Low employee performance is one of the most frustrating and confusing challenges in business. Its also one of the most common
While there are many possible reasons why employees underperform, most issues can be traced back to 3 cores issues.
1. Hourly pay
2. Leadership / Management
3. The 2 types of employee problems
Paying employees by the hour or through a fixed salary is one of the most widely used forms of compensation in the world. However, it is also one of the least effective methods of compensation when it comes to improving employee performance.
Why?
Because hourly pay compensates employees for their time—not their performance. In simple terms, an employee who sits in the corner and does very little will earn the same as someone who works at a high level all day. Human nature tends to favor the path of least resistance, and when there is no meaningful consequence or reward tied to performance, employees will naturally gravitate toward doing the minimum.
This is why, in many manufacturing environments, managers often feel like they have to act as enforcers—constantly saying things like “let’s go” or “pick up the pace.” These are attempts to create consequences for low performance. The problem is that these tactics only work temporarily. As soon as the manager is out of sight, performance drops again.
What you end up with is a cycle:
Low performance → temporary spike under pressure → back to low performance.
This leads to common frustrations from leaders:
- “I shouldn’t have to tell my employees to do this.”
- “No one wants to work anymore.”
- “It’s hard to find good workers.”
But the reality is more nuanced.
You’re right—you shouldn’t have to constantly push employees. That’s not a people problem; it’s a system problem.
So the better question becomes:
Is it really hard to find good workers—or is it hard to create an environment where people are motivated to perform at their best?
One of the core issues is an overreliance on negative reinforcement as a management strategy. Negative reinforcement means people perform to avoid something undesirable:
- Employees work to avoid getting yelled at
- Managers push to avoid missing goals
- Leaders apply pressure to avoid scrutiny from above
This creates a culture where behavior is driven by avoidance rather than motivation. As that pressure moves up the organizational chain, everyone is simply trying to avoid negative consequences.
That kind of culture is unsustainable. It often leads to missed goals, high turnover, and consistently low performance.
So what can be done?
1. First, organizations need to stop relying on pressure and fear as primary management tools.
2. Second, they need to build systems that actively reinforce high performance.
Many companies attempt this through things like pizza parties, small annual raises, or “employee of the month” programs. Unfortunately, research and real-world results consistently show that these approaches have little to no lasting impact on behavior.
However, well-designed incentive systems—such as performance-based pay, clear metrics, and meaningful reward structures—can significantly improve both productivity and quality. In many cases, companies have seen performance increases of 30–40% with incentive programs that cost only around 2% of an employee’s annual pay.
The key is alignment: when rewards are directly tied to the behaviors and outcomes you want, performance follows.
Leadership and middle management roles often feel like a lose-lose situation.
These positions are responsible for setting corporate goals, hiring the right people, and building the systems required to achieve those goals. While these responsibilities are critical, many leaders fall into a common trap known as MOMS (My Own Management Style)—a term coined by Aubrey Daniels.
MOMS refers to the tendency for managers to rely on personal preference rather than proven methods. The reality is that most managers are never formally trained on how to lead effectively. Instead, they learn through experience, trial and error, and what “feels right.”
But there’s a problem with that.
There is no universal standard guiding how managers should manage.
Think about it this way: how would you feel if a doctor said, “There’s a proven method for this surgery, but I’m going to do it my way”? You probably wouldn’t trust that doctor for very long.
Yet in organizations around the world, managers are doing exactly that—leading based on personal style rather than evidence-based practices. And if that style doesn’t support employee performance, performance will suffer.
For example, if a manager chooses not to recognize employees for high-quality work—because they feel recognition shouldn’t be necessary—those behaviors will eventually disappear. Employees repeat what is reinforced. When high performance isn’t acknowledged or rewarded, it declines.
So how do you prevent MOMS?
You replace personal preference with structure.
Organizations need clearly defined systems, processes, and training that guide managers toward behaviors that drive performance. Leadership shouldn’t be left to instinct—it should be built on principles that are proven to work.
When managers are equipped with the right structure, they stop guessing—and start leading in a way that consistently produces high performance.
In both business and life, most behavior problems fall into two categories:
1. Can’t Do Problems
2. Won’t Do Problems
Can’t Do problems occur when employees physically cannot perform a task because they haven’t been properly taught or trained. The solution here is straightforward: training, clear instruction, and skill development.
Won’t Do problems, on the other hand, are very different. These occur when employees know what to do—but choose not to do it.
This is where many organizations make a costly mistake.
They try to solve Won’t Do problems with Can’t Do solutions.
For example:
“Employees aren’t doing what we asked… we should probably train them.”
But if employees already know what to do, more training won’t fix the issue. In fact, it becomes a very expensive and ineffective solution.
Think about it this way:
Imagine you get a speeding ticket and are required to take a class on why speeding is dangerous. After completing the training, do you permanently stop speeding?
Probably not.
Why?
Because your behavior isn’t controlled by knowledge—it’s controlled by consequences. Most people only slow down when they see a police officer.
That’s a behavioral influence, not a knowledge gap.
The same principle applies in the workplace.
Won’t Do problems are behavioral problems, and they must be solved with behavioral solutions—not training.
That means implementing the right systems:
- Reinforcing the behaviors you want to see
- Creating consequences for the behaviors you don’t
- Aligning incentives with performance
When organizations correctly identify the difference between Can’t Do and Won’t Do problems, they stop wasting resources on the wrong solutions—and start driving real, measurable performance improvement.