What to Do With an Underperforming Employee (Before the PIP)

By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT

An owner I advise wanted to fire a manager, his underperforming employee of the year. The case was made, the termination was half-drafted. My question was not whether the manager deserved it. It was what the owner had actually done about it, and the honest answer was: not much management, and a lot of waiting.

So we did the other thing first. Real management, hard, for a quarter: the gap named out loud, expectations in writing, a weekly check, no hints. The fire-him conversation became an expand-his-role conversation within ninety days. That is what happens when you lead people who want to be led, and it is why this page exists. An underperforming employee is a diagnosis you have not made yet, and most managers skip the diagnosis and go straight to the paperwork.

Here is the four-week version: what the signs mean, how to find the cause, the six questions to ask, the conversation itself, and the clock that tells you on day 30 which of three doors you are walking through. The formal plan comes after, if it comes at all.

What an underperforming employee actually is

An underperforming employee is someone whose results or behavior sit below the stated standard for their role over a sustained period, after the standard has been communicated and the person has had a reasonable chance to meet it.

Every clause in that sentence is doing work. Stated standard: if you never said what good looks like, you have a communication problem wearing a performance costume. Sustained: one bad month is data, not a verdict.

Communicated and a reasonable chance: the first six weeks of a new hire are not underperformance, they are onboarding, and I do not measure anyone before week five.

Hold your case against that definition before you do anything else. A surprising share of the underperforming employees I get asked about fail it, and the manager is the one with the gap.

Signs of an underperforming employee (and what each one means)

The signs are easy; the meaning is the useful part.

The last row is the one I am strictest about. Sustained work at half capacity, month after month, is not a coaching signal in my experience. It is a decision signal.

The common reasons for poor performance: three hypotheses, not one

When someone who used to perform stops performing, I make the manager separate three hypotheses before they do anything, because each one needs a different response and treating the wrong one wastes the month.

1. A knowledge gap. They do not know how. The fix is training and a clear example of the standard.
2. A fear-of-mistakes gap. They know how, and they freeze, hedge, or avoid, because getting it wrong has felt expensive here. The fix is smaller stakes, faster feedback, and a leader who visibly separates the problem from the person.
3. An expectations failure. Nobody set the bar in a form the person could meet. The fix is on your side of the desk.

Before you conclude that the third one is not you, run the repeat-back test. Give the instruction the way you normally do, then ask the person to repeat it back. Most managers find out within thirty seconds that the instruction they thought they gave is not the instruction that landed.

Your brain assumes that when you delegate, people can do the thing, and you are constantly disappointed when they cannot. The answer is not to lower the bar. It is to grow the people, starting with saying the bar out loud.

A fourth reason belongs in a different category: some people do not want the job anymore, or never did. Skill fixes do nothing for that, and the questions below find it.

Questions to ask an underperforming employee

Ask these in a private one-on-one, in this order, and mostly listen. You are diagnosing, not delivering the verdict yet.

1. "Walk me through your week. What actually gets your time?" You are checking priorities against yours. Half of underperformance is people working hard on the wrong list.
2. "Where does the work get stuck?" Handoffs, approvals, tools, a colleague. This is where the fear gap shows up as "I did not want to bother you."
3. "Tell me, in your own words, what a great month in this role looks like." The expectations test. If their answer and yours differ, you found the cause.
4. "What are you struggling with that you haven't told me?" Then silence. If nothing surfaces: "If you had to pick one thing that's harder than it should be, what would it be?"
5. "Do you still want this job, the way it is now, not the way it was?" Ask it plainly. Roles move. The role that fit at twenty people may not fit at eighty, and a good person can outgrow a role or be outgrown by it.
6. "What do you need from me?" And mean it. The answer is often something you can fix by Friday.

Two rules. Ask before you have decided, or you are collecting evidence rather than listening. And write the answers down the same day, dated, because those notes begin the record you will want in a month whichever door you walk through.

How to tell an employee they are underperforming, professionally

Now the conversation. It is short, it is direct, and it is not a warning and not a plan. It is the moment the standard becomes concrete.

The shape I use, and the one I coach, sounds like this: the bar is here. You are here. There is a gap. We close that gap now. Here is what I need from you: A, B, C.

