"As a manager, one of the most challenging decisions I make includes the fate of a team members' employment. When I have an underperforming team member, although it is hard to consider terminating their employment, I must consider the health of the overall team, department, company and consider how my decision will serve our clients. Recently I faced the reality that one of my strongest-performing team members was severely sliding in their performance. First, I looked at the facts to uncover the core issue. Data showed that this person made 35% fewer prospecting calls over the past quarter than quarters past. Then, I looked for alternatives to the issue. Were there other numbers to consider? This person's clocked activity has also decreased over the past weeks. I considered that I could either give this person a written warning and put a performance plan in place or terminate them for inadequate performance and replace them with a new team member. I decided to invest time in correcting this person's behavior since they had previously shown me they could be a star employee. I met with this employee and presented the facts from their sales numbers and performance reports. Together, we created a performance plan that we could agree on and attached it to a specific timeline. I also offered resources through our HR department to help this individual deal with the personal issues holding them back, causing the core issue. After 3 weeks, I reviewed the data and found that the employee's performance was trending upward. I will continue to review this person's performance carefully; however, I am confident that my decision-making process helped me to save the company time and money by investing in the resource we had rather than terminate the employee based out of frustration. This calculated approach to decision-making has served me very well when facing challenging decisions of the past, and I am confident it will continue to serve me as I move forward in my management career."