Why Doesn’t My Staff Member Do a Good Job on Tasks I Assign Her?

Too often when an employee is not successfully completing tasks assigned, the manager’s first “go to” place is that the employee is lazy or just doesn’t care. This is, frankly, rarely the case. When employees are not doing good work with assigned tasks, it is usually due to any of the following:

• The assignment isn’t not clearly outlined and the employee doesn’t know what she is supposed to do.
• While the employee knows what she is supposed to do, the employee really doesn’t know how to do the task since she doesn’t have the skills or training or experience to complete the task successfully.
• Given a heavy workload already, the employee doesn’t have the time to complete an additional task assigned.
• The employee doesn’t have the resources (such as budget monies, supplies, equipment) to be successful in completing the assigned tasks.

These are all easily corrected. Take the necessary steps to give employees what they need to be successful – whether it is necessary training, support on tasks through clearly defined instructions or providing the necessary resources, or through pairing more junior employees up with more senior employees to help them be successful.