No sandwich, no compliment first, no fluff. A compliment before the gap gets heard as the whole message. The prequel, "I'm not perfect either," discredits your own sentence before you finish it. Say the bar, say the gap, say the ask, then stop talking and let them respond.

Three things make it professional rather than harsh. First, specifics: dates, numbers, the two most recent examples, never "you always." Second, the ask is behavior you can verify, with a date. Third, the tone is warm but firm: you are direct because you are invested, and you say so once, at the start.

If the person turns it back on you, decline the trade: this conversation is about you, not me; I will handle what I owe you, and this has to change.

How to handle an underperforming employee who thinks they are doing great

The confident underperformer is the hardest version, because they experience the conversation as an injustice. Do not argue about perceptions. Put the standard and the results side by side, in writing, and let the gap argue for you: "Here is the target. Here are the three months. Here is the gap." Then the ask.

If the numbers do not move them, the conversation in 30 days will be a different one.

If you want the words for this and seven other hard conversations, the difficult conversation examples page has them scripted; the general method is in how to have difficult conversations with employees.

How to coach an underperforming employee in the 30 days after

The conversation opens a window. Coaching is what you do inside it, and it is mostly structure rather than inspiration.

• Expectations in writing, that day. One page: the gap, the specific asks, the dates. Give it to them. Coaching against an unwritten standard is hoping.
• The proactive information rule. I set it with everyone who reports to me: if you thought it, tell me, same day, even a text. No sugarcoating, the hard part first. If I have to come and ask, you have already cost me the week. That is not micromanagement. That is an expectation, and someone who is behind needs more of them, not fewer.
• Weekly, in the 1:1. The one-on-one meeting is where the standard gets restated until it is normal. Ask about the specific asks, not about how things are going. Say so when something improved, by name, while it is still visible.
• Jump-start, then let them struggle. Get them moving on the first task with you close by, then step back once they are in motion. People stuck before they have started need a push; people stuck mid-task need room.
• Delegate. Trust, but verify. The verify part is the coaching. A Friday look at the actual output tells you more than any check-in question.
• Keep the record. A dated note each week: what was asked, what was delivered. This is the fair thing for the employee, because it means the day-30 decision rests on facts, and it is the safe thing for you if the decision is an exit.

And one coaching move that is really a leadership move: do not quietly rescue their output. Backstopping a weak hire's work so nobody notices is not kindness, it is a trap for you and a fog for them. Let the work be theirs, and let the gap be visible to the person who has to close it.

How long do you give an underperforming employee to improve?

Thirty days for visible movement, sixty at the outside, and start scouting alternatives at day 30 if the movement is not there.

My own default is a 60-day window with visible improvement expected by 30, framed explicitly as not yet a formal warning. Two things about that clock. First, "visible improvement" does not mean "fixed." It means the trend turned and you can see it in the work.

Second, day 30 is a decision day, not a review day. You should know on day 30 which door you are walking through.

The three doors:

Owners ask me how they will know. Every one who says "I think maybe, I'm on the fence" is not on the fence. Underperformers know when they are not performing, and by day 30 so do you.

The fence is where the pain gets postponed: it is pain now or pain in the future, and you are the one who picks.

When does an underperforming employee need a performance improvement plan, and when do you skip straight to an exit?

Before the formal step, run the filter I use for every keep-or-exit call. Four questions, the first three borrowed from EOS and Traction, the fourth mine: do they get the job, do they want the job or are they collecting a paycheck, do they have the capacity to do it, and do they fit the culture, meaning at least three of your five core values.

Capacity is judged against where the company is heading, not against the job as it was two years ago. A person who had capacity for a forty-person company may honestly not have it for a two-hundred-person one, and that is nobody's moral failure.

A no on any of the four is an exit conversation, not a plan. A formal plan for someone who does not want the job, or who cannot do it however hard they try, is exit paperwork with a signature line, and everyone in the room knows it.

A yes on all four, with a real, nameable skill gap and visible effort, is what the formal plan is for. Write it properly, with your own time committed on the page, and run it like you mean it. The performance improvement plan guide covers the whole formal step, including when it is honest and when it is not.

One more filter, for the team rather than the individual. In any team of five or more, there is a bottom performer, and the rest of the team knows who it is. Coach that person for a bounded period, then decide. Consistently, when I have watched a leader finally act, the team's morale went up, not down. The strong people were not afraid of the standard. They were afraid you did not have one.

