Employees have many employment rights, they are well protected and the list of new employment rights is growing continuously. But what many employers overlook is the fact that they too have some basic rights. Every employer has a right to ask employees to; 1. Do the job they are employed to do (Performance), 2. Behave appropriately when within the workplace (Behaviour) and 3. Turn up for work when they are meant to (Attendance). So just how do employers achieve their basic employer rights without infringing the rights of their employees? This is the biggest challenge facing employers today.
If business owners had a better understanding of the ‘challenges' of managing under-performance or unsatisfactory behaviour and made better use of the basic Performance Management tools, many performance, behaviour and attendance issues would be resolved more effectively and without infringing the basic employment (or human) rights of employees.
So how is this achieved?
Firstly, employers need to be made aware that a major change in employment law came into effect in April 2009 which has made the tackling of underperformance in the workplace far less bureaucratic, less risky and less worrying. Where as before employers had to follow a clear process, and failure to follow that process was automatically seen as unfair dismissal, the procedure today is based on ‘fair and reasonable' actions by the employer. What's that means is employers do not have to get every detail correct as long as they follow the new ACAS code of practice on disciplinary and grievance.
The second thing employers have to do is to put poor performance on the corporate agenda by communicating to all the organisation that poor performance will not be accepted, having poor performance procedures detailed in employee handbooks and by giving line managers clear procedures to follow when having to deal with poor performance.
The third thing employers have to do is train all managers in dealing with poor performance. Any manager can manage good people or a gross misconduct issue but managing underperforming employees is far more difficult and where specialist training is required.
The fourth and most important thing employers have to do is encourage and support their line managers when they are tackling performance issues. A good supportive boss is key to resolving performance or behavioural issues so they themselves need to understand the complexities poor performance management if they are to be able to encourage rather than discourage.
Just think how more profitable your organisation would be and how much more of an enjoyable workplace to work in if there was a culture where good performance was expected rather than poor performance being accepted.
For more information please contact ILC Communications on 01202 313710 or visit www.ilccomms.co.uk
