Conduct or performance improvement following informal discussion

Where an employee’s conduct or performance has improved to an acceptable level following informal discussions about their minor misconduct or minor poor performance, you can send them our letter.

Informal procedure

The Acas Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures provides that many potential disciplinary issues can be resolved informally, with a quiet word with the employee often being all that’s required to resolve a minor misconduct or poor performance issue. In some cases, particularly relating to poor performance, the employee may also need to be offered some additional training, supervision or mentoring to assist them with their improvement. Thus, where you’ve had an informal discussion with an employee regarding their minor misconduct or poor performance issues, you can use our Letter Following Informal Discussion of Minor Misconduct or Letter Following Informal Discussion of Minor Poor Performance (as applicable) to send to them following that meeting. You should always ensure that the employee understands what they need to do to improve their conduct or performance, how their progress will be reviewed and over what period. Do keep notes of any agreed informal action and then conduct a progress review after an appropriate interval - and, if necessary, at regular intervals thereafter. In this regard, you should give the employee adequate time in which to demonstrate to you that their conduct or performance has sufficiently improved before you take any further action, for example, one to two months (excluding any periods of annual leave or other absence). You need to balance your need to resolve the conduct or performance issue with the employee’s need for time to improve, particularly in cases of poor performance.

Progress review

Our Conduct or Performance Improvement Following Informal Discussion letter is intended to send to the employee once you’ve carried out a progress review and you’re satisfied that there’s been sufficient improvement such that their conduct is now satisfactory, or their performance is now at an acceptable level. Our letter has two alternative sections depending on whether it’s a conduct or a performance matter. In both cases though, the message is effectively the same. It advises the employee that they’ve improved their conduct or performance and that you hope such improvement will now be maintained, with space for you to provide appropriate advice on what they need to do to ensure this remains the case.

Formal action

Our letter then goes on to warn the employee that, whilst this process was informal and not part of your disciplinary or capability procedure, a repeat of similar misconduct or a further instance of misconduct of any kind, or a failure to maintain performance at an acceptable level, is likely to lead to formal disciplinary or performance management action next time. Where an informal approach has been tried but either isn’t working or works temporarily but then the employee relapses to the point where their conduct or performance again falls short of required standards, it’s acceptable at that stage to pursue formal action under your disciplinary or capability procedure.