Incompetence

In the workplace, some employees do not always realise what is expected of them. There are plenty of examples all around us: one colleague is not collaborative enough, whilst another is all too often disrespectful. How can we address this by identifying the root causes?

Knowing how to carry out the analysis

Once you’ve expressed your dissatisfaction, what usually happens is this:

• You look for the person or people responsible;
• You urge them to do better (perhaps accompanied by ‘threats’).

However, there are many other, more appropriate responses at your disposal. The first of these is to analyse what is at the root of the problem. However, expressions of a need for improvement reflect ‘symptoms’ rather than ‘causes’. This symptom therefore has underlying causes that must be identified, and each cause will yield a specific solution to be applied.

There is rarely a single cause for your colleague’s lack of results, but rather a set of three fundamental causes:

• A lack of skills;
• And/or a lack of motivation;
• And/or obstacles to performance.

Identifying a lack of competence

It is not always easy to decide whether or not your employee lacks the necessary skills. To help you with this, it is useful to look for the following three indicators:

1. Does your employee occasionally manage to carry out the desired task or achieve the expected objective? If the answer is ‘yes’, then this means they have the necessary skills and the issue lies elsewhere.
   If the answer is ‘no’, then there may be a skills gap.
2. Does the desired action require specific knowledge or a specific technique? If so, then a skills gap is possible. To identify this, it is useful to consider your employee’s level of education and experience.
   If the answer is ‘no’, then there is no lack of competence.
3. Does the task require a personal attitude that is not related to a specific technique but to a quality inherent to the employee, such as listening skills, kindness, attention to detail, etc.? If so, the lack of competence may be linked to this.

Identifying a lack of motivation

Your approach involves checking whether there are any factors causing a lack of motivation. These can stem from two sources: either from the employee themselves, or from their environment and those around them.

Factors causing a lack of motivation that stem from your employee relate to the personal goals they are seeking to achieve, which conflict with the required actions or the desired objective. When they fail to achieve these goals, frustration and dissatisfaction arise, to the detriment of the desired results.

Factors leading to a lack of motivation arising from the employee’s social circle fall into three categories:

• They face negative consequences when they do what is expected of them: being ignored, receiving negative comments on minor or unrelated matters, etc.;
• They face no negative consequences when they do not do what is expected;
• Their superiors and expert colleagues set a poor example of productive behaviour.

Identifying obstacles

Obstacles refer to all the practical factors that will stand in the way of your employee’s good intentions. These may include:

• Organisational difficulties: certain working hours, a lack of tools or recurring breakdowns, unsuitable procedures, uncooperative colleagues, etc.;
• Information-related difficulties: instances where necessary documents do not arrive on time, or decisions are not taken, which immediately create additional personal workload for your employee, thereby disrupting their performance.

In conclusion: Empirical analyses within organisations show that causes of poor performance relating to obstacles are the most common, accounting for around 50 per cent. These are followed by causes relating to a lack of motivation and those due to a lack of competence.