HR Pulse

Do these 5 things before you dismiss a poor performer

Performance issues come under the spotlight this time of year - especially as most employers are conducting performance reviews to decide what size of bonuses to pay employees.

(Have a look at some of our other articles on performance management which you might find useful: Natalie Singer of APSO has written a very interesting article about performance managing your recruitment provider and Phil Meyer of Pastel Payroll talks about one of the best ways to conduct performance reviews with your employees.)

But sometimes things reach a drastic level and you need to dismiss an employee for poor performance.

Before you do that, ensure that you do these 5 things:

1.    Provide your employee with a job description that sets out what the acceptable standards for performance are in your organisation. Set the employee KPAs, targets and dates when these targets must be achieved by.

2.    Communicate these targets and performance standards to your employees.
You cannot have a performance standard that your employees do not know about. It is your responsibility to let them know what they must do.

3.    Give your employee sufficient and reasonable time to meet the performance standard.

4.    If your employee is not meeting the performance standard, then it is up to you to establish why she is unable to perform and then look at ways to help her improve.

5.    Only look at dismissal if you have exhausted all possible ways of getting the employee to improve their performance.

Author: Jonathan is the CEO of Global Business Solutions and is a nationally acclaimed consultant, lecturer, attorney and author on matters relating to Labour Law, Industrial Relations and Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment. Jonathan is also an Arbitration and Mediation panelist, accredited Commissioner of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, member of Tokiso dispute settlement panel