You’ve probably encountered the maxim hire slow, fire fast: most people accept that it’s important to take swift action when it comes to poor performers…

Of course you will be taking your time and hiring the right person for the role in the first place. But if it turns out you haven’t hired as well as you should have, take immediate action to set things right. It might not actually come to firing the individual, but it should certainly involve some level of performance management. At the very least, expectations of the role and the employee should be clarified, and feedback given on current performance and areas for improvement.

This is exactly the kind of situation where a once-yearly performance review isn’t nearly good enough. If someone messed up 11 months ago, what exactly do you expect them to do about it now? If you didn’t deal with it at the time, you missed your opportunity – both to fix things, and to provide a valuable learning (and growth!) experience to the employee.

Of course there are some people who’ll never improve no matter how much feedback or guidance you give. In the case of serial underperformers it’s usually better (not necessarily easier, but definitely more beneficial) to cut your losses, replace the individual and get things back on track before any more damage is done.