performance managing creative people to dismissal

[GGGSurrey]

Hi

Does anyone have any thoughts re performance managing creative people through a disciplinary procedure so that they can be dismissed?

The situation is a designer who has had 8 years of satisfactory work with his yearly appraisals all satisfactory. A new management team come in, bring other younger people in to design, create new targets for design, re-arrange teams and say the designer's designs aren't good enough and that they have to improve.

Obviously design is a subjective skill and hard to analyse output although it was okay for 8 years. Can an employer use this process to get rid of someone?

This is a real situation - be interested in the thoughts of others.

Thanks.

 

[Newchodge]

That would not be a disciplinary procedure. A capability procedure may be appropriate

 

[GGGSurrey]

Thanks, Cyndy. What does that mean - is that a negotiation to agree how the designer would move on because they were no longer suitable?

 

[Newchodge]

Thanks, Cyndy. What does that mean - is that a negotiation to agree how the designer would move on because they were no longer suitable?

No, that is rather making the decision before the decision-making process has started.

A capability procedure is followed if an employee is not currently capable of doing their job, possibly due to ill health, possibly due to changing job requirements. The first thing it looks at is how to enable the employee to do their job.

 

[obscure]

You have a designer who was trained to design and then did so successfully for 8 years.

What is considered good design changes and new processes and procedures are developed that didn't exist when they were trained (or the company simply wants to go in a direction that doesn't suit the designers current skill set). Have you provided and PD support (personal development) to enable this person to retrain in the new skills?

 

[GGGSurrey]

Thanks Dan, Cyndy.

I'm not the employer, it concerns a friend who is being put through this process by his employer. I understand employment rights generally but where I am unsure is concerning subjective skills like design. It seems to boil down to new managers trying to performance manage the designer out by saying, "we expect designers to work faster and to come up with better ideas".

They have offered a "time management" course to indicate that they are trying to help but my friend doesn't believe that their stated intentions are genuine and that instead they are just going through the motions.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

They have offered a "time management" course to indicate that they are trying to help but my friend doesn't believe that their stated intentions are genuine and that instead they are just going through the motions.

There are lots of other courses which could help. My only knowledge is of an Italian company who changed techniques and directions and spent two years on re-training designers. A short course might not work.

 

[Newchodge]

The problem is that, if they are genuinely not doing the job that is now required of them, they can ultimately be dismissed. Your friend needs to research training that they think would help them and make a formal request for that training.

 

[GGGSurrey]

Thanks Cyndy

The problem is that, if they are genuinely not doing the job that is now required of them, they can ultimately be dismissed.

Although presumably only if the "job required of them" is possible to do. Others (including the management) in the department are only managing to keep up by staying late and working weekends.

 

[The Byre]

The new management team have a real problem - and so too does your designer friend.

On the one side, I can absolutely see the management's frustration. They want young funky design done quickly. That may be what they are used to. Young designers who take seconds to come up with intuitively great and startling images. I used to work with journalists and anyone who could not churn out 2,000 words of saleable, printable copy five days a week was useless. It was definitely a young-man's game!

In publishing, newspapers have to go to bed at 6pm - there's no such thing as late. A slow or inadequate page designer is no page designer at all. Film and TV are the same, if not worse. The news goes out at six and seven, so logos, fly-throughs and banners have to be ready and loaded onto the server well in advance.

Times change and will continue to do so. Being a creative nowadays means being funky, fearless and fast. No doubt, in future we shall all have to be funkier, more fearless and a whole lot faster still!

On the other hand, old management kept your friend on for eight years and did nothing about adding value to his place of work and his abilities. They allowed him to continue at his old speed and produce designs that they thought were good enough. TBH it is a case of poor management, old and possibly new as well.

I worked on a Disney film in Germany once and the old cameramen and crew taken from the leisurely world of public broadcasting were horrified at the speed with which they were expected to work and the attention to detail expected from them. Same thing really.

 

[GGGSurrey]

The new management team have a real problem

Good summary, The Byre. Thank you. Any thoughts on how it gets resolved?