The performance of one of your employees has dropped significantly in recent months and you are considering dismissing him for disciplinary reasons. How can you prove this drop in performance?
Grounds for dismissal
Cause. A continuous and voluntary decrease in an employee's normal or agreed work performance is grounds for disciplinary dismissal. However, in order for the dismissal to be valid, the reduction must meet three requirements:
- It must be continuous or have permanence over time, and not transitory or circumstantial, for example, because of a bad day.
- It must also be voluntary. If it is not, you will have to make an objective dismissal due to supervening ineptitude and pay 20 days' severance pay. Attention! You can therefore dismiss an administrative assistant who, for no reason, starts to process fewer delivery notes, order fewer documents and take fewer calls, as a disciplinary measure. But if the decrease is due to a health problem (for example, if osteoarthritis causes him to lose speed in performing his tasks), you must dismiss him for ineptitude.
- The drop in performance must be significant or serious. Attention! And therein lies another difficulty in justifying dismissal. See how you can defend yourself in court if your employee contests the termination.
To be taken into account
Factors. Your employer may justify disciplinary dismissal in the following way:
- Comparison. If you useperformance measurement systems for your workforce. Note. For example: if you produce tables or graphs comparing the sales of your salespeople and you detect that one of them has been reducing its sales, falling below the rest and below the average figure for the department, you will be able to prove the drop in performance.
- Objective data. If you do not have other employees on equal terms with whom to compare, analyse the employee's own past performance. Make a note. Thus, if your employee works in the warehouse, last year moved 15 pallets per hour and in recent weeks has only moved three (with no external circumstances to justify the decrease), you can prove the decrease in performance.
Recommendations
Willfulness. You must also prove your employee's wilfulness, whether caused by neglect of duty or failure to comply with your company's directives. Note. It is therefore advisable that you have sanctionedyour employee before dismissal:
- Sanction him in writing and remind him of the minimum targets to be met, or what performance is expected of him.
- It will be able to prove that, after the sanction, the conduct has not ceased (so it will be continuous) and that the person concerned has done nothing to reverse the situation (so there will be wilfulness).
Alternativa. Según la naturaleza del trabajo, una alternativa es introducir una cláusula resolutoria en el contrato que le permita extinguir la relación, sin indemnización, por no cumplir con los objetivos determinados. Ello es válido si los objetivos son razonables y alcanzables. Apunte. Si bien esta cláusula es habitual en comerciales (es fácil acreditar que no se alcanza un nivel de ventas), también es válida en otros sectores. Por ejemplo: si en un almacén cada mozo tramita con facilidad un mínimo de pedidos, la empresa podrá exigir dicho rendimientomínimo a los mozos que contrate.
La disminución en el rendimiento de su empleado debe ser continuada en el tiempo, voluntaria y relevante. Acredite que se cumplen dichos requisitos comparando su rendimiento con el de sus compañeros.