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Performance management
Underperforming employees can either be a case of can’t cook or won’t cook. If they can perform but won’t, you may need to go down the disciplinary route; if they can’t perform, you’re dealing with a performance management issue.
Managing poor performance can be a lengthy process, as you cannot dismiss somebody straightaway. If you don’t have the time or expertise, our Employment Law and HR specialists can help.
Helping you with
Take the pressure out of performance management
When it comes to performance management, the onus is on the employer to help an employee improve. This means putting a plan in place, setting clear targets and providing support to help them get where they need to be. This is a large undertaking for time-poor managers.
With our fixed-fee Employment Law and HR support, you can offload this burden with help from highly-qualified professionals.
- Conduct an effective and compliant process with unlimited advice from dedicated experts
- Save time with bespoke documentation – invite letters, outcome letters, PIPs and more
- Ensure a fair, consistent approach with best-practice policies, handbooks and management guidance notes
- Get additional HR Consultancy support with job descriptions and performance management frameworks
- Protect against claims with our optional, FCA-regulated Legal Expenses Insurance
Engaged employees, working towards collective company goals
Performance management is essential to meeting organisational goals effectively and efficiently. Without the competence to manage this process correctly, your workforce won’t reach its full potential and, worse, you may even end up with bigger issues such as grievances and even Employment Tribunal claims – if, for example, you use redundancy as a way to ‘manage out’ unwanted staff. These situations can also weigh heavily on managers, inviting difficult conversations and potential conflict.
As well as step-by-step guidance through the process, we’ll help you to gather and review evidence to prevent any suggestion that you haven’t provided clear objectives and the right support. Reduced risk, better organisational results.
How to manage employee performance
Managing employee performance effectively requires a fair, structured, and proactive approach. Start by setting clear expectations and checking in regularly to spot any issues early – prevention is always better than cure. When concerns do arise, avoid making assumptions. Instead, explore the root cause through open, two-way conversations. Providing constructive feedback and setting SMART goals can help keep people focused and motivated. Remember, how you manage – including your style and tone – can have a big impact on outcomes.
Getting this right can be time-consuming and complex, especially when situations become sensitive or escalate. Many employers understandably lack confidence in dealing with performance issues. That’s where professional support can make a real difference. By working with HR or employment law experts, you’ll gain reassurance that your approach is fair, legally sound, and handled in the right way – helping you achieve better results and reduce the risk of costly mistakes.
Why is performance management important for employers?
Managing performance is important because it helps keep standards high, boosts productivity, and helps employees thrive in their roles. It also helps employees understand what is expected of them and provides structure for regular feedback and supports development. Done well, it also helps to prevent issues from escalating, reduces absence and turnover, and strengthens working relationships across the business.
From a legal perspective, employers have a duty to act fairly and consistently, and failure to manage performance properly can lead to disputes or even Employment Tribunal claims. Following the Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures, helps demonstrate that you’ve acted reasonably. In short, performance management isn’t just about improvement; it’s about protection too.
Popular FAQs
What is performance management?
Performance management is the process by which the employer and employee work together with the aim of improving the performance of employees so that they can meet their objectives. If the necessary performance improvements cannot be made, then it is possible to issue warnings and eventually dismiss an employee on grounds of poor performance.
What is the performance management process?
Often a performance management process will start off informally with a manager encouraging or setting out what improvements an employee needs to make in a meeting or by email. If those informal methods are unsuccessful, the next step is usually the production of a formal performance improvement plan (PIP), which will set objectives for the employee, timescales for improvement, and the methods the employer will use to help the employee meet these goals. If an employee fails to meet a PIP, often a formal process will follow, which could result in a warning being issued.
What are performance management techniques?
Communication is key to any performance management process. You need to set clear, measurable objectives and timeframes to achieve those. The exact techniques beyond that will depend on the nature of the underperformance but often trying to make improvements will involve training or shadowing colleagues. It’s also important to provide full 360 feedback even outside of formal performance appraisals.
How can I use benchmarks in managing performance?
Benchmarks are often used to compare the performance of one employee against another. In practice this can sometimes be difficult, especially if the quality or quantity of work produced is difficult to measure. However, it is important to try and treat all employees equally, so a performance management process should only be used against someone who is demonstrably underperforming. Often that can only be done by comparing them to their colleagues in similar roles.
