How Should Employers Deal With Poor Performance in the UK?

As an employer, it can be uncomfortable for you to deal with poor performance. When raising the issue with an employee, it is likely to cause a strong emotional reaction. So, you need to take a tactful approach. You must understand how to deal with poor performance and must do so fairly. Otherwise, you could face an employment tribunal claim for possibly unfair dismissal or distention, for example. Managing poor performance well helps your business to improve productivity. This article will explain how to deal with the poor performance of your employees. It will explain what poor performance means and how to deal with it, including the basic steps to take.

What is Poor Performance?

Poor performance is when an employee is not reaching the standards set out in their employment contract. This is because there is an issue with their ability to carry out the role. For example, perhaps an employee has not fulfilled the role’s requirements or is not working to the standard required. Ultimately, poor performance is a capability issue. 

How to Deal With Poor Performance?

If you have a performance management procedure in your workplace, you should use this to deal with any performance issues from your employees. Your workplace policy should state whether or not you have this.

Where you do not have a performance management procedure, you should follow a procedure that focuses on improving your employee’s performance. This will allow your employee to improve and prevent any additional issues from occurring. In addition, you should document how your business will deal with poor performance, which can help suggest best practices for managers.

When following a procedure for tackling poor performance, you must ensure that it is fair. This is crucial because if your employee’s poor performance results in dismissal later down the line, you need to demonstrate that your decision had a fair reason and followed a fair procedure. Notably, you should also follow the Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.

Essential Steps to Dealing With Poor Performance

When dealing with poor performance, there are some basic steps to take.

1. Tackle Poor Performance Early On

Ensuring that you attempt to deal with poor performance earlier rather than later can prevent the situation from getting out of hand. The earlier you express your concern, the more chance your employee has to resolve the issues.

2. Have Conversations With Your Employees

Where poor performance is an issue, you should give feedback to your employee and clarify what you expect of them. Importantly, feedback should be honest. 

Likewise, be sure to clarify what the performance issue appears to be, how serious it is and how long it has been going on. You should also ask your employees questions to understand the situation wholly. Finally, you should be careful how you approach the conversation as you do not know what might be happening in the background to contribute to their poor performance.

3. Investigate the Issue

Additionally, it is essential to conduct an investigation where poor performance leads to dismissal. A capability dismissal will require you to show that you have reasonable grounds to believe your employee is not capable of performing honestly, and an investigation will allow you to gather evidence to prove this. For example, you could obtain appraisal data and reports. You should then let your employer know the investigation results and any issues revealed as well as possible actions resulting from these.

4. Hold a Meeting

You may need to hold a formal capability meeting due to your investigations. If you do, your employee has a right to be accompanied to this and should have time to prepare for the meeting. A first meeting is unlikely to warrant any dismissal based on performance but instead might result in a warning with suggested ways to improve performance. You should try to find a solution to the poor performance and be as specific as possible about what solution or change you are seeking.

5. Allowing Time to Improve

Further, you should allow your employees time to improve in a reasonable period and hold review meetings. You should also offer support to your employee to aid them in improving, such as through training. Likewise, any targets you give for improvement should be achievable ones. You might also consider creating a performance improvement plan which offers clear goals and methods to improve.

6. Final Decision

After giving your employees warnings and time to improve, and they still do not improve, you might consider dismissal as a last resort. There are other options to consider, such as demotion or a completely different role.

Key Takeaways

As an employer, good performance management is crucial for a successful business, and poor performance management is part of this. Dealing with poor performance should be carried out immediately upon spotting the issues. Likewise, where you have a performance management procedure in place, you should follow this. Dealing with poor performance is about communicating and investigating issues, allowing time to improve with solid solutions and support to allow for that improvement. When dealing with poor performance, you must do so fairly in case it results in a dismissal. 

If you need help understanding how to deal with poor performance in the UK, our experienced employment lawyers can assist as part of our LegalVision membership. For a low monthly fee, you will have unlimited access to lawyers to answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. So call us today on 0808 196 8584 or visit our membership page.

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