Very often, poor performers are the "victims" of organizational factors which they are forced to cope with in some way. At first glance it appears that employee performance is poor, but in reality, they are doing their best to be successful.

Organizational factors can present themselves in many ways, such as new management or revolving door management which results in frequently changing expectations; an impending layoff or merger which can spur individuals to take their eye off their current responsibilities in order to look toward their future employment; or a completed merger which contributes to folk's not knowing their role anymore.

Other organizational stressors can be found in global organizations which have to "translate" communications, operating procedures, and goals across time zones and functions. Even centralized or decentralized training can impact successful performance on the job.

Example: A charitable organization created its own CRM in-house and transitioned away from the commercial product they had previous used (which provided training and support). After going-live with their home-grown system, the programmers stayed in the call center area for one week to provide training and answer questions. At the end of that one week the programmers - who had all been contractors - were let go. In six month's time no one was using the software correctly, records were incomplete and erroneous, and both donors and managers were irate.

When the organization sought training help, the request came in the form of "they need training. They need to know how to use the software the way it is intended to be used and not the way they are using it now," (through trail and error, work-arounds, and best guesses).

Despite the organizational factors working against them, the workers did a fantastic job of completing their jobs with a limited amount of knowledge, training and skill. This was a company that did not understand the importance of documentation, training or support.

Before fulfilling a training request, step back and consider what organizational factors might be playing a role. Very often the workers are doing the best that they can given the circumstances under which they have to perform.