Verbal warning letter to employee about performance

What’s a verbal warning letter to an employee about performance and when should you use it?

This letter should be used at the very early stages of your poor performance process, before any written warnings issue to an employee.

A verbal warning should form the first stage of your poor performance process.

Though it is a verbal warning you should still issue the employee with a letter advising of the warning, so that there is a record of this on the employee’s file.

This letter is for an employee who has a record of poor performance.

You should also ensure that any warnings are issued in accordance with your performance improvement policy.

If you don’t have one, you can use our performance improvement policy here

What else might you need?

When dealing with any poor performance matter it is really important that you have a clear performance improvement procedure in place.

This would sometimes be found in an employment contract but more generally can be found in your employee handbook.

Our employee handbook template has a clear performance improvement policy set out in in.

But having a performance improvement procedure in place is just the beginning.

It is equally important that where you have a procedure in place you follow it correctly.

Failure to follow your own procedures correctly can leave you exposed to a possible claim before the WRC.

For clear guidance on how to manage a poor performance scenario check out our step by step guide to handling employee performance