The Role of HR in difficult or complex cases

Consider the following cases

Case 1 - A manager has a series or longer terms absences over the course of 12 months resulting in them only being at work for 5 months in total over the past year

Case 2 - A manager fails to report a health and safety issue which could have resulted in significant harm coming to a vulnerable person in their care. A disciplinary warning is issued, however there is concern that the manager did not recognise their duty to report this.

Case 3 - A performance issue has been identified with a manager and performance plan put in place.

Case 4 - The organisation recently received a number of grievances from a particular team. The grievances are not about the manager of the team, however they both cite the manager as a contributing factor for failing to deal with the perceived issues.

What would you do?

Case 1 - Most organisation have a policy for managing absence, and this should be followed. In general, this will follow either a capability process where targets are put in place for attendance or a disciplinary process where warnings are issued as absence increases. This should be managed through the organisations processes.

Case 2 - From the information above, it would appear that this has been managed through the disciplinary process correctly and a warning issued due to misconduct - failing to follow the organisation’s processes. The issue around whether they accepted the severity of the situation and their duty to report can be monitored and with a warning in place can be escalated if it re-occurs. There could also have been a conversation around capability at this point as the individual might not have understood their role or been clearly trained on it.

Case 3 - A performance plan with timescales and targets would seem like an appropriate course of action for this employee. This would need have some set targets, responsibilities and a timescale attached to it. A capability process should give employees appropriate time to meet the targets, but not be so long that an issue persists for a long period of time.

Case 4 - Investigating the grievances would be a starting point to this. This is important to be done quickly and effectively to ensure that actions are taken at the appropriate time.

 The role of HR

In large organisations, there can be multiple people involved in dealing with the above issues are teams can be large and spans of control can cover many areas. The cases above all related to the same employee with different managers dealing with different parts of the process due to where they had been raised and where the responsibility sat for them.

HR should be in a position to recognise that one person is involved in all of the above cases, and it is not a straightforward case of a disciplinary, grievance, capability or absence management, but actually an employee who, at this point in time, is not meeting the needs of the organisation in multiple ways. The ability to take a step back and look at the bigger picture is an important part of the HR Department’s function.

As each element above had been treated almost in isolation, no one manager had all the information required to make an informed decision about the person’s overall conduct and capability to continue in their role.

HR should bring all the information together and involve the right people in the decision making process to allow solutions to be found earlier and not allow things to escalate to the point above. This could have been through earlier intervention to put plans in place sooner or, when things reached a critical point, advising managers of the wider options available to them as there were a number of ways in which, taken as a whole, the issues could have resulted in a termination of employment.

How can I help?

I have significant experience across a number of organisations in supporting managers in dealing with difficult situations and getting the required outcome and reducing the risk of the situation escalating. Often issues can be solved informally, but sometimes things have already reached a critical point and require some careful thought and actions to resolve. 

Services I can provide:

-          Problem solving – Coming into the organisation to support for a particular problem

-          Line Manager Training – Working on a series of common HR issues with line managers using the organisations own policies and procedures to give everyone the confidence to use the procedures when required.  These sessions can be in person or online and can be tailored to cover purely the process, the people skills, tools and techniques or a combination of both.

-          Policy and Procedure writing – I can create a suite of people policies that are compliant with legislation and meet the needs of the organisation and help launch, raise awareness and train on the new or updated policies.

Dealing with longer term poor performance

Why do performance and capability issues arise?

Performance issues don’t arise overnight and are usually as a result of a sustained (and often gradual) downturn in expected performance.

Provided there is a robust recruitment process in place, employees don’t start in their position without the capability to undertake the role. Even where recruitment has focussed on the individual rather than technical capability, an induction and training plan will have addressed anything as part of onboarding.

Where performance becomes a problem quickly after recruitment, then this should be dealt with as part of any induction or probation process, allowing sufficient time and having realistic expectations of new employees as they onboard.

Where performance has declined over a period of time, and is now at a level that needs to be addresses, a performance management conversation will need to take place.

As noted above, poor performance or reduced capability in performing a role can happen gradually over time and isn’t always easy to identify when it initially happens and only becomes apparent after a sustained drop off on performance. Regular appraisal meetings should make this more apparent sooner and easier to rectify.

Why should managers be having regular performance conversations?

Managers should be having regular meetings with their employees as part of a formal process, or if not in place in your organisation, informally. This provides an opportunity for earlier intervention should performance start to dip below expected standards.

