All Stories

To fire or make redundant?

Tom Winnifrith
Wednesday 3 April 2013

I am still in trouble. This is three down in 24 hours but I am still four columns in arrears with 24n.biz the online magazine for SMEs. And so for the next 24 hours I shall be writing little else than articles with tips for small businesses. Enough is enough, it is SME time and so here is my third offering.

And so you have identified a member of staff who is somewhere between not very good at their job, downright bad at their job or criminally delinquent – what do you do? In an ideal world we would simply be allowed to fire them but we do not live in an ideal world. One of the main reasons NOT to take on full time staff is that it is so bloody hard to get rid of them if they are not up to the task assigned them. The net effect is that Britain’s incredibly “useless worker friendly” employment laws create unemployment.

But we are where we are. There is no real sign that the laws are going to change to create even a level playing field between those that risk their own capital (employers) to create jobs and those who simply earn a wage.

There is a lot of talk from HR professionals about “managing out” underperforming staff. That is to say warning them when they fail to meet the set objectives in their job description and going down a pre agreed process of three warnings and then termination. In theory you end up paying just the statutory notice period at the end and so it is a “cheap” option. In theory…

on 24n.biz | Comments
About Tom Winnifrith
Bio
Tom Winnifrith is the editor of TomWinnifrith.com. When he is not harvesting olives in Greece, he is (planning to) raise goats in Wales.
Twitter
@TomWinnifrith
Email
[email protected]
Recently Featured on ShareProphets
Sign up for my weekly newsletter








Required Reading

Recent Comments


I also read