What is the best performance management framework?
This can vary from business to business but it’s important that any performance management process sets SMART objectives – those that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. Around your SMART objectives, you can build a performance improvement plan which will set out the objectives and when they need to be achieved by. The PIP will also detail the support the employer will give to the employee to help them meet their objectives, as well as the potential consequences for not doing so. Most Employee Handbooks will also set out a performance management procedure for dealing with issues like this.
What are the best ways to manage poor performance?
By being brave and tackling the issues, setting SMART objectives that are monitored by the use of a PIP and, if all that fails, using a formal process to issue warnings for poor performance.
Why is performance management important?
Proper performance management helps to increase employee engagement and productivity. It should also help align employees to your strategic objectives. Monitoring of performance also helps to spot early signs of performance problems, allowing your managers to stay ahead of the curve in that regard.
What are the benefits of performance management?
There are several benefits of performance management. It can highlight the need for training and help you to better understand the skills of your employees. It helps with your workforce planning and, in particular, can help you to spot talent. It can also boost morale and, in turn, increase employee retention.
Explore our fixed-fee Employment Law support
Advice Line
Fast, pragmatic, commercial. Our Employment Law & HR advice line gives you and your managers access to truly unlimited advice on all of your people-related challenges, from the seemingly straightforward to the most complex.What sorts of things can you advise on?
HR matters come with the territory when you run a business or manage an organisation and we’re here to help you through it all. Whether you’re battling absenteeism, struggling to manage an underperforming employee or need help navigating a complicated exercise like redundancy, we can walk you through the steps required to handle the situation appropriately.
Is everything dealt with through one team?
Yes. All of our advisers are qualified legal professionals or on the road to formal qualification, which means a full range of employee issues can be dealt with within your dedicated three-person team. In the event that you’re presented with an Employment Tribunal claim, we will conduct a full handover to our Litigation Team so that they are well equipped to defend you.
Find out moreContracts and Handbooks
Whether you have nothing in place or just need an expert review, our Employment Law specialists can carefully craft your employment contracts and employee handbooks to guarantee compliance and provide the flexibility you need as an employer.What are the risks of not having the right contracts in place?
Failing to provide an employee with a contract could lead to additional compensation being awarded to an employee who successfully makes another sort of claim against their employer. In addition, a number of practical problems could be caused by having incorrect contracts, such as paying too little (or too much) notice, getting holiday entitlement wrong and failing to protect legitimate business interests in the face of an employee leaving for a competitor.
How often do HR policies need to be reviewed?
Whenever there are changes to UK employment legislation, such as the recent changes to bereavement leave or the Good Work Plan, it’s important to make sure your contracts, handbooks and policies are updated accordingly. We can take the pressure off by alerting you to any such changes and helping you to implement them in your documentation and practices.
Find out moreDrafting Letters and Documents
From the most straightforward warning for poor attendance to complex grievance outcome letters and everything in between, our Employment Law solicitors can draft all your employment documents to save you valuable time and stress.What sorts of documents can you draft?
Just about anything and everything you might need during the employment relationship. All of our advisers are qualified legal professionals or on the road to formal qualification, which means we can support you with a full spectrum of advice and documentation, from first written warnings to new contractual clauses, to a policy you might not have in your handbook, plus more complex legal documents like settlement agreements and redundancy outcome letters.
I’ve got a HR team and just want templates we can use. Do you have a resources bank?
Yes, our fixed-fee Employment Law and HR support includes full access to our Knowledge Hub, available through MyEW, which contains most of the templates we work from. If you have an internal HR team, you may prefer to access these and tailor them yourselves. However, for more complex cases, we would always suggest engaging with our legal advisers as it can be all too easy to word something in a way that leaves you exposed.
Find out moreeLearning
Tired of classroom training, or unable to take time out? Raise awareness of best-practice around workplace issues and prevent HR headaches with our flexible, cost-effective eLearning courses.
What types of courses are available?
Our ever-growing library of eLearning courses currently covers over 100 topics, including HR courses such as Equality & Diversity, Sexual Harassment and Social Media Use; soft skills courses such as Communication, Leadership and Change Management; and compliance courses such GDPR, Anti-Money Laundering and the Bribery Act. We also offer an extensive range of Health & Safety courses, including Accident Reporting, Risk Assessment and First Aid. Download the full course catalogue.
