How do I address poor performance that is exacerbated by religious practices?

Question

My line report has poor attention to detail at the best of times. From typos to major coding errors to faulty numbers entering draft reports. I have raised these issues with him and we are resolving them by peer reviewing work and giving pointers about his common errors.

Recently my line report has been observing Ramadan. Fasting, not drinking through the warm days, and being sleep deprived has not helped his attention to detail.

His quarterly review is coming up and I need to make him aware that he needs to drastically improve. My concern is that he may see my remarks as being discriminatory.

My question is, how can I address performance issues in a way that makes it clear the root cause is my line report's performance, and not their religious beliefs?

We are based in the UK.

Answer 1

Stick to the facts.

How do you know it is their religion that is causing the issue? It could very well be some form of issue with their home life, or maybe they lost "the spark" and are not happy with their career. As long as you don't focus on the religion I don't see how it could be related.

Don't comment on when these issues have been happening, just lay out the issues themselves and make sure the employee knows that you want to help him. If the employee's performance was good in the past, you may want to consider a conversation similar to this:

As we have discussed before, we have been noticing issues in a couple of areas that we are concerned about: A B C D E F. This isn't the performance we are used to seeing from you and we want to work with you so you can be performing at the level we know you are capable of. Is there anything you need to talk about, or anything we can do to help?

EDIT

Now that there is more information, I will expand the answer for OP. In the comments OP mentioned that employee has only been there for 6 months, so there is no performance to compare against, in that situation I would consider the following:

As previously discussed, I have noticed that there some issues that we need to address. We have talked about A B D C E F in the past, and I just want to make sure that you understand where I am coming from. These issues are very important to the company and to be frank this could affect your position if these issues are not addressed. Let's work together to try and resolve these issues. We hired you because we believed that you had the skill set for the job and we still think that you are capable of performing at that level. Is there anything we can do to help you with these issues.

Answer 2

I think you should not touch religious ground here at all. One, because it is totally irrelevant, two, because you can get yourself into all kinds of legal difficulties.

Why is it irrelevant? Because all that is of interest to you is the performance of the employee. Why the performance is not adequate is not your problem, that's your employee's problem.

PS. Regarding the comments: If the reason for the bad performance is the company itself, or even the manager, then the manager should indeed try to remove reasons for bad performance. And to the employee: I think the religious requirements for Ramadan are not absolute. If you think that following Ramadan causes you problems (with health, or with your job, or any other way) talk to someone who is competent with the religion and check if there is a solution.

Answer 3

Standard caveat - I'm not a lawyer and therefore can't even begin to advise on any potential legal outcomes (speak to a lawyer or ask on Law.SE if you need any guidance there).

It's a very, very tricky situation - anything that carries even the barest whiff of religious discrimination in the UK is a minefield of potential HR and legal issues.

The way to handle this is (as Joe Strazze points out in his comment) is to avoid any speculation or supposition as to the causes of his poor performance. When you have the review focus purely on the objective results that his work is producing over the the greater time period and what can be done to resolve these issues. Do NOT mention Ramadan or fasting or lack of sleep or anything along those lines. If the employee comes back with his observation of Ramadan as being the reason for the issues you can use any evidence from previous non-Ramadan reviews so make it clear that this is an issue that is nothing to do with Ramadan and has been a problem for a while. In fact wherever possible avoid making any references to decreased productivity during the time period of Ramadan as there is legal precedent that such comments are direct religious discrimination (e.g. Bhatti and another v Pontiac Coils Europe Ltd)

Answer 4

Disclosure: I code for a living and I fast Ramadan. My performance review last week, in Ramadan, was positive. Also, I'm not a lawyer.

Religious circumstances aside, your workers must be all held to the same standard. If someone is demonstrably faltering due to personal reasons, Ramadan or otherwise, then the manager should hold them accountable.

Sometimes allowances can be made, for example a parent has to drive a kid to school late every day. So he can make up for it by working later. But the other workers should not have to shoulder extra weight. In this case, there may be more to your colleague's situation than not-eating-lunch. Have a frank discussion about their performance, and you don't have to bring up Ramadan. If they do, then you can ask what can be done to improve the situation that doesn't require special treatment.

I can't speak for your colleague's particular situation, but in my anecdotal experience, it's not impossible to fast in Ramadan and do one's job.

Answer 5

My line report has poor attention to detail at the best of times. From typos to major coding errors to faulty numbers entering draft reports. I have raised these issues with him and we are resolving them by peer reviewing work and giving pointers about his common errors.

So in fact the problems are already being addressed in an ongoing process!

Unless that process is not working you simply have to let it play out.

I'd suggest that you may need to give maximum encouragement and support to make this process work.

Recently my line report has been observing Ramadan. Fasting, not drinking through the warm days, and being sleep deprived has not helped his attention to detail.

These are issues which I don't think you can have any proof of. Lots of people observe Ramadan and they manage fine.

I'm not religious at all and the recent heat wave has certainly affected me. Ramadan need have nothing to do with it.

His quarterly review is coming up and I need to make him aware that he needs to drastically improve.

He may already be.

Has it occurred to you that the stress of an ongoing review and improvement process may itself be the root cause of worry, sleep deprivation and so on. He may simply need more support and a sense that the axe is not going to fall any second.

Perhaps you need to sit down and discuss this with him with a view to encouraging and supporting.

My concern is that he may see my remarks as being discriminatory.

They are. It's that simple.

