Hello,I am about to do an interview that will involve a role play of coaching a low performing associate. From what I have been told, this is the scenario: the employee has a hard time hitting his productivity goals during the first half of the day, and then for the second half of the day rushes around trying to make up for his low performance, and in return makes several quality errors. A coworker that went through this interview already said that when he did the role play, the person playing the associate used the excuse that he wasn't getting enough sleep and was too tired to hit his goals for the first part of the day.My question is, what is the best response I could give to this situation? As I said, it is a role play coaching, so I don't want to say "well try to get more sleep" or "oh well, get over it" or anything like that.. Any advice is appreciated!!Thanks!

If it was in a real life situation (and assuming I knew the person). I would try and work out why they are not performing. Are they motivated to do the job? Are they able to do the job? If then the person said "I'm not getting sleep" I would ask them why they're not getting sleep. Clearly there will be a different course of action if the person is ill/stressed/looking after an ill loved one and very able to do the job than if the person is out on the beers every night and wouldn't have the ability to do the job even if he/she had spent 7 days in a spa.

I'd give a motivational pep talk along the lines of "HEY SUCKA, YOU NEED 2 GET UR SH*T TOGETHER MAN!!! NOW STOP BEING A LAZY SLOB, GET YO BUTT TO BED BY 9, AND DO YO WORK PROPERLY WITH GUSTO AND ENTHUSIASM INSTEAD OF SLOUCHING AROUND THE OFFICE LIKE A ZOMBIE!!! AND LETS GET OUT OF THIS HOLE BY 5.30PM ON THE DOT!!!"

Management games can help to motivate the employees.______________________HR Specialist Wichita Falls