The Manager's Toolkit

CAPABILITY AND CONDUCT – THE DIFFERENCE

One of the key distinctions between capability and conduct is that lack of capability will usually be outside the employee's direct control, whereas employees do have control over their conduct at work. e.g. it would be unrealistic to blame an employee for poor job performance if the cause of the problem is lack of training.

If an employee fails to come up to required standards due to their own carelessness, negligence or idleness, this will not constitute incapability , but could be regarded as misconduct .

…………

A lack of effort in applying skill and knowledge is, on the other hand, absolutely within the employee's control.

…………

In the event of under-performance, it is very important you try to identify the root cause of the issue and then deal with it accordingly.

It can sometimes be difficult to establish whether an employee's poor performance is due to inherent incapability or to lack of effort, laziness or indeed negligence. In some cases, there actually may be an element of both . As a manager you should aim to give the employee the benefit of the doubt initially and manage their performance - rather than immediately instituting disciplinary proceedings.