And, honestly, you need to look at your own attitude to this employee as I sense you are frustrated in some way. Perhaps you are not happy with the speed with which these things are being dealt with, and you may be transferring that frustration unto him, rather than looking at more constructive approaches.

For example, have you thought that the atmosphere created by peer review and people giving pointers to errors may actually be somewhat intimidating for your employee? Another way of describing this might be that he has people watching everything he does and instantly correcting him on every little thing - on paper your plan is fine, but that doesn't mean it will feel fine to the employee at the receiving end. Perhaps this isn't the best approach to dealing with him.

Personally I've always regarded peer review (which is somewhat in vogue these days as a cure-all) as being quite negative. In particular less experienced people will find it undermining to confidence and status, embarrassing. And more experienced people often find it frustrating and irritating, like having a nanny. There are less formal ways to achieve the same result without the negativity.

My question is, how can I address performance issues in a way that makes it clear the root cause is my line report's performance, and not their religious beliefs?

In fact the root cause is unknown, and the performance issue is the symptom, not the cause.

You've no basis for attaching religion to this issue at all. It's frankly disturbing to hear you suggest it is.

I'd strongly advise you to consider if the process is part of the problem and needs to be reconsidered.

Answer 6

You're not going to change his religion. It's part of the package.

Even if his religion is causing some of these issues (and I did Ramadan once, and it probably is, to be brutally honest), it is just part of who he is, so it isn't something to mess with. I know the years I had heavy music duties before Easter would interfere with my work efficiency the week before (due to all the practices and performances) and after (because I was, frankly, exhausted). I was also exhausted the week after a big chess tournament, and that had nothing to do with religion. It is no different than the weeks I'm recovering from being sick. It was just part of the package of who I am, and I eventually learned to deal with it, and so did my managers.

Dealing with the package of who he is becomes just part of the typical problem of dealing with employees who are not up to snuff. Start gathering evidence AFTER Ramadan (so there is no excuse), and if he isn't working out, approach it that way. And if you keep him around, realize that Ramadan is just part of the package and plan for it next year.

Answer 7

In my country, we would have a friendly chat with your employee and would ask him if he is ok, if something is troubling him.

I would try to understand if this is a phase, or if it boils down to the ingrained culture of the individual.

Answer 8

I have noticed that you are using somewhat judgmental language, "poor attention to detail," "errors," "faulty reports", and his religion "has not helped his attention to detail."

If you wish to avoid being viewed as discriminatory, and you wish to raise the question of religion (which may be its own HR minefield and you may not want to), you will need to avoid this sort of judgmental language in that context. Discrimination is all about judging someone's differences as wrong: so if you're judging them then you're going to be discriminating; if you're not judging them then you're not.

Per comments and downvotes, a discussion about how to constructively evaluate someone without judging them is coming across as heavy-handed on my part, and so there are other resources available for that on the web: whether understanding associated cognitive distortions you might create in employees, striving for transformational leadership, or knowing the costs of positional bargaining in negotiation, or framing yourself as a servant leader. I've heard similar things from the nonviolent-communication folks although I don't know their stuff nearly so well. But to summarize from the cognitive-behavioral side, the most important thing, I think, is to stop saying that things "just are" right or wrong, which involves labeling others out-of-context.

So this doesn't mean that you shouldn't label, but that you should try to be mindful of always attaching this context. His actions are not "bad", but rather "bad for me, because I want X, Y, Z, and I don't get any of those things from them."

Your employee accidentally left some bugs in the software without reviewing it first: and that sucks for you because they either got caught in review and you had to spend time managing those post-review steps, or else they didn't get caught in review and then the client or testing department sent an angry report about how the latest build doesn't work, and you had to spend time writing emails and deal with the egg-on-your-shirt shame of the encounter.

So it's not that the act of leaving these bugs in the commit was intrinsically wrong; we all make mistakes -- it just happened to have these negative impacts on you and you want to start a constructive discussion about how both of your desires can be fulfilled simultaneously, "here's what I need, please share what you need, then let's work together to figure out how we can both get what we need out of this professional relationship."

If you can connect to what your employee's needs and intrinsic motivations are, and understand him more as a person, then these religious needs are seen to be a part of that, and the whole tone of the discussion shifts. Once you have stopped judging their performance as 'bad' and imposing your authority upon the world, and shifted to understanding what's stressing them out and supporting and connecting with them, these religious matters can fade entirely out of the discussion.

So in your old mindset, the religious fasting was making them "worse" at their job. But from a different mindset, it has become another need which they have -- we all have spiritual needs of some form or another -- which you are mindful of. The discussion can be much more like,

"Hey, I don't know how this works with Ramadan, but I noticed you're upset that you're not getting enough sleep and talking about how you're lacking the energy to last the full day... do you need any help on the professional side to support those religious commitments?" "What do you mean?" "Well, I mean, I could split up one of your vacation days per week so that you get an extra hour of lunch break every day to recover your energy, or if you need to leave early for your religious services or something--those sorts of professional expectations can be shuffled a bit if it makes things easier." "No, that's all right, but thanks for asking."

If you come at it from a suitable perspective, you're not going to offend anyone's religion, because you're actually supporting it. Where you go wrong is if you have this judgmental mindset, "your work right now sucks, and your religion is making your work suck more", and then suddenly you're in HR trouble because it is coming across as discriminatory, because that implication of "therefore your religion sucks" is very hard to avoid and may also be secretly what is in the back of your head.