Performance Management or Bullying?

The study, 2013 Direct Health Solutions Absence Management & Wellbeing Report, which covers more than 108 organisations and approximately 450,000 employees, found that 63% of organisations experience absenteeism levels higher than the 6.9 days per employee. Indeed, the report indicated that average absenteeism levels in Australia had surpassed 8.9 days per year costing $27.5 billion. In larger organisations sickies accounted for 10.5 days per worker each year.

Absenteeism was found to be higher with manual workers, as well as in organisations that foster “sickie” cultures. Not surprisingly, a correlation was found with high turn-over and absenteeism, suggesting a pattern of employees taking greater sick leave before eventually quitting.

Root cause

Of course, insisting that employees produce a medical certificate to support their medical leave does help reduce absenteeism, but this is nothing more than a band aid solution.

More often than not, the root cause for absenteeism, poor productivity and employee churn is due to an individual’s skills and motivational interests being misaligned with the requirements of the role. In other situations, poor performance can often be pinned to the employee’s attitude and mindset or even a clash of personalities or organisational culture. Poor working conditions and physical surroundings, low job satisfaction and high workload may also be at the heart of the issue.

Rigorous performance management

Managers can greatly influence the performance of their team members by routinely telling individual employees how well they are tracking and how their role and performance fits into the organisation’s broader strategic direction.

That’s why it’s critical to set up a rigorous performance management framework with regular appraisals to effectively manage and evaluate your employees. Performance appraisals provide an excellent opportunity to understand any underlying causes of an individual’s poor performance and uncover unhealthy attitudes that may be driving absenteeism or poor performance which can be then be managed and documented appropriately.

Where employees feel there’s a clash of egos or that they are being treated unfairly, or worse still, being bullied at work, it’s critically important for businesses to fully investigate the claim to ensure removal of any bullying related conduct & compliance with current and soon to be introduced legal requirements.

Yet it’s equally important that businesses can counter false bullying and harassment claims that may arise from legitimate performance management, with fully documented absenteeism reporting and performance management records.

New workplace bullying laws

Under new workplace bullying laws that come into effect on 1 January 2014, workers will be given the right to redress workplace bullying directly through the Fair Work Commission.

Under the new laws a worker (which includes employees, contractors, subcontractors, outworkers, apprentices, trainees and students gaining work experience as well as volunteers) can apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to stop the bullying which is defined as repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.

While the FWC anticipates that an additional 3,500 bullying complaints will be made annually as a result of these new laws, there is a real danger that many of the new claims will be from workers who allege that performance and conduct management amounts to bullying conduct and that the management was neither reasonable nor was it carried out in a reasonable manner.

This could lead to a significant cost for employers as you will be required to participate in a hearing in order to establish that the performance management is reasonable management action carried out in a reasonable manner.

The best way to mitigate the risks associated with the new bullying laws in your business is to routinely document absenteeism and adhere to strict practices in performance management which are correctly conducted recorded, monitored and managed.

In addition, it’s a good time now to bolster your workplace procedures with comprehensive HR and Work Health and Safety policies. A clearly defined policy for dealing with workplace bullying is a must as are clear procedures for notification and response.

Remember all workplace policies need to be implemented properly which includes staff training and accurate record keeping especially if you end up on the wrong end of a claim.

Find out more about enableHR’s performance management tools to help you prepare for the new anti-bullying laws.