Misplaced

In the midst of the billions of working people in the world, there are many professions. In our experience, a lot of potential employees have a laser focus on what they would like to do in the working world. They apply and try their best to maintain jobs in their desired field. Later, some find out they are being disciplined and receiving unfavorable mentions from management. Many managers in the workplace get frustrated with poor performing employees and make decisions that are not carefully considered. To an employee that cares, this is often a point of anxiety and could worsen the situation affecting their performance even greater and sometimes even their health.

There are two things going on: 1) The employee could really be low performing or just disagreeable or 2) They are a good employee and means well, but their set of skills is not appropriate for this particular job. In our world this is called, misplaced. Here are a few signs of of misplacement:

1. Employee is an average employee with good attendance and shows good effort consistently on everything but never gets the desired results (In the prime environment, being given clear expectations)
2. Employee consistently has more questions than the time it takes to complete the work project i.e., the project should take one day but the employee asks questions all day and does not start the work in a timely manner (Again in the prime environment, being given clear expectations)
3. The employee is overly confident and consistently makes major mistakes

The best thing for a leader to do is recognize that just because an employee is not performing well does not mean they are a substandard employee. If you are a thoughtful leader we would recommend the following:

1. Have the employee take a career assessment test 
2. Provide the necessary additional training to assist the employee in improving
3. Provide continuous open dialogue and constructive feedback about their progress (and document document document)
4. If the position is not a good fit for the employee seek out other possible options at your company where they could possibly use their skills (Some great leaders also assist with options external to their organizations)

Proactive Tip: Recruiters and hiring managers should do their due diligence to check references, research the applicant and their background, ask good interview questions and really lean into conversation with candidates, to see if they are a great fit for the company and the job role.