In an employee shortage market, should we avoid disciplining or managing an employee’s performance for fear of provoking discontent or even worse, seeing them leave the company?
Here are some of the potential impacts on the manager, organization and colleagues if no action is taken:
- Encourages colleagues to reproduce deviant behaviour
- Loss of credibility for both the manager and the organization (favouritism)
- Decreased motivation of colleagues
- Risk of tension among the employee and their colleagues
- Danger of employees taking the law into their own hands
- May cause colleagues to level off
- Loss of motivation and interest of the colleagues in the position and/or company
- Danger of employees leaving voluntarily due to manager’s inaction
- Etc.
Conversely, does it mean moving forward with discipline each time? Of course not, since each case is specific. However, many elements must be taken into consideration when choosing a penalty, including:
- The severity of the alleged facts and acts
- The consequences related to the acts
- The nature and the alleged facts
- The repetitive nature of events
- The employee’s background in the organization
- Etc.
Here is some practical advice for the discipline and performance management of an employee:
Discipline Management
- Gather the facts regarding the situation
- Prepare a disciplinary notice (verbal, written, suspension or termination of employment)
- Meet the employee and hand them the disciplinary notice
- Announce your discontent and the penalty associated with their behaviour / attitude
- Keep the letter in the employee’s file
Performance Management
- Gather facts regarding our dissatisfaction on their performance at work (gaps vs expectations)
- Meet the employee and inform them of our gaps vs expectations
- Grant the employee a time frame to rectify their performance
- Prepare an administrative letter stating all observations noted of gaps vs expectations
- Hand the administrative letter summarizing the elements discussed during the meeting
- Document the file and keep the letter in the employee’s file
- Regularly track the performance to see if there has been improvement in their performance
- Conduct a follow-up meeting and if there are no improvements, redirect them (when possible) or end them
Finally, it is important to understand that it will cost a company more in the medium and long term to keep an undesirable or non-performing employee within their company, rather than taking the necessary actions to correct behaviour or enhance performance in the workplace. At this stage, your credibility, as well as the company’s are more important than keeping an employee that will pollute the work climate to the detriment of their discontent. Evidently and even if we are all aware of the current issues related to recruitment, it is better to lose a bad employee and start a recruitment process than to lose 3 because of your inertia or their dissatisfaction.
Stéphane has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Relations and is a member of the Ordre des Conseillers en ressources humaines agréés. He worked in medium and large companies as a Director of Human Resources and Industrial Relations for over 20 years. In the past years, he redirected his practice and is now working at Bedard Resources for the past 5 years as a Director of HR Services-Consultation. His team members accompany different clients in terms of HR services-consultation, as well as headhunting.
