How Do I Handle an Underperforming Employee Who Is Threatening Termination?

Dear professionals, I am working in a manufacturing unit (Pvt Ltd Co) with 50 employees as an HR executive. My problem is that an employee is not fulfilling his work duties properly. I provided him with counseling, after which he assured me that he would fulfill his responsibilities without fail. However, the issue persists, and I have been receiving complaints about him from almost all employees. Subsequently, I reprimanded him, and now he is threatening me with termination. He frequently seeks advice from lawyers and minor political figures. It is due to their support that he is making these threats. He works in our dispatch section where he spends most of his time idle. Despite his job being equivalent to that of a peon, he refuses tasks by stating that he is not a peon. His designated working hours are from 10:00 to 6:30, yet he consistently arrives around 10:20. I am considering termination. Can anyone please advise me on how and under what reason I can proceed with this?

Thank you.

I am currently working in a manufacturing company. Can you please provide me with some details? For instance, is he on your company's payroll or is he working as a contractor?

Thank you.

Just discuss this with your top management. You will get some support, right? Think and act, as these individuals use the name of the trade union to create significant issues. Have you discussed this with your management? What are they saying?

Thank you for your reply. I have not yet discussed this issue with top management. The regional manager is aware of the situation and also wishes to terminate him. My question is, how can I terminate him? What reason can I cite against him?

Regards,
Preethul

Initiating Disciplinary Action: Ensuring Competence

Primarily, you have to ensure that you are competent to initiate disciplinary action against an employee. As an HR Executive, I don't think that you are. If not, your manager, under whom the accused employee also comes, can initiate. Do not rely on the verbal instructions of the Regional Manager. Study the protocol and ask the RM to issue a show cause notice to the employee and start disciplinary action legally. Failing which, the court will say that you have terminated the service of an employee without following the principles of natural justice, and therefore, you should reinstate him. That will be embarrassing for you. If you are not a competent authority to initiate disciplinary action but you did it, then also your act of terminating or even the act of calling him to show cause will be challenged, saying that "only the appointing authority can terminate."

Documenting Evidence Against the Employee

However, it is time to start creating or documenting evidence against the employee. Document his KRAs, his latecoming, misbehavior, etc., by giving him warning letters and show cause memos and collecting written complaints from other employees. It is often found that employees who talk about a bad employee will not come forward to say a word against that employee when they are called to appear before an Enquiry officer. Therefore, if you have written evidence, it will be easy for you to prove his misconduct before the Enquiry officer. Similarly, if you follow the enquiry proceedings step by step, no court will say that you should reinstate the employee. Therefore, I advise you to start disciplinary action by giving him a show cause notice and then conducting an enquiry and giving him an opportunity to be heard.

Regards,
Madhu T.K.

Madhu.T.K has suggested the right way - FIRST BUILD UP THE CASE.

Secondly, NEVER EVER MAKE A THREAT THAT YOU CAN'T CARRY OUT - even in the worst-case scenario. In such IR situations, it's easy to get carried away and say, "I will terminate you," and when you realize that you aren't empowered to do so, imagine your position/situation from then on - as Madhu TK mentioned.

You should have some sort of foolproof method to track daily attendance - use it to build up his late-coming records and check for early leaving instances, if they exist.

Since you mentioned he is working in the dispatch section, his work, or the lack of it, must definitely be affecting many departments - get the Heads of those departments to issue memos/letters to this person or maybe send complaint letters to HR (based on which you can handle the memo issuing aspect).

Looking at the practical scenario, you would encounter many such opportunities/situations through which you can build up the case.

Regards,
TS

Your company seems to be small. I don't foresee any problems with immediate retrenchment due to redundancy. In this era, many corporations are letting people go quickly, citing reasons such as cost-cutting, austerity measures, etc.

Regards,

Handling Employee Termination Due to Redundancy

I presume that the employee is the most senior person in the category. If you terminate him without reasons or just due to redundancy, you will be attracting troubles. If you want to terminate an employee due to redundancy, you should be terminating (let me use the word "retrenchment" here) the LAST person to be appointed in the same category. That means termination of service due to redundancy will come under the purview of the Industrial Disputes Act.

I understand what PON wanted to say: there are many companies that do so, and I think almost all these companies are new generation companies. These days, people (I mean educated masses who have many other opportunities outside the company) don't even bother about losing a job because of the availability of jobs and therefore, don't take it seriously also. But this may not be the case. If we do not handle it properly, the entire situation will go out of our control, and gradually some aggrieved people will start thinking of forming a trade union and so on. Therefore, I suggest being patient and doing everything carefully.

Regards,
Madhu.T.K