Has anybody been subject to a capability review and kept their job?

[ohhhhlivia]

Looking for some rays of hope...

I'm probably being set up to fail but wondering if that is standard? Has anyone survived?

I have my union involved and they are helpful but still shitting myself.

An informal one and with a lot of help from a colleague. Mine was made worse by the fact I had no idea my boss was unhappy. I got a call one day saying I had failed my probationary review. I thought we had just had a normal 1:1 and there had been no significant issues raised then or in the past. Knowing what I know now I should have left in the next year, my boss treated my differently from the rest of the team after this and it impacted on my mental health.

What help did you colleague give you?

I'm actively planning to move department when it's over- vast organisation where you can do that.

There are people in our organisation who have. They remain unstellar employees however.

Do you want to tell us more about it?

I watched a lovely colleague go through one and I was asked to be a witness by her in one of the interviews... It was bloody awful. She was eventually dismissed. A few months later I was going through a personal rough patch and they started to follow same procedure with me... I left before it got that far. Many companies claim to be compassionate but they're not... You're just a number!

The most I'm prepared to say is that they have a point with some of it- but some is fabricated. Union is in complete agreement.

15 years service - and they do this.

It does act as a wake-up call for some people who can turn it around but mostly, if it's got to the stage of some kind of capability/performance managment process then it's not a good sign (and not one that companies take at the drop of a hat either).

If someone is not doing the job well (and the OP has said that they have a point with some of it) then the length of service isn't really relevant. If they've always done a good job in the past then it is certainly worth looking at whether this is a short-term issue - and that would come out in the process - or if it is likely to be more long-term.

What do you feel a change of department will help with, OP? The type of work or the colleagues/management? Is there a particular aspect of your job which is causing the issue for you at the moment that you could move away from?

Not prepared to go into any more detail, sorry.

Good to hear that it doesn't have to be an instant death sentence.

OP, you're probably not going to get a huge amount of useful advice if you're "not prepared" to explain.
If this snapshot is reflective of you as an employee I an probably guess what the issues are.......

We've just supported an employee who hasn't met the requirements expected in their probationary period. The willing and commitment from them was there so we needed to invest time with them. They were naturally worried that this was going to be the death knell for their career but to us we'd rather support our team as recruiting is costly and a headache! For me, performance can be improved, behaviours and attitudes are harder to manage. We've recently let go an employee for poor performance and suitability. It was their behaviours that let them down.

Go into it positively, self reflect on what you can do, put your suggestions forward and it'll make the whole process easier for everyone. Bear in mind, this isn't necessarily them saying you're shit at what you do, just that there are some areas where you're not quite meeting expectations.

It really does depend what it is. Medical negligence or a safeguarding issue is different to say repeated poor timekeeping or poor record keeping. None of us can even say if we've had a similar outcome without even knowing what the issue or area is. One organisations gross misconduct may be another's performance review plan.

Close family did and didn't ask for help - capability was linked to mental health and their treatment for it affecting concentration. They kept a job but were massively down graded. They appealed after getting help and were basically told if they had provided the responses given as part of appeal they probably wouldn't have made the same decision but they cant take new information in. Shit show basically.

Keep asking questions and clarifying what their issues are and keep evidence of how you are trying to rectify what aspects of the role they don't think you are performing under. Ask for training if relevant. At formal reviews make sure you cover what was said I previous meeting and what measured you are putting in place to improve.

@ohhhhlivia do you think the aspects you're aware of as being in the "they may have a point" category things you can do something about? Are they fixable, and is there anything they can do to support you in resolving those problems.

Sometimes the key is to clarify the root cause of the problem as this contributes to a resolution - you are a lot closer to the day to day than they are, so it may be stuff they aren't even aware of.

Me. The key question is, was it formal or informal?

Mine was informal, I complained about it (was also raising a grievance about being bullied by same person who implemented plan), and it was completely rewritten so original objectives were removed and replaced by others that were SMART.

I had loads of support from senior colleagues and made sure I ticked each and every box. I could not possibly have succeeded in the plan's original form (for example, 'carry out task x appropriately'. WTF is 'appropriately'?! What if I think y is appropriate and they thought z was?!. This is an example of what was removed )

I passed and am still there. For now.

@MT2017

All sounds very, very familiar.

At what point did you raise the grievance?

And it's informal- so far

@ohhhhlivia have PM'd you x