A newly appointed employee makes blunders apparently regardless of the type of assignments given to him, what should you do first?

• A. Try to determine the cause for the man's poor work before taking further action
• B. Recommend his dismissal
• C. Ignore the condition since it will ultimately cure itself
• D. Refuse to give him further work assignments until he agrees to be more careful

Answer: (A)

The main concept being tested is handling ongoing performance problems by diagnosing underlying causes before taking corrective action. When an employee consistently makes blunders across different assignments, the first step is to determine what’s driving that poor performance rather than acting immediately or ignoring it.

Begin by gathering information and talking with the employee to uncover possible factors such as gaps in training, unclear instructions, insufficient guidance, a mismatch between skills and tasks, workload stress, or personal issues. This diagnosis helps you choose a targeted remediation plan—provide coaching, arrange necessary training, clarify expectations, adjust responsibilities if needed, and set concrete improvement goals with a timeline and follow-up.

Jumping straight to dismissal ignores potential solvable causes and may be unfair; ignoring the problem won’t fix it; and withholding future work until a verbal agreement to be more careful punishes the employee without addressing the root issue.