What’s the reward for being a star performer? Often, it’s more work. A somewhat sarcastic term for this occurrence is quiet promoting. And a more direct term is performance punishment.

A report by JobSage revealed that 78% of workers have experienced a quiet promotion—receiving an increase in their workload without a pay raise or title change. And while in the short term, this can be an acceptable thing to do if you’re vetting an employee for a promotion or everyone is taking on more work because someone quits, in the long term, it must be part of a transparent and ongoing conversation. If you’re overworking your top performers, they will burn out and likely leave—while your underperforming employees will be in no way equipped to take on their workload and your time will be spent tackling the search for their replacement.

To avoid burning out your star performers and under managing your underperforming employees, you can strengthen your own coaching leadership skills to combat both. In this article, we’ll discuss three ways you can prevent performance punishment from creeping into your workplace through your use of coaching leadership.

What is Performance Punishment?

Performance punishment (or quiet promoting) is when a top performing employee is given more work without a pay raise or promotion. At first this can be seen as a positive when someone’s high capacity is recognized. But if there are no development conversations along the way, this can put your high-producing employees on the road to burnout—and even departure from your organization. Not only can performance punishment burn out your top performers, but it can also damage your organization’s culture and team dynamics as the top producing employees may begin to resent their underperforming teammates. Coaching leadership is key to creating a healthy organizational culture where your employees will be both inspired to achieve results and developed to be their best selves—not overworked, underpaid and heading toward burnout all in the hopes of a promotion. There’s a better way.

3 Ways to Prevent Performance Punishment with Coaching Leadership

1. Create Development Plans with your Employees. Development plans are key to coaching leadership. This sort of documentation gives both you, the coaching leader, and your employee a shared reference point. Your employees can make clear their professional goals and you can coach them toward reaching them. Not only does a development plan create a space for your employees to give you a glimpse into their career aspirations, but it’ll give you a space to share with them what qualities you see in them. As a coaching leader, you have the immense privilege to speak into the lives of those you lead. You may notice a strength in them that has up until now gone untapped—and you can help them see it. If you and your employee are both using their development plan (and adjusting it along the way) for goal setting and growth metrics, then it’ll be no surprise if they’re either behind or ahead of the outlined plan. A tool like this is vital for measuring the performance of both underperforming and top performing employees.

2. Provide Feedback in Regular One-on-Ones. If you are establishing a culture of authenticity within your team, then one-on-ones should be a psychologically safe environment for your employees. And this is the time for feedback. If your employee is underperforming, you must address it head on. If you don’t, you are doing a disservice to them as their leader. Feedback is a gift and must be given for growth. If your employee is a top performer, this is the time to recognize that. Just because they have a high capacity doesn’t mean they aren’t on the road to burnout. Check in with them. Learn how they’re managing their workload and if anything needs to be taken off their plate. If they are managing to successfully execute with an increased workload, then discuss growth opportunities with them before they ask you. As a coaching leader, you must be proactively developing your employees. If you don’t bring it up, they might think you don’t care—and they might leave your team or company in search of a place that does.  

3. Give Credit When Credit is Due. Know your people. Learn how your employees respond best to recognition. Some people may love a public shout-out during an all-team meeting and some may experience anxiousness. Some may love a thoughtful, handwritten note and some may dismiss your words if they’re feeling underpaid and overworked. Recognition needs to be given when it’s deserved, but value needs to be communicated too. If an employee is outperforming their teammates, then not only should a conversation be had surrounding their career growth, but a bonus would be great way to let them know you acknowledge all that they’re doing. As a coaching leader, own the conversation—let your top performers know you appreciate, value and see all that they’re contributing—and help them get to the next step in their career trajectory.

Prevent performance punishment from becoming an acceptable term through your coaching leadership. At Building Champions, we’ve helped thousands of leaders like you learn how to ditch the old models of management and become dynamic coaching leaders who transformed their teams and organizations into high-producing and healthy environments. Learn how we can help you too.