Effectively managing employee underperformance

What do you do with an employee who is not performing?  What options do you have in this area? 

You have a responsibility as an employer to ensure that they have been given sufficient opportunity to improve their performance before you resort to disciplinary action.  After all, they may be having a hard time outside of work or any number of other factors may be affecting their performance and this should be addressed with fairness.

Counselling the under performing employee is vital and entails advising them that their performance needs improving and setting out a plan for improvement.

Workplace Bulletin provides a good suggested couselling scenario for an underperforming employee:

1. Investigate the matter further

Investigate the issues before meeting with the employee so you can be sure of the facts. This may mean that you speak to other managers, employees and witnesses.

2. Hold a private meeting with the employee

Hold the session in private and retain a record of the discussions (this could be recorded in a diary).

Do not make the discussion a casual conversation. Counselling is a focused discussion that is meant to clearly show the nature of your expectations

Be specific in your comments, e.g. 'It is not appropriate to clean the roller on a machine while it is moving', rather than general, e.g. 'You need to clean the rollers properly'.

Allow the employee to respond, and take their comments into account.

Focus your recorded comments on the employee's conduct, rather than the employee as a person.

3. Develop a performance management plan

A performance management plan (sometimes called a performance improvement plan) is a document that outlines the performance goals an employer expects their employee to achieve. These can include health and safety objectives.

The purpose of a performance management plan is to:

• set out the goals or 'key performance objectives' that reflect the employee's role in the business; and
• provide measurable benchmarks for assessing the employee's performance.

Develop the plan with the employee and keep a copy in the employee's file.

If employee performance is handled correctly, problems are recognised and solved early and the need for disciplinary action is eliminated or reduced.

4. Set a review date for following up

Your performance management plan should identify further dates for reviewing the employee's progress.


Source Workplace Bulletin