When it comes to letting go of employees, following the right procedures is always on the forefront of any manager or HR professional’s mind. It can be highly sensitive and can be difficult to navigate. And this is exactly why performance improvement plans are being used and abused. Many mangers think they need to create a plan to lay the ground work before dismissing an employee. And this can end up being a huge waste of time and resources if the end goal is to let the employee go and not actually improve their performance. For more on this, check out this article from HRM Online.
As wrongful dismissal settlements increase in damages and publicity, it is vital that HR get the details of any termination right. So what are the biggest mistakes HR is making, and how can you avoid them? One of the biggest mistakes employment lawyer Christine O’Donoghue, from Miller Thomson, sees is employers using (or misusing) performance improvement plans for just cause termination. “Any just cause firing that doesn’t include conduct such as theft or serious fraud is risky. It’s known as capital punishment in the employment law context,” O’Donoghue said. Sometimes employers will know they want to fire an employee, but will not have sufficient cause. Instead of terminating without cause – an overall cheaper approach, according to O’Donoghue – some employers will choose to put a performance improvement plan in place. When an employee does not improve they then terminate based on the results of that program. However, if an employer does not use an improvement plan in good faith, a board or court could see it as a malicious step to get rid of an employee, resulting in an expensive payout. What’s more, a court will rarely accept incompetence as the only reason for a termination so it is not usually worth going down that path. “At the outset of embarking on any performance improvement plan, ask yourself whether you think the relationship is salvageable,” O’Donoghue said. “You want to ask yourself is it sustainable.” If you truly do not believe the employee will improve, skip the plan and terminate without cause. It’s a simpler process and likely to be less expensive in the long term.
