DPs poor performance review

[lilly0]

DPs had a poor performance review it's come as a bit of a shock as he has always been praised for his work. He works for an IT agency he went off last year sick with depression, he came back all seemed well until his superior began complaining that dp was asking too many questions , he has taken a dislike to dp and seems to nitpick his work.

He points out DPs mistakes in the code but his boss also makes mistakes also but Dp feels unable to say anything. His boss also asks him to do a task then at the last minute asks him to change it which takes time the boss then complains . At his performance review he was torn into shreds , he got a 4 which is one up from formal disciplinary action his boss says he was very lucky to not get that .

It's all come out of the blue, his boss is about to go on paternity leave, his colleague has also gone on holiday leaving dp holding the fort without leaving hardly any instructions do is also on daily monitoring with another manager. Basically if these two weeks go badly dp will be formally disciplined , I've told him it's time too look for another job. I think they are being really unfair what action should he take ? If it comes to it should he resign before disciplinary action ?

Basically if these two weeks go badly dp will be formally disciplined

If your DP is a permanent employee with at least 2 years’ employment they can’t just move straight to formal disciplinary. They would firstly need to give him an informal performance improvement plan to follow for approx 6 weeks to focus on areas identified for improve.

Has he done that yet?

Can your DP get hold of a copy of the company's performance and disciplinary policies? Also take a look at the ACAS website and see whether the right steps are being followed. I would think not, and questions that spring to mind are:

• how was his return to work managed, what kind of support was there, how was communication during this time?
• if this was a complete surprise that's very poor practice. Nonetheless, is there now a clear set of performance objectives and date to review how progress is going?

As PPs said, if your DP has more than 2 years of continuous employment with this company, there are specific pathways they need to be following.

Not a nice position to be in. In the short term over the coming 2 weeks, I suggest your DP documents everything he does, and gets authorisation from this other manager whenever needed, and gets a manager to put tasks and objectives in writing so there is a record of what work was asked of him (and a record of any last-minute changes to what is asked).