By Joanna Weekes

A key part of any safe working culture is to have an effective performance management system in place. This means having the ability to discipline employees who fail to comply with your health and safety policies, procedures and reasonable lawful directions.

An important part of your role is to ensure the safe job performance of your workers. The best way to do this is through performance management.

Performance management is the process of evaluating and managing the performance of your workers to ensure that their behaviour and performance is consistent with your company’s objectives, and with the specific goals and standards of each worker in your company.

Every person in your workplace needs to be accountable for health and safety.

7 steps to performance management

These, put in broad terms, are the steps involved in the performance management of your workers:

1. Identify performance standards, including safety standards.
2. Set goals for workers to work towards.
3. Offer feedback and reviews to workers about their performance.
4. Provide opportunities for further training or education.
5. Reward workers who perform well.
6. Counsel workers where their performance or conduct is poor.
7. Discipline workers where there is continued poor performance or conduct, or where such performance or conduct is unacceptable.

Remember, there is a lot involved in each of these individual steps – and it is essential that you look at each case on an individual basis while being consistent in your approach to performance management.

Performance management can be tricky so having suitable policies and procedures in your company for these processes will make it easier for your managers to know what to do. But make sure they are trained in the policies and procedures or it’s no use!