Hyro Blog

A manager has asked you for a private meeting to discuss some people challenges.

In the meeting, the manager tells you that one of their staff members are not performing. You have a conversation about what ‘not performing’ means in this scenario. They’re not collaborating well with stakeholders, they’re not sending emails out in time, they’re not able to articulate themselves well, they’re not doing as much as the others, they’re not meeting KPIs.

They want to put them on an immediate performance improvement plan. They’re asking about processes for termination. They just want the problem to go away.

One of the first questions you should be asking is, ‘is the employee aware of these performance issues?’.

When a manager answers this question with a ‘no’, or ‘I’ve mentioned it’, or ‘they should know they’re falling behind’, your response should be to educate them.

Employees might know that they’re not performing without a manager telling them. They might also have a low work ethic, are consistently not motivated, or simply just unhappy at work or in their role. You cannot be relying on this for evidence of poor performance.

There are performance management processes for a reason.

Here are some of the things you should be thinking about or questions you should ask in a scenario like this (and you will definitely find yourself in a spot like this as a HR pro):

• Does the employee know there are performance issues?
• Have there been previous attempts to address the issues?
• Are the manager and employee having regular checks ins/meetings/catch ups?
• Has performance and/or previous issues been documented?
• If there are performance plans and reviews, what has been noted in the past?
• Can you provide me with more details about the challenges?
• Are the performance issues affecting the wider team? How?
• Can you identify any underlying factors that may be contributing to these issues?
• What support resources can be provided to help improve performance?
• Are there any training and development opportunities you can think of that could help address the issues?
• Do you have a performance management process?
• Is it being followed?

Why should we be asking these types of questions?

It does a couple of things.

It shows the manager that there needs to be open lines of communication already in place when starting any sort of formal performance process. It also implies that they need to come up with strategies to support their employee. We will assist them, and coach them throughout the entire process, but ultimately they are the manager, this is their role.

Sometimes, you’ll find yourself coaching a manager who doesn’t understand why you need to follow such a rigorous process. They might get frustrated and push back on you or question your logic. You can remind them that procedural fairness plays into a lot of successful unfair dismissal claims. You are supporting them, but you are also protecting the manager and the organisation.

Read our article about an employee who was dismissed for complaining about the CEO – the CEO claims the employee was not performing….

Have you reviewed your performance management process recently? Is it sufficient to protect you from unfair dismissal claims? Send us a query to review your process at contact@hyroblog.com