Here’s another good question asked in my recent webinar, “Effectively Growing Your Key Talent: Are You Sunlight and Water — or Just Manure?”
Q: Some staff don’t know what they need to grow. What to do with them?
A: It’s my belief that part of a manager’s job if to help guide their staff to grow in what interests the employee or where s/he has a talent or where the organization needs good performers.
These may not match up, as an employee may have an interest/talent but the organization doesn’t have a need for what they want to hone. Or the organization may have a need for skills but the employee isn’t interested in acquiring those skills.
In addition to exploring development areas in the annual evaluation, I encourage managers to have monthly or quarterly check ins to see if the employee is on track with their development plan.This also gives you an opportunity to see if the employee has other interests or discuss potential growth areas to match the organization’s needs.
If your employee doesn’t know they need to grow, the fault lies in the manager for not informing them. If the employee isn’t producing at the same level as the rest of the team, it’s imperative s/he knows that before the annual review. It’s not fair to them to be blind sighted, nor to the organization to have them perform under par for months. And of course it’s not fair to the rest of the team to have to pick up the slack of an unaware team member.
So if someone on your staff doesn’t know they need to grow, have a conversation with him/her today. You’re doing him/her, your team and yourself a disservice by letting it go another day.