You should never ignore them, and leaving it to wait and see if they get better on their own will never happen. The longer you leave it, the harder it will be to deal with in the long run. Also think about the impact on morale that one person not pulling their weight has on the rest of the team.
If an employee that has always performed well in the past is now not doing so well, the starting point has to be to ask yourself and then them why. They may, for example, have outside issues going on, or are struggling to grasp how to do something new, have they been promoted, do they have a new boss, are they managing new people, is there simply too much work to do, or have they simply slowed down because they never get any feedback.
In a lot of cases the employee will be aware they are not doing as well as normal and would welcome the opportunity to discuss it, and find some informal solutions. However, others will not and in some cases agreeing some informal actions will not resolve the issue. You will then need to embark on a more formal process known as performance management using performance improvement plans (PIP). If this doesn’t work then you move on to potentially terminating employment under capability through the disciplinary process.
We can help with ideas for potential informal solutions, with either setting up a new performance management process or following the one you already have, and with how to progress to disciplinary action including termination of employment.
Please call us on 01483 303636.
