by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on July 18, 2017
As a project manager, you can’t tolerate your subordinate who misses deadliness most of the time. One team member who’s not productively working might have a negative impact to your team’s performance or to your business if you’re an entrepreneur (it costs you money).
If one of your subordinates didn’t meet a deadline just once, give him the benefit of doubt. However, if he consistently misses deadlines, it’s time to address the issue.
Here are three actionable tips to help you deal with this kind of situation:
1. Identify the reason why he’s not meeting the deadline
There are two main reasons why a person doesn’t meet deadlines.
First, he is not really dedicated at work – an attitude case.
Second, he strives hard to meet the deadline but fails – a striving case.
One way to see which of the two things above may be his reason for not meeting deadlines is through effective communication.
You won’t get a good answer and he might only backstab you if you try to scold him. There’s a proper way to do it. During a 1 on 1 talk (informal or formal discussion), you can ask simple questions to help you sense which ones he is having a difficult time on.
It is your job to find what can be fixed immediately. Don’t neglect this as this will make your team performance suffer.
If it is an attitude case, apply tip #2.
If it is a striving case, apply tip #3.
2. Provide programs for character development
If he doesn’t care at all, it’s important to build a stronger relationship with your subordinate. The more he is open to you, the easier for you to discern what may be the cause of failure. This is not fail-proof, but if you take this a chance, you’ll see that you can solve other problems that subordinate might also been experiencing – i.e. he think he’s not well appreciated (yes, some employees are emotional), he thinks you’re not approachable so he thinks twice before he asks questions, so on and so forth.
If you are a stakeholder or an entrepreneur, incentives and rewards might also add motivation for your employees. It’s not money that will make them accomplish feats, it’s the sense of accomplishment on top of the reward that’ll push them to work excellently.
Incentivize based on key performance indicators (KPIs), either a two-day off from work if he meets a monthly or quarterly quota, employee bonus whether individual or team are good strategies to incentivize your staff.
Hire a corporate speaker or trainer to talk about WAVE – Work, Attitude, Values and Excellence to pump up your employees and do the jobs well. Remember, some bad attitudes are inhibited, and may only be solved with firm personal decisions to change.
3. Give solutions for internal and external factors
If it’s not attitude, what may be the other reasons?
For your striving subordinates that fail, there are six reasons why he didn’t accomplish the project on time:
A. Lack of Experience
This is pretty common for workers who just had a first jump to a project they’re not familiar with. If the company doesn’t have a robust training program before every new hire starts an actual task, this often leads to failure to complete the project.
If it is lack of experience, send your subordinate to a training program, preferably in-house, so you can pick and choose which ones are only needed for him to advance his skill.
If you are a startup entrepreneur, invest in creating a PIP (Performance Improvement Program) for your staff as he go along with the career journey in your company. This is to ensure that he has room for learnings new skills and knowledge in your industry.
B. Unrealistic Deadlines
There are only two people accountable to this: the project manager or the worker himself.
If the deadline is set by the project manager (YOU), which happens in most cases, then you have to review the project and see if there are any tasks inside the project that made the delay. You can streamline the process and breakdown workflow tasks to make it more efficient for your subordinate.
If the deadline is set by the worker himself, review if he is making promises beyond his capability. He may be using empirical evidence to judge his capacity. Over-optimism may be a problem here, but show him his past performance to determine if the deadline is feasible or not.
You can also incorporate safety buffers or allowances for your projects to compensate unexpected developments or immediate issues need to be resolved while working on the project.
C. Unqualified
You can’t fire your subordinate immediately. The best way you can do as of the moment is to move him into a more suitable position within the department or within your company. This can help maximize his strengths on things that he is capable of doing.
D. Lack of Resources
This is an external factor that the management and/or stakeholders can only provide. But if lack of resources is a serious matter why your subordinate(s) aren’t accomplishing tasks on time, this should be formally discussed in a meeting.
E. Workflow Loopholes
Better feedback loops allows you to improve your project management processes. This shouldn’t be done on an annual basis as it’ll take 365 days in order for you to improve the process based on workers’ feedback.
Add a regular feedback loop either bi-weekly or monthly to see where the gaps are and fill them in with necessary resources.
Another trick is to let your team members focus on the most important tasks within the day (20/80 principle). Accomplish big rocks first early in the morning. This helps your team to become productive, which can help you finish projects before the deadline.
F. Needs collaboration
Two heads are better than one.
This is true but make sure you’ve had a good knowledge of how many people are needed for unaccomplished project.
This is where micromanagement can be taken advantage of.
Temporarily micromanage him by doing the project side by side. If you’ve got technical skills and know-how, you can do the work and set an example of how each task is accomplished. While this will consume your time, he’d have a good glance if the deadline of the project can possibly be met.
YOUR TURN
Know other ways to deal with subordinates who consistently miss deadlines?
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