When an employee is failing to get their work done, having attendance issues, or causing trouble in the workplace, you should address the problem. But what would be the best time to do so? As soon as possible!
Consider this situation: you have an employee with ongoing attendance issues. He regularly comes in late, has had multiple unexcused absences, and has only been employed for three months. It has come to the point where termination is warranted, but you put it off for a day. Then, the day you plan to terminate him, the employee has a workplace accident and files a workers’ comp claim. Not only could you now be stuck with a costly claim, but termination would also appear poorly timed as the employee can now say it was in retaliation for filing a claim even though the attendance issues happened before the accident.
Situations happen like this all the time. You put off addressing an issue, and then the employee injures themselves, discloses certain information to you, or requests protected leave that could now make the corrective action seem like it’s related to an unlawful reason and is being used as a way to get rid of them, often referred to as pretext.
So, how do we avoid these situations? No one knows the future so it’s unlikely that you can foresee an employee injuring themselves. Additionally, an employee can sometimes realize they are not doing well at work and may purposefully disclose information or request protected leave as a way to avoid corrective action since risk-averse employers may be put off from taking any action at that point to avoid appearing retaliatory or discriminatory.
Benjamin Franklin had the best answer to this question: don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. This is not to say that you have to put pen to paper for every minor infraction, but when corrective action is warranted, you should aim to complete the process as soon as possible. Collect all the relevant information, engage any necessary parties (e.g. managers) in the process early, document the situation, and talk with the employee to deliver the corrective action.
Additionally, if corrective action is to be effective, we want to inform employees as soon as possible about any concerns regarding their work so they have a chance to improve the issue. The longer you wait to address this, the more likely it is to turn into a habit, which may be more difficult to break later.
While corrective action is typically not anyone’s favorite pastime, it’s important to do so to let employees know their behavior or performance needs improvement, attempt to get them back on the right path, and, if necessary, have documentation to support the need for termination. And the faster these issues are handled, the more you can reduce your company’s risk.
For guidance on timely corrective action, reach out to your FrankAdvice HR Consultant.