The danger of labeling people as 'low performers'

In a world where 87 percent of employees are not engaged in their work, it's no surprise that improving engagement is top of mind for many organizations' leaders. Managers can pursue a variety of approaches to increase employees' happiness and commitment to work, but there is one simple, often overlooked change they can make, according to the Harvard Business Review: change the categories by which you label your employees.

The labels bosses apply to their employees can effectively limit or enhance their ability to achieve their full potential, because once people accept these labels as "truth," they ultimately affect performance. Under the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy, labeling some employees as high-performing can instill in them a greater drive and work ethic, while labeling others as low-performing can be so demoralizing it can lower engagement and performance even more.

To help reinvent the categories they use to make sense of their employees, here are a few questions managers can ask themselves, according to the Harvard Business Review.

1. What labels do I use for my direct reports, and who have I labeled as a low performer?

2. When were the exceptions in which these individuals performed well?

3. Are they any types of work for which my categories would suggest a certain employee is not well suited? Have there been any times this employee has performed well at this kind of work despite my categorization of him or her?

4. What conditions allowed them to succeed in those exceptional situations? How can I help them replicate that success?

5. How do these examples demonstrate how I should revise the labels I use for this individual? What do they suggest about how I should change the way I manage this employee?

By taking the time to think about employees' performance and the labels you give them, you may find you are the one keeping the employee from achieving his or her greatest potential.

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