I’ve been in HR for 11 years now; six of those years have been spent in consulting. As an HR Consultant I’m very often called in to help companies deal with problem employees. Problem employees seem to be endemic in Britain’s SME’s at the moment.
The first thing to say on the subject is that it can happen to any company and it’s something which needs to be handled decisively, sensitively and within the law. It’s worth pointing out that dealing with a problem employee may lead to their dismissal and companies are most at risk of an Employment Tribunal claim when they are hiring and firing. In short, do it right or face action.
This first thing to do with problem employees is to ensure you have contemporaneous notes of issues with the person. In far too many cases I am brought in to deal with there is one issue that has ‘tipped the balance’ and the employer wants to dismiss citing numerous previous issues yet they have no record of the issues; worse they have not raised the issues with the employee at the time. I’ve worked on cases where issues from several years previously were being cited as problems.
So we’ve established two really important things pretty quickly; deal with issues as they arise and make sure you keep notes.
Generally things are far better if they are ‘nipped in the bud’ so let’s suppose an issue arises that warrants the employee to be disciplined. It’s a good idea to have a disciplinary policy which states what process the company will adopt. This used to be a legal requirement until 2009, after which the law was repealed It was replaced by a ‘Code of Practice’ published by ACAS; whilst this is not law you will need a very good excuse for not following it should the issue ever escalate to Tribunal. The Code of Practice did make some fundamental changes to the way disciplinary issues are dealt with by introducing the requirement for an issue to be investigated by a separate person to the person hearing the disciplinary. This can be quite onerous for a small business to achieve and that’s why the use of HR consultants is on the rise.
Using a consultant in these instances can also take emotion from the situation. It can be tremendously difficult to deal with such issues with people you know well and work with on a day to day basis; that’s why corporate companies tend to get managers from different parts of the business involved.
In a disciplinary hearing it’s vital that you enter the meeting with an open mind; in legal terms that you haven’t prejudged the case. Again, keep notes. Recording and then transcribing the meeting is as close as you can get to verbatim; there are some schools of thought that suggest videoing the meeting but, for me, that seems oppressive.
Ask the questions you need to in order to get to the facts and give you a clear understanding of the situation. Allow the employee to give any mitigating circumstances if there are any and then adjourn the meeting for as long as you need. If you need to go and ask further questions of others then do so. Only when you are clear on your outcome should you reconvene the meeting.
Deliver you outcome sensitively and in a considered way but be clear in what your outcome is. Set a realistic performance plan if necessary. After this, you must give the employee the right of appeal. Follow up the outcome and the right of appeal in writing.
So there you have it, in simple terms how to deal with a difficult employee. The main skill in conducting disciplinaries is being able to interpret the employee’s reaction and to deal with any ‘curved balls’ they may want to throw at you; that’s where we can help.