Managing Performance Issues in Healthcare: 5 Tips for Facilities
As a facility leader, you’re likely taking the time to vet and hire healthcare professionals who align with your organization’s values and showcase the ability to meet the standards of care. Despite these efforts, it’s not uncommon for facilities to face challenges related to staff performance issues.
There may be a number of reasons why an employee is not meeting expectations — but when left unaddressed, this can end up compromising patient care. In this article, we’ll discuss what poor performance in healthcare can look like and why it happens, and outline five tips to help you appropriately address it.
Poor Performance in Healthcare: Overview and Examples
To optimize staff productivity and engagement, leaders must first be able to recognize what common performance issues in the workplace can look like. According to experts in management, there are typically eight key signs of poor performance at work. These signs, and examples of what they look like in healthcare, are outlined in the table below.
| Sign of Poor Performance | |
|---|---|
| Decreased Quantity of Work | A nurse practitioner in primary care who normally sees five patients a day begins to see just two or three of the same acuity. |
| Decreased Quality of Work | A nursing assistant who was hired for her attention to detail begins to make frequent mistakes in her charting, often inputting vital signs in the wrong fields or wrong charts. |
| Absenteeism | A clinical pharmacist on the team begins to call out or show up late almost every week. They also often fail to notify the team when they will be out. |
| Center of Conflict | A medication aide begins to become argumentative with nurses every time they’re delegated a new task. |
| Dishonesty | A nurse on the floor often tells the charge nurse that she’s completed care tasks even when she hasn’t so that she can take her lunch break early. |
| Unrealistic Target Setting | A new graduate nurse on the floor sets a personal goal to start all of his patients’ IVs by himself, even though he’s not yet adept in this skill. |
| Refusal to Delegate | A nurse completes all her patients’ bed baths by herself instead of delegating this task to the nursing assistant. |
| Slow Decision-Making | A nurse struggles to figure out which of her patients should be seen first, often spending a lot of her morning mapping out care plans prior to actually seeing her patients. |
What Causes Poor Performance in Healthcare?
Now that we’ve outlined common examples of performance issues in the workplace, you may be wondering why these issues might occur. In healthcare, it’s important to understand that there are a variety of institutional and personal factors that can cause a decrease in productivity.
Short staffing and heavy patient loads can lead to burnout, which often makes it more difficult for staff to provide consistent and quality care. Some healthcare staff are also exposed to traumatic events on a regular basis. This can lead to compassion fatigue and make it more difficult for staff to be fully present during patient or team interactions.
In other cases, staff may lack certain skills or knowledge because they’re just starting their careers or require more training. They may also be going through personal events, such as the death of a loved one, that impact their ability to work. Fundamentally, leaders should avoid jumping to conclusions and take time to unpack the root cause of these issues.
5 Tips for Addressing Performance Issues in the Workplace
If a staff member is falling below expected standards, it’s important to address the issue in a timely manner. It can understandably be difficult to deliver (and receive) criticism in any type of situation. However, you can follow these five tips to make the experience as constructive as possible.
1. Communicate Clearly and Openly
Properly addressing a performance issue requires that you have an open and honest conversation with the involved staff member. Be direct and specific about the issue, but also remain non-confrontational. Cultivating a safe and private environment will help your employee more honestly share their thoughts. Ensure you’re leaving space to listen to your employee’s perspective, as this will allow you to collaboratively resolve the issue.
2. Be Objective and Fact-Based
Staying open-minded and objective is crucial for understanding how to deal with performance issues at work. When holding a conversation with an employee, remember to stick to the facts. Try not to make the situation personal, and focus on measurable feedback. For example, bringing up concerns that a nurse regularly clocks in late is much more objective than insinuating that the nurse seems “bad at time management.”
It can also help to incorporate positive feedback into the conversation. This way, your staff member is recognized for what they’re doing well in addition to being notified of what they could do better.
3. Walk Through a Plan of Action
After you’ve unpacked the situation, formulate a clear action plan. Suggest a timeline for when you’d like to start seeing improvements from your employee and set specific goals. The steps needed to reach these goals should be outlined in collaboration with your employee so that they’re realistic and reflective of their capabilities.
4. Provide Support and Resources
Once you and your employee have agreed on an achievable action plan, determine whether any institutional resources are needed to help them improve their performance.
For example, let’s say a medical scheduler has consistently been showing up late because they’re managing a newly diagnosed health issue. In this case, you might discuss whether the employee needs reasonable accommodations. If not, there may be steps that they can take at home or in collaboration with their doctor to help them get to work on time.
5. Regularly Follow-up and Reevaluate the Situation
As your employee works toward the goals of their action plan, regularly review their performance and provide continuous feedback. Remember to commend them for what they’re doing well and address any ongoing barriers that may be hindering their progress.
It’s also crucial to keep a track record and document everything related to the situation. This will help you objectively evaluate what steps have already been taken and justify any further action that may be needed — whether that be disciplinary or non-disciplinary.
Get Ahead of Performance Issues at Your Facility
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