What Should You Do When a Hire Is Underperforming?

When a hire is underperforming, first decide which of three problems you are looking at: a capacity problem, where the person can do the work and is not; a performance problem, where they may not be able to in this seat; or an integrity problem, which is handled differently and quickly. For the first two, write the expectation in measurable terms, have the conversation before it becomes a formal one, document it briefly, and review at thirty, sixty and ninety days. What you should not do is the thing most leaders do: absorb the work yourself and wait.

"Honestly, it's easier to just do it myself."

Every team leader has said it about someone. It is usually true in the moment and expensive over any longer period, because it is the sentence that turns one underperforming seat into a leader who is back inside the operation they hired someone to run.

At Growth Minded Talent Solutions, a hiring firm for real estate businesses, this conversation comes up more often than any question about sourcing. Teams do not call because they cannot find people. They call because someone is in a seat, it is not working, and nobody is sure what the fair next step is. This post is that sequence.

Why does waiting cost more than the empty seat?

Short answer: because the seat is not actually empty. Somebody is doing the work, and it is usually you.

When a hire underperforms and nothing is said, four things happen at once. The work drifts back to the leader's desk. The leader's own hours stretch to cover it. The rest of the team notices who is carrying what and quietly recalibrates their own standard downward. And the strongest person on the team, the one who was covering the gap, starts to wonder why they should.

That last one is the cost nobody prices. Tolerated underperformance rarely loses you the underperformer. It loses you the person next to them.

Which of the three problems are you looking at?

An underperforming hire is one of three different situations, and they are not handled the same way. A capacity problem means the person can do the work and is not doing it. A performance problem means they may not be able to do this work, in this seat, at this level. An integrity problem means something that actively harms the business, the team or a client. The first two are addressed with clear expectations and a fair chance to meet them. The third is not a coaching conversation.

Most leaders never sort these. They experience all three as "it's not working" and respond to all three the same way, which in practice means slowly. The integrity case gets dragged through an improvement plan it does not deserve. The capacity case gets quietly written off without the person ever being told what the standard was. The performance case gets blamed on the person when the seat was the problem.

Name which one you are looking at before you do anything else. The fairness of the next step depends on it.

Is it the person, or the seat?

Short answer: check the seat first, because it is the cheaper thing to be wrong about.

A surprising share of performance problems are definition problems wearing a person's name. The role was scoped loosely, the priorities became whatever was loudest that week, and the person in the seat has been guessing at what good looks like for six months. When that is the situation, no improvement plan will hold, because there is nothing stable to improve toward.

Ask two questions. Was this seat defined by its outcomes and decision rights before the person started, or by a title and a task list? And has the seat changed since then, and did anyone say so out loud? If the honest answer is a task list and yes-but-nobody-said, you do not have a performance problem yet. You have a seat to define, and the person deserves a fair run at the defined version before anyone judges the undefined one.

How do you make the expectation measurable?

Short answer: turn every adjective into a behavior, a measure and a review date.

"Be more proactive" is not a standard. It is a mood. The person hears it, agrees with it, and has no idea what to do differently on Monday. Three questions turn a concern into something a person can actually meet:

1. What is the behavior? Not "proactive." Every transaction file has its next deadline flagged before you leave on Friday.
2. How will we both know? A number, a checklist, a report both of you can look at. If only the leader can see it, it is an opinion, not a measure.
3. Is it the presence of something or the absence of something? "Zero missed disclosure deadlines" and "one seller update every Wednesday" are different kinds of standards, and the person needs to know which one they are being held to.

Write it down. Then review it at thirty, sixty and ninety days rather than once. A behavior that changes for two weeks and drifts back has not changed, and a single check-in cannot tell the difference.

Informal feedback or a formal plan?

Whether the formal stage is called a "performance improvement plan" or something gentler is a judgment call, and reasonable leaders disagree. What matters is that the person understands the seriousness, and that they were given a fair, documented chance before it got there. Employment mechanics, classification and anything that ends a working relationship are questions for your counsel; the sequence here is how to be fair and clear before you ever need them.

When should the conversation happen?

Short answer: earlier than feels comfortable, and never as a surprise.

The kindest version of this conversation is the early one. A person who is told the standard at week three can meet it or decide it is not for them. A person who is told at month nine has been failing a test they did not know they were taking, and every week of silence made the eventual conversation harder for both of you.

The same is true at the other end. When someone is plainly not thriving in the seat, and the definition is clear, and the standard has been fairly reviewed, delaying the exit conversation helps nobody. Not the person, who is stuck in a job that is not working. Not the team, which has been covering. The most common regret we hear from leaders is not that they acted too fast. It is that they waited a year.

What about the first ninety days?

Short answer: a new hire who is struggling in the first ninety days is a different case from a long-tenured hire who has drifted.

In the first ninety days, the plan should already exist, because it was written before the offer. If it was not, write it now and treat the next thirty days as day one. Most early struggles are onboarding gaps, not performance gaps, and they resolve when the person is finally handed a defined seat with three decisions they are allowed to make.

After a year or more, the pattern is different. Expectations have accumulated informally, the seat has probably changed more than once, and the person has a private theory about what the job is that may not match yours. That situation needs the definition rebuilt before any standard can be fairly applied.

Frequently asked questions

Q: How long should I give an underperforming assistant to improve?
A: Long enough to review the standard at thirty, sixty and ninety days, provided the standard was written in measurable terms and the person had a defined seat to meet it in. Shorter windows measure mood; longer ones without review measure nothing.

Q: Should I do the work myself while I figure out what to do?
A: For a week, perhaps. Beyond that, doing the work yourself is the decision, made by default. It keeps the leader inside the operation, hides the problem from the person in the seat, and teaches the rest of the team that the standard is optional.

Q: Is a performance improvement plan a bad sign for the employee?
A: It depends entirely on what came before it. A plan that follows honest, documented feedback is a fair, clear chance. A plan that is the first the person has heard of a problem is a formality, and they will read it as one.

Q: What if the person is underperforming because the role changed?
A: Then the seat is the problem, not the person. Rewrite the definition, say out loud that it changed, and give the person a fair run at the new version before judging them against it.

Q: When is it appropriate to end the working relationship immediately?
A: Integrity issues that harm the business, the team or a client are generally treated differently from performance issues and do not go through a coaching sequence. The specifics are a matter for your counsel.

Q: How do I document performance conversations without adding hours of admin?
A: A short written summary after any serious conversation is enough: the standard, where things stand, what changes by when. Recording and transcribing the conversation, with the person's knowledge, can produce that summary with very little extra work.

The seat that is not working is usually telling you something about how it was defined. That is worth finding out before you decide what to do about the person in it.

Schedule your hiring clarity call with Growth Minded Talent. We define the seat, outcomes, decision rights, what it costs and what it has to produce, and look at what is keeping that work stuck on your desk in the first place. You leave with that definition whether or not we run the search.