Jeremy Badcock is our peer reviewer this time and he finds this advice from Kate Russell a useful tool to pass on to new managers.
Title: How to get top marks in… Managing poor work performance
Author: Kate Russell
ISBN: 0954605454
It is quite a challenge to review a book written by someone calling herself the HR Headmistress. Kate Russell, the HR Headmistress, is qualified in business law and as a barrister and has worked in operations, HR management and training. Kate now works as an HR consultant across a wide range of businesses, delivers employment law training, is an established author of practical employment handbooks and contributes immensely useful and readable blogs to HRzone -and other media outlets.
‘How to Get Top Marks in….Managing Poor Work Performance’ is one of series of digestible booklets each of about 120 pages. The clear writing with a complete absence of jargon and only essential references to employment law is aimed at managers rather than HR specialists.
Those likely to gain most benefit would be newly promoted supervisors or managers but the book would be useful to anyone regardless of experience as it consolidates the key points logically and explains the reasoning behind them. For a manager who is confronted with a performance issue, complicated by emotional baggage and a range of interests, a quick scan of the appropriate pages will help provide a focus on the key issues and sift out what is important from the rest. For the small business owner without access to an HR department the book will help clarify any situation and possibly avoid the need to spend money on an HR consultant.
The common sense approach of the writing is apparent from the beginning: the first pages start off with the reasons for managing poor work performance – something many managers may not even consider, particularly if their motives relate less to performance and more to emotions, politics or other negative factors.
The book then works through the necessary processes of setting and publishing the standards required of people, monitoring their performance and then correcting any performance shortcomings as necessary. All this, against a background of preventing any need for corrective action in the first place. If prevention does not work then the headmistress devotes a number of pages to the use of informal processes as a first step. In a rare moment of perhaps unintentional humour, she notes that ‘if you end up having fifty informal chats you can tell that the informal approach isn’t working’.
At all times the approach is to act fairly and within the law – which is generally deemed to be the same thing by professionals but something often forgotten by managers with their different priorities. This treatment then will enable managers to avoid having to use solicitors or run the risk of being taken to a tribunal on a procedural issue. Those who do have to appear at a tribunal will, if they have followed the advice given, have a better chance of demonstrating that they have in fact acted reasonably and within the law.
Helpful panels giving concise case histories of good and bad practice and their results. These serve neatly to illustrate the various points made in the text – and act as a reminder to seasoned professionals of how easy it is to miss the point or how a tribunal may have a different interpretation. The new manager will discover the variety of situations which can occur in any dealings with people and their individual skills and personalities.
Eight appendices provide useful reference material in the form of checklists for carrying out performance reviews and investigations as well as sample templates for policies and letters.
At a price of £5 this book delivers a considerable and indispensable amount of guidance and knowledge, all easily accessible through its logically arranged chapters and thorough index. Most managers should find that it is all they need.
Thanks to reviewer: Jeremy Badcock
You can buy How to get top marks in… Managing poor work performance here
