How openly should transferring an underperformer from a team happen? [duplicate]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am a technical team lead. We have an under performer in the team (he joined one month ago, and is not picking up fast enough). We will most likely remove him from our team.

What are the positive and negative sides of being transparent to other team members in the same project about the reasons for his removal from the perspective of keeping the team motivated?

Remarks:

• This will not result in his direct termination, but he will be moved to another project
• None of the persons in the project is his line manager
• An HR person will be consulted regarding legal questions
• our rate of under performers is on the order of 10%

More remarks after comments:

• At least one colleague in the team knows this already, and her input was a factor (about 20%) in our decision. I want her to know that the decision was made by us, not her. I told it to her and asked her to keep it confidential.
• I want to avoid the impression that people are sacked because they "don't get along with colleagues". It may seem like this to people in the team.
• We are consultants, so 1 month is maybe longer than it would be in other jobs (and his incompetence and/or lack of motivation are beyond my imagination)
• I am afraid that a part of the story will be communicated outside of my control (through customers)
• I want to make it clear to the team that we have objective criteria which have to to be met to remove somebody from a project

My current planned approach:

• Do not make statements to the team about this person beyond that he was moved by his manager (which is a explanation which is always true).
• Ask the under-performer to be confidential about the reasons for his own sake.
• Make sure that the colleague involved understands the context, and ask her to be confidential for her own sake and her colleagues sake
• After 1 month, give a general presentation on which things are important and which are not for performance evaluations in the team meeting.

manpreet 2 years ago

No, you should not talk to other team members about this specific case. What you should do:

1. Make sure everyone understands what is expected of them, how they will be evaluated, and the consequences. Development teams, often do work that affects everyone else, so they should know who isn't getting the job done already. There shouldn't be any surprises.
2. Work out a strategy to prevent the hiring of people who are so poorly qualified to do the job. The interview process is flawed. Not all hires workout, but if you figured this one out in probably less than a month, someone made a huge mistake.

Hopefully, there aren't other problems with the management of this team.