• Devise a quality checklist. With this device, employees must check for quality and sign their names to verify that quality meets standards.

• Use the buddy system, so that employees encourage one another
to complete their work with excellence and on time. Some employees who don’t do well as individual contributors are great team players. Use peer pressure to get them to do their work well and promptly. Ask buddies to use the quality checklist just mentioned to verify quality.

• Remember that a dip in quality can be a cry for help. Has the
employee become depressed or addicted, or does she simply need
to talk? Employees may allow quality to suffer in order to start a
dialogue with management. Changes in quality are classic workplace
symptoms of serious psychological or even health problems. Chapter 19 offers more interventions for this type of problem.

• Build in and enforce consequences. Some employees will never
respond to words or threats or subtleties. They must feel the consequences personally or they will never work toward upgrading
quality. At first, the low quality is your problem. You must find a creative way to make it the employee’s problem. For example, if the employee is part-time and wants to work more hours, give more hours to coworkers whose work quality is higher. Be sure that you do not violate any agreements you have with the employee. Tell the employee that you are awarding more hours for superior quality.

Taken From: 201 Ways to Turn Any Employee Into a STAR Performer