Are your employees slacking off at work?

Whether they're slacking off at work or pulling a sickie away from the office, an employee not doing their job properly will count as misconduct. It's a disciplinary offence and can cause ripples of consequences throughout your office, with ‘chucking a sickie’ costing Australian businesses $33 billion a year. 

Not to mention, other colleagues will have to pick up the slack, and you can safely assume they won’t be happy about it.

If the slacker misses deadlines, productivity in the workplace drops and your business loses revenue. Every boss wants their staff performing at their best, so here's how to deal with the problem.

Conducting a fair and reasonable disciplinary procedure

The first thing you should do is document the entire procedure in writing — this will give you a full audit trail, should you need to present any evidence of a fair and reasonable procedure to an employment tribunal.

If you have reason to believe an employee is slacking off at work, you need to carry out an investigation to gather any possible evidence to support the misconduct allegation for their lack of work.

Your evidence might include:

• Clients or customers reporting that the employee did not turn up for an appointment or consultation (if they work "in the field").

• Posts on their social media accounts that suggest they're off work for no good reason.

• Camera footage at work or witness reports of the employee sleeping at their desk.

You may have some statistical evidence to support you, too.

For example, has the employee missed targets and deadlines?

Are their performance numbers way below their teammates'?

Once you've investigated and got your evidence, invite the employee to a disciplinary hearing — do this in writing. In your invitation, include any evidence you plan to rely on — so the employee can prepare a defence. If you don't do this, it's an unfair procedure.

They have the right to someone accompanying them, such as a colleague or trade union rep, and where possible, try to include an HR representative.

Keep a written record of the hearing

During the hearing, go through your evidence that suggests the employee has not been performing the duties of their job role, and give them the chance to explain the situation.

After the hearing, inform the employee of your outcome in writing — including their right to appeal.

If your outcome is a disciplinary sanction, you need to look at whether this is their first misconduct offence. If it is, you might decide that a written warning is a fair sanction.

Going as far as to dismiss your employee for slacking off or chucking a sickie just once might be unreasonable and could lead to an unfair dismissal claim.

In this written warning, make it clear that any further offences will reactivate the disciplinary procedure, and could lead to further formal sanctions — such as dismissal.

BrightHR can support you in dealing with employees slacking

Non-existent pet deaths, alien abductions, inclement weather, such as hurricanes that nobody else in the area suffers from. The list of absurd excuses employees use to chuck sickies is endless. It costs your business money and lowers the morale of the rest of your workforce.

With BrightHR's HR software, you can track employee absence with just a couple clicks. Our app, Blip, even lets your staff clock in and out of work.

If you need more support, BrightAdvice offers 24/7 expert employment relations advice to help you navigate these situations on a case-by-case basis. Get your free demo today.