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: Thoughts from a Management Lawyer

Dealing with Performance Problems

By Michael Fitzgibbon

The weather on this long weekend has been awful and I've spent more time at the computer than I expected or wanted to.

So, when I saw a post in my newsreader from Morning Manager a Globe and Mail blog that I really enjoy called Management: Dealing with problem employees I was intrigued.  The post dealt with identifying some common performance issues and concluding with the old "it's up to management to deal with performance issues". 

Dealing with a performance problem is a multi-party responsibility.  Employer's, in the first instance, must establish acceptable performance standards or standards of behaviour and, when conduct falls short deal with that through warnings (I have always struggled with the term coaching, but, I guess, they're somewhat similar and coaching is somewhat more palatable to some). 

The responsibility then shifts to the employee to improve while management, at the same time, maintains the responsibility of monitoring and following up with the employee.

As I see it, the employer is responsible for establishing and communicating performance standards and monitoring those.  However, the employee has the important responsibility of meeting those performance standards once communicated.

While I am not as definitive as the consultant whose newsletter is the catalyst for the Morning Manager post to the effect that "most persistent performance problems are the fault of the manager", I would agree no good can come from management turning a blind eye to the issue in the hopes that it will fix itself or go away. 

It won't.

Ignoring the problem can have serious implications in a lawsuit.  For example, if the employer asserts that the employee was terminated for just cause for performance problems that had existed for years but that were not dealt with, then the employer should not be surprised to hear from the employee that the employer had "condoned" the alleged misconduct and undercut the just cause argument. 

Ignoring the problem also sends an awful message to the workforce who, you would be wise to assume, know full well what the issues are and that their colleague is not under-performing. 

Again, performance problems will not go away on their own, nor will they fix themselves.  There are many ways that the employee can be salvaged, but this will take time, effort and commitment from all concerned. 

At the same time, if the employer simply does not wish to engage in the time and effort to try to right the ship, or if the employer has come to the realization that "this just isn't going to work out", then the employer has another difficult decision has to make. 

Full post as published by Thoughts from a Management Lawyer on May 19, 2008 (boomark / email).