Addressing Poor Performance and Behaviour
Fortunately, most employees perform their duties well with little need to take corrective action. There are times, however, when an employee is not meeting either performance or behaviour expectations, it is critical to act. Coaching and retraining are often all that are required to bring about an improvement in the employee’s behaviour or performance. There are occasions when this type of supportive action does not result in positive changes leaving a manager to take some form of disciplinary action to correct the less-than-expected employee output. Disciplinary action is a formal process many managers find difficult and time-consuming to implement.
As difficult as it often is, taking disciplinary action against an employee, who is underperforming or behaving badly, is designed to bring about change. If we fail to take action to bring about change, we are exposing our business to potential harm and expectations start to diminish across the whole workforce becoming quite hard to re-introduce. For example, if we accept poor behaviour, others start to modify their own behaviours to a lower standard and soon, many expectations are lost.
Your consideration of these may lead to providing more coaching and training for the employee or even allowing the employee more time to improve prior to taking disciplinary action. If you feel these factors have limited application or lack relevance, proceed with taking disciplinary action. In the event, you do need to take disciplinary action and there is a possibility of termination, we strongly advise you to call us to ensure the process you follow is ‘fair, just and reasonable in the eyes of Fair Work.
When we engage people, it is important that they understand the performance and behaviour expectations and workplace standards. The aim of any good people management approach is to maintain those standards, consistently and fairly. At times, this may require being quite firm and direct with employees in disciplining them. However, before embarking on disciplinary action, you should consider these two factors carefully:
Is the underperformance or unsatisfactory behaviour characteristic of this employee in the past and what actions were taken then?
If the current situation is not characteristic or typical of this employee, what additional support and guidance might I need to introduce to bring about improvement?
Your consideration of these may lead to providing more coaching and training for the employee or even allowing the employee more time to improve prior to taking disciplinary action. If you feel these factors have limited application or lack relevance, proceed with taking disciplinary action. In the event, you do need to take disciplinary action and there is a possibility of termination, we strongly advise you to call us to ensure the process you follow is ‘fair, just and reasonable in the eyes of Fair Work.