At one time or another we all have to sit down and speak with an employee about their lack of performance. Whether it is lack of knowledge, lack of leadership, deliberate misconduct or personal factors, employees are human and sometimes struggle to get the job done. As a supervisor, you need to dig into what is causing them to fail and help them achieve their goals.

Here is a simple and helpful process for addressing performance issues.

• Ask for time to talk, but do not schedule too far ahead, and don't give more detail than "let's talk," as people will get nervous. An associate of mine at a former company once had a supervisor schedule a meeting to "discuss issues" after her vacation. That's right friends, she had to go through her entire vacation wondering what the "issues" were, wondering if she was going to be fired, and obviously did not enjoy her time off. Don't do that to people, but do schedule a time to talk! If you are onsite and addressing an issue, scheduling time to talk with your employee helps indicate that you are serious and it's not just a casual conversation about performance. On the flip side, if you are a Regional, it's better to schedule ahead than to walk into a property, slam the brakes on the day, and hustle up the manager for a meeting. This is not productive as business will be affected, especially if she is upset after your discussion. Reviews are also not the time to talk about performance issues. If you get to the annual review and there are major performance issues that haven't been addressed, then you have failed as a supervisor.
• Be clear in naming the issue. Many times in an effort to not hurt someone's feelings, we tiptoe around issues. Then we wonder why our employee doesn't know what we expect from her. Be direct, be clear and be concise. It may be difficult to get the words out, and it might be uncomfortable to watch them being heard, but you have to clearly say what is going on. Let's say you have a property manager who is always late. You might have mentioned how important it is to be on time as a leader, and you may have told stories of how you prepared for your day as a manager on site, but you need to be clear: "I want to talk with you about the effect your tardiness is having on property performance and staff morale."
• Select specific examples that show the activities you want to change. Using the above example: When you (as her supervisor) arrived at 9, the office wasn't open yet, and you found a couple of residents outside the doors waiting for service and had to wait, even though the office is supposed to open at 9. When the manager did arrive, there was a bit of chaos as the manager unlocked the doors, went in and tried to take off her coat and sit down bag and lunch, etc. Or as another example, the owner needed some reports promptly this morning, and when you called at 9 am, the phones were still on service.
• Explain what is at stake. Everyone needs to know why you are asking them to do something. In the first case, the residents felt like they were inconveniencing the staff, and we didn't give them calm and organized service we want to provide. The manager was unprepared to start her day and probably felt stressed and rushed. She was unable to settle into work prepared, organized and calm, and perhaps most importantly, couldn't even get her coffee. In the second example, the supervisor and owner were inconvenienced and couldn't get a report that was important in a timely manner.
• Identify your contribution to the problem. Were you clear about your expectations for the manager to be on time? The example I am using is a relatively simple situation, but other contributions to a lack of employee performance could include giving too much work, not helping the employee prioritize, lack of training and micro-managing.
• Make sure the employee knows that you want to resolve the problem. Say the words out loud, "I want to resolve the issue of you coming in late, how can we do that?" This helps clarify the issue and opens the floor to discuss solutions.
• Listen to feed-back and ask leading questions In this example, they might include, "Please tell me what happens in the morning to put you behind? How could we overcome these issues?" Allow your employee to talk, but make sure to keep the conversation on topic. Don't allow her to complain about other issues, such as her staff performance or give excuses, as in "I was here until 7 last night." To which you might respond, "I appreciate it, and sometimes you have to stay late, but that's not what we are discussing today." After careful listening, use this phrase to make sure you understand where your employee is coming from, "May I tell you what I'm hearing?"
• Avoid pitfalls. For the sake of simplicity, I've used an example of a manager coming in late. But sometimes we really need to dig deep with our employees and talk about true issues in performance- blame, anger, lying, lack of discipline, too much discipline, control, lack of production etc. 

There are many pitfalls in these discussions. Here are a few and why to avoid them.

Don't start the conversation with "How's it going?" If you are addressing an issue, there needs to be a feeling of formality in the conversation, and this question opens the door for them to bring up other issues to discuss. You need to stay focused and a bit formal (but kind) in this process.

Don't do the love sandwich. You do this because you feel mean addressing issues, but this confuses the conversation. For example what if you said: "You are great at helping residents. You are bad at getting here on time. You are great at getting reports done." How unclear is that conversation to your employee? She will walk out thinking she is doing a good job and that punctuality is not that important to you, because you are happy with her performance. Love sandwiches are unclear.

Don't be too understanding. Don't say, "I know it is hard for you to get here on time." It is no harder for her than any other employee or yourself or any of the thousands of people who arrive to work on time daily. Don't say, "I understand you have a long commute." She knew that commute when she took the job. Instead, be clear when you are presented with excuses or reasons, "Getting here on time is something that you need to do as a leader. We need to resolve these issues."

Prepare but don't read a script. That isn't a conversation; that's an article. You need to be prepared to genuinely help your employee, not literally read her the riot act. Know the words you want to use, prepare your thoughts, think through possible outcomes, but don't read to them.

Deliver the information slowly. The brain is limited in its capacity to take in information and you need to let your listener catch up and process what you are saying. This often happens when you read a script or when you are nervous and rushing to get through something that is making you uncomfortable. And of course, when you rattle out performance issues- like a machine gun- it feels like a personal attack.

Final Steps:

• End the conversation with "Given everything we've talked about, what do you feel needs to happen?" Allow the employee to guide their correction plan and tell you what needs done. Be prepared with further action points and accountability measures.
• Follow up in writing, with an outline of the improvement plan. This makes sure everyone has notes from the conversation and is clear on expectations.