Dear all
I have a situation here where one of my four plus year staff is underperforming in his work compared to the targets that were set (and agreed) at the beginning of the year. He has now done his appraisal and is asking for a much higher salary than is due, (in our opinion) to him.
I thought the reason for such underperformance was due to lack of assistance for an assistant staff but now we find that his approach is such that he does the job using long winded methods and therefore takes him a long time to finish off.
I am due to sit down for further discussion with him but I know as well that for the last 2-3 months his health has not been that great and hence there some reduction in performance there. I understand the later aspect.
My question is if I decided to demote this person (due to his below standard performance) and instead take on a new more senior, experienced person, will I be treating the employee unfairly in any way, if he resigns and files for unfair dismissal?
My other concern is that if he is demoted but he does not resign, he will not train the new person adequately and also continue to perform miserably in his job. This will lead to a further drop in performance. Finally, we cannot afford two senior staff as a small business.
Can anyone advise me what to do under such circumstances? Any help will be most welcomed.
John Stanton
