The best time to help an underperforming employee change course is right after they make a wrong turn, not six months down the road. Developing a combination of informal in-the-moment feedback and regular one-on-one meetings can allow managers to make these corrections and give employees the chance to provide their feedback.

6. Create a positive atmosphere

Mental health plays a vital role in productivity. With employees working from a variety of locations and through different means—like hybrid, office, or remote—they can face burnout. Creating a sociable environment free of toxicity that’s accessible digitally can help employees gel with each other and reduce the anxiety that comes from a solo remote environment.

7. Create team-based incentives

Rather than competitive incentives for employees, whole teams should be incentivized so they can support one another and upskill their teammates to perform their best. The idea of “if we all fail, we fail together” creates a spirit of duty and respect if people are honest with one another.

8. Develop a personalized improvement plan

Every employee is unique, and their performance improvement plan should be tailored to their problems and skillset. Managers should work with each employee to identify their strengths and weaknesses and develop a personalized plan that speaks to both theirs and the company’s goals.

9. Offer constructive feedback

Employee feedback should focus on how your underperforming employees can improve their current work style. The point here is to reach a position of better understanding, so that you can also implement changes across the company.

Your employees are your organization’s most valuable asset—not just for what they’re contributing today, but for their future potential. The decision on how to manage poor performance in the workplace can shape the long-term outlook of the company, so remember to remind employees of the talents that got them hired in the first place.

4 questions to ask an underperforming employee

No matter where you are in the implementation process for improving employee performance, you should always stay connected with your employees through honest dialogue.

Here are four questions to ask underperforming employees:

1. How are you feeling?
Before moving the direction of the conversation towards work, a general catch-up about their mental health will offer more insight into how they’re doing personally. It may help to understand some context around their performance.

2. How would you rate their current performance?
Your employees may not realize that their work is subpar. Allowing them to rate and discuss their performance will help troubleshoot this and provide insights into their perceived standards.

3. Is there a reason behind the decline in performance I should be aware of?
Before implementing solutions for underperformance, focus on understanding the reasons for the reduction in performance levels.

4. Is there anything you need to do your best work?

This should help shed light on whether the employee is well-matched with their respective role. If employees can perform tasks that fit their skills better and assist the team, doing so may boost both performance and morale.

Create an action plan for non-performing employees

Your action plan for non-performing employees will be unique to each situation. The first step is understanding why their performance isn’t up to scratch. Whether there’s a lack of skill, motivation, or added external pressures like mental health or work-life balance concerns, communicate with your employee to create a personalized performance plan to help guide them back on track.

Underperforming employees can affect your whole team—not to mention the bottom line. Our solutions can create a culture of feedback so you can give underperforming employees the support they need. Try out the suggestions above and get your team doing the very best work possible.