The conversation you have been avoiding

Amara I have a staff member whose recording has been sloppy for months and I have said nothing.

Nadia Then let us start with why that is the problem, rather than the conversation being difficult.

Amara Go on.

Nadia Almost every disciplinary that goes badly began as a conversation somebody did not have six months earlier. You noticed. You hoped it would settle. You said nothing. And quietly you got resentful.

Amara That is uncomfortably accurate.

Nadia And eventually it comes out at volume, during something unrelated. By which point her honest position is that nobody ever told her.

Amara And she would be right.

Nadia She would be right, and at a tribunal it looks exactly like what it is. A concern raised in week one is feedback. The same concern in month eight is an ambush.

Amara Before I have it, is there anything I should work out first?

Nadia Yes, and this is the thing new managers get wrong most expensively. Which of four things is this? Conduct, capability, health or safeguarding.

Amara Tell them apart.

Nadia Conduct is will not. Lateness with no reason, rudeness, not following a procedure she knows perfectly well. That is the disciplinary route.

Amara Capability?

Nadia Cannot, despite trying. That is support, training, a proper improvement plan. Punishing somebody for not being able to do something is both unfair and ineffective.

Amara And health?

Nadia Capability with a medical cause, and it may engage the Equality Act duty to make reasonable adjustments. Treat a disability related performance issue as misconduct and you are not managing, you are discriminating.

Amara And the fourth.

Nadia Safeguarding. If a person using your service has been harmed or could be, this stops being an HR matter. It goes down the safeguarding route immediately.

Amara Even if I am mid disciplinary?

Nadia Especially then. They run in parallel. Waiting for a disciplinary outcome before making a safeguarding referral is one of the most serious errors a manager can make, and it appears in serious case reviews regularly.

Amara Right. The conversation itself. How do I open it?

Nadia With the actual thing. I want to talk about the medication round on Tuesday. Not five minutes of weather and then an ambush, which is what most people do because they are nervous.

Amara Then?

Nadia What you saw, and its effect. Then ask what is happening here, and mean it. Then listen without preparing your reply.

Amara Why does that matter so much?

Nadia Because the answer very often changes what the conversation is about. You went in about recording and you come out having discovered she is covering two floors, or she has a diagnosis she has not told you about, or she is caring for a parent.

Amara And then?

Nadia Agree what changes, by when, and how you will both know it has. Write it down, give her a copy, and then follow it up on the date you agreed. That last part is the one everybody skips, and it is the one that decides whether anything changes.

Amara When does informal have to stop?

Nadia When it continues after a clear informal conversation, when it is too serious for informal handling, or when there is a safeguarding concern. Then you follow the ACAS Code.

Amara Does that matter legally?

Nadia Very much. An unreasonable failure to follow the ACAS Code can increase a tribunal award by up to twenty five per cent. Investigate, put the allegations in writing, allow her to be accompanied, hold the hearing, decide, and give a right of appeal. Skip a step and you can be entirely right about the facts and still lose.