To think this is surely unfair treatment?

[Yeplk]

I’ve had a few health problems in the last year since having my baby. It’s meant I’ve had a few appointments and an operation but I’ve been very committed to work and actually celebrated 9 years with my company in December.

In February my new ish manager (joined in September) said he wasn’t happy with my work and gave very broad examples in which I asked for clarification and he has never given me specifics. However, in February he said if things didn’t change by April then I would be formally disciplined and on a performance programme. In that time he asked for fortnightly calls with him to ‘check in’ as part of his monitoring process. I was really shocked by all this but have gone along with it. My second call with him was yesterday and since the first call two weeks prior he had given me one two hour piece of work to do. That’s it. I have in that time asked for more work and he’s been really friendly and said nothing at the moment (we are in professional services). He seems under pressure to find work. Anyway, yesterday he told me he had not seen any improvement so it seems he will have to formalise matters. Am I being unreasonable to think this is unfair treatment? How can he even assess work I am doing when he’s not given me anything? Prior to this I have never had any issues in the entire time I’ve been employed.

*check

I don't really follow. In the 2 weeks since your last phone call you've only done 2 hour of work? Or you've had other bits of work to do just not given to you by your manager? In which case surely he's looking at all of that too?
It does sound like he's trying to manage you out and it could be worth getting in touch with Pregnant then Screwed, but it's not that clear from your OP.

It's hard to know what's going on here without knowing the context of your workplace etc. But my main questions here would be:

• When your boss says he isn't happy with your work, does he mean that he would typically be expecting you to be more proactive and pick things up or propose projects yourself, rather than waiting for him to send you things to do?
• If you'd typically expect to have more work than you currently do, is there a possibility that your boss is only assigning you small tasks because he's unhappy with your work?

Either way, even if your work isn't up to scratch - it is unfair to put you on a performance plan without giving you very clear, tangible things that they want you to improve. Do you have an HR policy you could look at, or an HR team who could show you and your boss an example of what a proper improvement plan actually looks like and how the organisation will support with any development/training you might need? For example, if someone kept missing deadlines, I'd expect them to have a clear goal in their improvement plan to meet all deadlines over the next month and to regularly share progress with their manager along the way so the manager was assured that they weren't leaving it until the last minute again. Also maybe a time management course or something.

Obviously nobody here has any idea of the quality of your work, but if you've worked well and happily for the past nine years without a problem, and the latest issues have coincided with there being very little work to do, I would certainly be wondering whether they're trying to find a way to get you out without having to do a proper redundancy process.

What were the ‘broad’ reasons he gave?

Are you supposed to generate your own work, or do you rely on it being passed to you. I would be very unhappy paying you a wage for 2 hours work what are you doing the rest of the time?

It's a bit confusing.

Are you in a union? Hardly any MNetters seem to be but hopefully you are, and you can have a word with them.

Sorry, to clarify he is supposed to give work to the team. The team is very quiet at the moment so I presume he either hasn’t had the work to give me or has been giving it to others. I know more junior staff don’t have much work. The company is huge and there is work within it generally, it’s just he is not managing workloads well. I am not expected to bring in my own work.

the only comment I have had was ‘not up to the level of someone senior.’ I asked for clarification and none was given

It sounds like you're being managed out. You should contact your union or ACAS for advice.

@Maitri108 i don’t know why he would want to manage me out though? I’m always keen to crack on with work and I get on well with colleagues

It could be because of your health problems, I've got no idea OP. Therefore you need to get professional advice on how to handle it.

It’s difficult to answer without really understanding your role and its responsibilities and structure. Are you really just expected to wait around doing nothing until you’re assigned a specific task, even if that means only doing two hours of work in a week whilst being paid for 40? Even if you don’t have to generate leads or bring in your own projects, surely there are things you could be proactive on? Other teams you could support? Frameworks and processes which could be reviewed?

It’s unfair if you’ve been given no specific explanation of what behaviours or practices you need to improve, no targets, no ability to provide a mitigating explanation as to why your performance is seemingly poor. Did you take notes during your initial and monitoring meetings of what exactly was raised and agreed?

Could be, with so little work to do, it is cheaper to manage you out rather than pay redundancy.

My strong advice is to keep really detailed notes and to share these with him after every meeting. Your health needs or a shortage of work might be driving him to try and manage you out. You now need to demonstrate that you are productive and effective and that you are complying with all reasonable requests.

I just don’t understand where it’s come from. The only thing he said was I wasn’t up to the level of someone senior and he mentioned I wasn’t ’commercial’ enough. I asked for examples and he said he hadn’t got any off the top of his head.

The fact he’s not given me work for a couple of weeks is odd and I’ve been asking him too. I feel like he just wants me out and is doing all he can to put me on a formal performance scheme.

Perhaps they need to make cuts as not enough work to keep everyone employed. He has chosen you to cut and will do whatever he needs to make it happen. I have seen this play out before. If you have been there more than 2 years, and are a member of a union, seek their support

In some ways, a PIP can be beneficial in nebulous situations like this in that it will allow you to properly document everything. It will require your manager to provide specific examples, identify tangible goals and targets, demonstrate support that’s been offered to you to enable you to meet objectives, and record your responses. They can’t escalate things without any of that.

You need to ask HR for written policies and processes around performance monitoring. You should also keep detailed notes and follow up any conversations to your manager in an email so you have it on file: “during our meeting earlier you said that you didn’t feel I was commercial enough and it would benefit me if you explain a bit further what you meant by that and what objective you’d like me to work towards / what example from recent X project where you feel my approach could have been different.” That sort of thing. If you are indeed being managed out, being able to show that feedback was not constructive and there was no actual real attempt to identify and help you clarify problems and support your improvement will be key.

@ComtesseDeSpair yes this is the nub of it … I feel that if it was genuine and he was trying to help me improve then he would have gone about it in an entirely different way. I do not for a moment think it is sincere and I have documented key comments he has made.

If you haven't already I would suggest making sure you have everything in writing:

• Send an email specifically requesting details of what isn't up to scratch - if they cannot provide this then they have no real grounds to put you on a performance programme. If they can then you have a base to work from and can then evidence steps taken moving forward.
• Submit regular written requests for tasks/work to evidence you are being proactive.
• If there is anything you can find that does need done complete this and send an update to your manager for information. Try to evidence what else has been done in the 2 weeks apart from the 2 hours allocated work.
• Suggest increasing frequency of calls to weekly and see what response you receive.

If there is a genuine issue with your performance they must be transparent and provide opportunity for improvement before formal steps can be taken. You've said it's a large company so legally there will be policies and procedures that you can access for further information.

Keep in mind also that the issue may be with your manager's performance and they are taking these steps because they may be on a programme themselves. If they cannot provide the information above this will be clear to more senior management.