How much do the courses cost?
All of our eLearning courses are free for the first year when you purchase our Employment Law & HR or Health & Safety managed service. This means you’re not paying per head or per course, which not only keeps down but gives you complete cost certainty over your training expenses. This is particularly handy if your workforce is growing, as you won’t need to purchase extra licenses, giving you exceptional value for money.
Legal Expenses Insurance
An optional component of our Employment Law and HR support, by underpinning our advice with Legal Expenses Insurance (LEI), you have maximum reassurance that your business is protected against unfair dismissal and other costly employee claims.
I’ve never had a claim before – why would I need to take LEI?
For the same reason you take out any insurance policy – to guard against the high cost of defending an Employment Tribunal claim. The premium cost is very low compared to the potential payout, especially as it covers the cost of representation as well as any potential compensation. You don’t have to have LEI, but it could significantly impact your bottom line if something goes wrong, given that the cost of even the most basic unfair dismissal claim could be £20-25,000 when legal costs are factored in. Unfortunately, the latest Tribunal statistics suggest that employers now are more vulnerable than ever.
Can you deal with Employment Tribunal claims, or is this triaged outside of EW?
Should you receive a claim, your dedicated Employment Law adviser, who will have dealt with the matter up until that point, will conduct a full handover to our Litigation Team. They will explain the case history, share all the relevant documentation and offer their views on the prospects of the claim. Our Litigation Team will then take over all the prep work, including drafting a defence, producing bundles, dealing with Acas and the other side, and briefing counsel. Rest assured this is a smooth process, with everything kept inside EW, and you will be in safe hands throughout.
Management Information
Discipline, performance, absenteeism. We’ll show you exactly where your dedicated Employment Law advisers are spending their time so that you can target key problem areas for more productive, high-performing teams. Recommended for large organisations with high case volumes.What detail does the MI provide?
The report will highlight what sorts of issues we are advising on and who/where in your business those questions are coming from. That way, we can easily spot problem areas, bring them to your attention and recommend steps to address the issues.
What sorts of recommendations do you typically provide?
We will provide practical and pragmatic recommendations to address whatever common problems are arising. The exact nature will depend on the sort of issues but could include training of managers in certain areas or the production of additional guidance and documentation to guide them through tricky subjects.
Find out moreMyEW
From document templates to HR Software, MyEW gives you all the tools you need to manage even the trickiest employee issues, improve efficiencies and get the answers you need, fast.
What sorts of issues can I find guides and templates on?
We have hundreds of guidance notes and accompanying templates covering a full spectrum of employment-related issues, including Maternity, Pay, Flexible Working, Holidays, Performance and Redundancy. All of these resources are created by our experts, and if you require further support or have any questions, you can contact your dedicated team of advisers for practical advice and guidance.
What does the HR Software do?
There can be a great deal of administration involved in managing employees, and the burden only increases as your business grows. If filing cabinets of employee information is no longer cutting it, our HR Software will help to automate your processes, save valuable time and manage HR tasks at the touch of a button. Use it to store and organise employee data and essential documents; manage and report on holidays, absence, timesheets and rostering; stay on top of employee reviews; maintain a comprehensive employee directory, and keep a record of training and development.
Why choose us?
Experts in Employment Law & HR
At Ellis Whittam, we’re known for our bespoke service and the quality of our support. Not only is our expertise unmatched, but we take the time to know you so that we can function as a true extension of your team.
- Your own small team of dedicated experts
- Dedicated specialists with recognised qualifications
- Bespoke contracts, policies and handbooks
- Trusted by over 35,000 organisations
- Recognised as a leading firm by the Legal 500
Who you’ll be working with
Toyah Marshall
Principal Employment Law Adviser
Latest news and insights
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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT | Giving Employees warnings
Few things can be more exasperating for employers than dealing with persistently poor performance. It can seem like an uphill battle to get some employees up to the required standard. But employers should avoid falling in the trap of getting so frustrated they snap and dismiss an employee without having regard to the correct procedure. Can an employer dismiss an employee without giving previous warnings? The general rule is that employees should not be dismissed for performance reasons unless