It is important to have this regular dialogue so that expectations are clear. In addition failing to address any issues can have an impact on others in the team also as poor performance may be seen to be tolerated.

It can often be the case that the individual will not know that they are not where they should be performance wise and having this regular dialogue allows this to be discussed at the earliest opportunity. It also allows for dialogue to take place as there may underlying reasons for the drop off in performance. Examples could be changes to working practices requiring additional training or an underlying medical condition or disability which is impacting on the employee.

All of this can be dealt with through dialogue with the employee. This dialogue is particularly important when underlying health conditions and disability come into play as there is a requirement on the organisation to take reasonable steps to support the employee.

Not addressing the situation as it arises can mean that the situation has to be escalated to to capability procedure. This can also happen where the earlier dialogue hasn’t helped or hasn’t helped enough.

 What does a formal Capabiltiy/Performance Management Procedure Look Like.

Formal procedures would normally have multiple stages and move beyond the normal management dialogue.

A formal meeting will take place with the employee where the issues arising will be highlighted and a timescale put in place to address these. This can include actions required of the employee and the manager. A reasonable amount of time will be agreed for the next meeting to allow the employee time to make the required improvements.

Some organisations have the provision to allow a repeat of this stage before moving to other measures, but essentially if the performance doesn’t reach required levels, the conversation would move to one where the future employment in the role is considered. Outcomes can be redeployment into a role that matches their capabilities or ultimately the employee leaving the organisation. It is often the case that employees will recognise that the “writing is on the wall” and will self select rather than waiting for the organisation to make a decision. Employers should be mindful of the possibility of a constructive dismissal claim so should continue to keep records and manage the situation carefully even if the employee resigns.

How can I help?

I have significant experience across a number of organisations in supporting managers in dealing with difficult situations and getting the required outcome and reducing the risk of the situation escalating. Often issues can be solved informally, but sometimes things have already reached a critical point and require some careful thought and actions to resolve. 

Services I can provide:

-          Problem solving – Coming into the organisation to support for a particular problem

-          Line Manager Training – Working on a series of common HR issues with line managers using the organisations own policies and procedures to give everyone the confidence to use the procedures when required.  These sessions can be in person or online and can be tailored to cover purely the process, the people skills, tools and techniques or a combination of both.

-          Policy and Procedure writing – I can create a suite of people policies that are compliant with legislation and meet the needs of the organisation and help launch, raise awareness and train on the new or updated policies.

Reducing the Risk - Dealing with difficult workplace situations

Why do people put off dealing with issues in the workplace?

In my experience, most people naturally will try to avoid conflict in workplace.  Whilst on the whole this can be beneficial, when it is manager failing to deal with underperformance or other issues with an employee this can have significant consequences.

In general, people don’t like being negative and often put these sorts of things off or minimise the impact of the issues to try to avoid the uncomfortable situation.  There is also often a fear of what could go wrong in terms of following proper process and any impact on the manager or supervisor dealing with the issue.

Why should we have these conversations?

Managers need to have these conversations as there can be an overall impact on the performance of the team or more widely within the organisation. The risks of not dealing with something are usually worse than actually dealing with an issue.

Failing to address any issues can have an impact on others in the team also as poor performance or behaviour may seem to be tolerated and lead to further issues.  Others in the team may need to pick up the slack and feel that they are having to perform more than they should to make up for other’s shortcomings. 

Often the individual will know something isn’t working or that they are not where they should be performance wise, but on other occasions they may not be aware at all.  If the person doesn’t know something is wrong, how can they improve, so having the conversation early and being direct about expectations might be all that’s required.

Finally, ignoring a situation won’t make it get better and the above issues can develop and get worse. 

How can I help?

I have significant experience across a number of organisations in supporting managers in dealing with difficult situations and getting the required outcome and reducing the risk of the situation escalating. Often issues can be solved informally, but sometimes things have already reached a critical point and require some careful thought and actions to resolve. 

Services I can provide:

-          Problem solving – Coming into the organisation to support for a particular problem

-          Line Manager Training – Working on a series of common HR issues with line managers using the organisations own policies and procedures to give everyone the confidence to use the procedures when required.  These sessions can be in person or online and can be tailored to cover purely the process, the people skills, tools and techniques or a combination of both.

-          Policy and Procedure writing – I can create a suite of people policies that are compliant with legislation and meet the needs of the organisation and help launch, raise awareness and train on the new or updated policies.