Managing employee performance and conduct is amongst the most challenging responsibility faced by line managers. Employers can make this task significantly less demanding by creating an environment where most employees will behave appropriately and perform well most of the time.

A safe environment; interesting and challenging work, recognition, a good work-life balance, learning and development opportunities, career prospects, properly trained managers, a sensible and practicable means of assessing and recording performance, and fair/competitive remuneration are all positive factors likely to enhance employee performance and conduct.

Of course it may not be practicable to provide all or even most of these, but every organisation will have a degree of control over its working environment and the challenge for senior management is to maximise the realisation of as many of these opportunities as possible.

However, even when this is achieved, there will be some employees who for whatever reason are not performing to a satisfactory level, or whose behaviour is unacceptable. In these circumstances, early (but not precipitative) action is essential. Performance problems, if left alone only ever get worse and may suck in more and more employees. Misconduct must be addressed immediately in order to uphold the standards of the company (and sometimes for the well-being of other employees). Often informal, early and sensible management intervention will resolve the situation, but managers must also be prepared to adopt a more formal approach - a performance improvement plan or a disciplinary procedure - in order to deal with the situation.

Ultimately if the employee cannot sufficiently improve their performance, dismissal may have to be considered. Whilst obviously a last resort, it is far more preferable than allowing the situation to develop such that it has a significant detrimental effect on other staff. Where misconduct is concerned, either repeated offences or a severe first offence are likely to require dismissal. 

Some of our work

1985-89 - Advising Electricity companies on the application of national procedures

1989-97 - Advising line managers on the application of company procedures

1994 - Development and implementation of performance management and disciplinary procedures for new Retail business - 700 staff nationwide (a trade unionised environment)

1996 -  Development and implementation of performance management and disciplinary procedures for 500 Customer Services Operatives in NE England (trade unionised environment)

1998-04 - Coaching line managers on the application of company procedures in IT Services company

2006 - Advising two high technology manufacturing companies on disciplinary and performance improvement issues

2007 - Advised SME in the Publishing and Conference sector on addressing the poor performance of a new Sales Manager.

2008 - Advising manufacturer in the semi-conductor sector on tackling the poor performance of their Operations Manager