How Should We Handle Poor Performance After a Year Without Action? Seeking Advice on Policy and Legal Steps

Dear Seniors/Friends, Our organization is in the process of identifying poor performers, and action has to be taken on such cases. This process has not been done over a period of a year, due to which the number could be high. Kindly advise on how to proceed. Should we formulate a policy before proceeding, and please guide on the legal aspects.

Thanks,

Rajiv

Dear Rajiv,

Formulating policies on employee performance is absolutely essential. Labor laws do not interfere with the performance of employees and the employer, but what the laws state should frame the rules of performance. It is important to communicate these rules to the employees, obtain their signature on the communication, warn them for poor performance, and give them a specific time period to improve their performance. If employees still do not improve, then termination may be necessary.

Sometimes, employers opt for on-the-spot dismissal or removal with short notice. At times, measures of performance are not communicated to the employees at all, which is illegal.

On a related note, I have previously addressed a similar topic in my response to another post. You can read it by clicking on the following link: Employees Performance.

Thank you,
Dinesh V Divekar
Management & Behavioral Training Consultant

Dear Rajiv,

Your concern is quite appreciable, but it is not so simple to judge the performance of an employee without having prescribed some reasonable and justifiable work standards. You cannot prescribe abnormal performance standards for any employee. An extensively overloaded employee cannot be treated as a poor performer if he is not able to complete all the assigned jobs/projects in the proposed time.

You should also not forget that the performance of an employee can differ from workplace to workplace depending on workplace conditions, environments, noise level, lighting conditions, weather conditions, supervision, and guidance standards, etc.

Prescribing Work Standards

You may, therefore, need to prescribe work standards for each individual job based on standard industrial engineering/work study processes such as job descriptions, time tests, method study, work measurement, etc. After such a type of work study, you will have to circulate the work standards among the employees. The work study should be conducted by a qualified industrial engineer or a work study professional. If you don't have access to a qualified and experienced professional for the purpose, you may seek assistance from the "Dhingra Group of Management and Educational Consultants" at [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons] for their vast experience in this field.

Incorporating Punitive Provisions

For the purpose of taking any action against an employee for his/her poor performance, you may also have to incorporate the punitive provisions in the employees' conduct and discipline rules of your organization, as may have been duly approved by the company board.

Hope this advice can serve your purpose.

Regards,
PS Dhingra
Vigilance & Transformation Management Consultant
Dhingra Group of Management & Educational Consultants
New Delhi

In my company, we have a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) implemented. Anytime a manager observes a dip in the performance of their employees (over a period of, say, 2-3 months), they will refer that employee to the HR manager/officer. The dip in performance can be due to willingness issues, attendance, or health problems.

The HR needs to understand the actual reason for such a dip in performance by meeting and discussing with the employee. Based on the discussion, the employee is informed that they will be put on a 30, 60, or 90-day PIP (as the requirements may be), during which they will have to meet certain performance standards. There may be one of two outcomes at the end of the PIP duration:

1. The employee may be able to show a rise in performance to a good extent but fail to meet the standards set in the PIP document. In this case, you may extend the PIP duration by another 30 days and give them another chance to improve.

2. The employee may show marginal or no improvement at all; then the employee needs to be terminated based on poor performance.

The PIP documents should be sharply and precisely worded. The more objective it is, the better. You start by stating that poor performance has been observed by the manager over the period of so many months. List all the instances of poor performance depicted (the manager should provide this). Mention that based on the above instances, the employee is being placed on a 30/60 or 90-day PIP starting from (date). List all the performance standards expected from them during the PIP duration.

Terms and Conditions:

The employee is liable to be terminated if they fail to meet the performance standards stated above. The improvement in performance should be sustained, or else the employee will stand a cause of termination if there is a dip in performance again.

Typically, we use PIP only for performance issues (mainly), but if we observe that the employee has attendance or attitude issues, we include those expectations in the PIP document as well.

Hope this helps.

Thanks,

Amrita