Is the manager the problem?

Sometimes. Here is how you find out without a 360.

• If the repeat-back test fails, you have an instruction problem.
• If the employee could not describe a great month in your words, you have an expectations problem. If you do not set expectations, they will not please you, and that is on you.
• If the employee did not know they were behind until this conversation, you have a feedback timing problem. Every performance issue should be addressed inside 48 hours of your noticing it, on the line: I care about you, and I require improvement.
• If you have been quietly redoing their work, you have a delegation problem that looks like their performance problem.
• If three people on the same team are "underperforming," look at the manager, and if the manager is you, look in the mirror before you look at the org chart.

A leader whose door is always open is often the leader with the largest gap between what is happening and what reaches them. If you suspect the underperformance is a symptom of something you cannot see from your chair, a skip-level meeting with the people around the person will tell you in twenty minutes.

Underperforming employee FAQ

How do you deal with an underperforming employee?

How to deal with an underperforming employee, in order: confirm the gap against a stated standard with dated examples, then find the cause: a knowledge gap, a fear-of-mistakes gap, or expectations that were never made concrete. Hold a direct private conversation that names the standard, the gap and the specific change required, put the expectations in writing, and set a 30-day window with weekly check-ins. At day 30, decide whether to keep coaching, move to a formal performance improvement plan, or end the employment.

What are the signs of an underperforming employee?

Common signs of an underperforming employee include missed deadlines with acceptable quality, declining quality with deadlines met, work that is adequate but no longer shows initiative, avoidance of the manager and silence in meetings, confidence that does not match results, and sustained work well below capacity. Each sign points to a different cause, from overload and unclear priorities to skill gaps, fear of mistakes, coasting, or a fit and motivation problem.

What should you ask an underperforming employee?

The most useful things to ask an underperforming employee, in a private one-on-one, are: what actually gets your time in a week; where does the work get stuck; what does a great month in this role look like in your words; what are you struggling with that you have not told me; do you still want this job as it is now; and what do you need from me. Ask before deciding, listen more than you speak, and write down the answers the same day.

How do you tell an employee they are underperforming?

State the standard, the gap and the specific change required, using dated examples and no compliment first: "The bar is here, you are here, there is a gap, and here is what I need from you." Keep the tone warm but firm, make the ask verifiable with a date, and let the employee respond without arguing about perceptions. Put the expectations in writing the same day and set a follow-up date, typically 30 days out.

How long do you give an underperforming employee to improve?

A common window is 30 days for visible improvement, extendable to 60 days when the trend has clearly turned, with weekly check-ins throughout. Day 30 is a decision point: continue coaching if movement is visible and the person wants the role, move to a formal performance improvement plan if a real skill gap remains with visible effort, or end the employment if there is no movement or the person does not want the job.

When should an underperforming employee be put on a performance improvement plan?

A performance improvement plan fits an underperforming employee who understands the role, wants it, has the capacity to do it, and fits the culture, but has a specific, nameable skill gap that direct feedback and 30 days of coaching have not closed. When the answer to any of those four tests is no, a formal plan usually functions as exit documentation rather than a genuine chance, and a direct exit conversation is the more honest step.

The diagnosis is the management

Most of what gets called an underperforming employee is an undiagnosed one. The manager skipped from noticing to paperwork, and the paperwork inherited the vagueness of the noticing.

So do the four weeks. Hold the case against the definition, separate the three hypotheses, ask the six things above and write the answers down. Say the bar, the gap and the ask out loud, warm and firm. Set the clock, coach inside it, and decide on day 30 like someone who already knows the answer, because you will.

The owner with the half-drafted termination did all of that, and within a quarter he was expanding the manager's role instead of ending it. Not every case ends there. But you owe the person the four weeks before you find out which case this is.

The conversation you are avoiding is the one this page is about

I built a short self-assessment for managers who suspect the underperforming employee on their list is really an unhad conversation. Twelve statements, four areas, Willingness, Directness, Timing and Follow-through, a score out of 100, and one of four levels. It ends by naming the one conversation to have this week.

I wrote it from ten years of running these conversations as a tech CEO, including as one of Canon's youngest CEOs, and from watching owners run them since. The area most managers assume is their weakness is rarely the one the score points at. Take the hard conversations assessment and find out which of the four is actually costing you.