Top advice on dealing with staff’s poor performance
Once you have identified that an employee is under performing, refer to your policies and procedures to help you determine the right course of action. To help refer to the following policies
- disciplinary
- capability
- absence
What is the difference between disciplinary and capability?
To make it clear disciplinary deals with conduct and capability deals with performance. For best practice with regard to performance issues first have a talk with the employee and explain where they need to improve. If things don’t improve then this can then move to the disciplinary process with it potentially leading to dismissal.
If you find that the employees performance is due to them lacking in certain skills or training, then it may be a good idea to use a capability procedure. Look at offering them training and set a time scales for improvements to be made and if things don’t improve again this can lead to the disciplinary process.
If an employee’s length of service is less than two years they are unable to make a claim for unfair dismissal, however there are claims that employees can make.
Dismissal
This can be done by:
- following the disciplinary procedure through to dismissal
- cross misconduct – known as summary dismissal; or
- A without-prejudice meeting and offer a settlement agreement.
Absence
It is best practice to have an absence policy in place; this will help deal with employees who find it difficult to make it into work. The policy should explain how employers have the right to exit these employees from the company. It should also explain the process of dealing with unauthorised absences and long term sick.
If you have an employee that has been off on long term sick and you are looking at terminating their employment, it is easier if you have an absence policy and capability policy. It is always best to remember that you are terminating someone’s employment based on their capability not because they won’t do the job