Tip for poor performance: ask the employee to commit to an improvement plan

Employment Law

13 January 2022

Tip for poor performance: ask the employee to commit to an improvement plan

Stelt u zich eens voor: u werkt al jaren met dezelfde zelfstandige. Hij stuurt facturen, factureert btw en heeft een eigen kvk-nummer. Toch krijgt u in 2026 ineens vragen van de Belastingdienst over de aard van uw samenwerking. Hoe heeft het zo ver kunnen komen?

Every employer sometimes has to deal with an employee who is underperforming. Before you as an employer can move to dismissal, the employee must have been given time to improve. In practice, this happens by means of an improvement plan, in which the employer names the points for improvement and the goals. Employees often refuse to sign the improvement plan, for example because they disagree with the goals set or feel that certain tasks do not belong to the role. The question then is how long you as an employer still have to keep discussing this before you can proceed to dismissal. In a recent case, the subdistrict court ruled on this.

In this case, the employer had built up a solid file clearly showing that the employee was underperforming. An improvement plan was offered and, after a lot of resistance, the employee eventually took it into consideration. The employer required the employee to clearly commit to the improvement plan. The employee responded that she accepted the improvement plan, but with the comment that the (unsatisfactory) assessment of her performance was unjustified and that she was in fact doing her job well. Because of these comments, the employer wondered whether the employee genuinely wanted to improve. The employer therefore asked for concrete examples of situations the employee could have handled better, in order to test whether the employee genuinely wanted to improve. The employee refused to answer that. The employer subsequently decided to request dissolution from the court.

The subdistrict court found that the employer had sufficiently demonstrated that the employee needed to improve her performance. There was indeed underperformance. According to the subdistrict court, the employee could also be blamed for not having sufficiently committed to the proposed improvement plan and instead continuing to insist she was right.

Because it turned out that the employee did not want to commit to the improvement plan, the improvement plan, according to the court, did not need to be carried out, and dissolution could be ordered immediately.

Conclusion: as an employer, from now on always first ask an underperforming employee for “commitment” to the improvement plan before you start the process. If the employee is not willing to do so, you as an employer do not need to carry out the improvement plan and can proceed directly to dissolution. Do note that the file must already be solid enough by then to prove that the employee is underperforming.

Do you have questions yourself about how to deal with an underperforming employee and building up a personnel file?

The corporate lawyers of The Legal Company specialise in employment law for the cleaning sector. For support or advice, you can contact us by emailing info@thelegalcompany.nl, calling 020-3450152 or filling in our contact form. We will call or email you back within 24 hours.

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De afgelopen jaren stonden in het teken van de Wet VBAR, het wetsvoorstel dat een einde moest maken aan onduidelijkheid over de zzp’er. Het kabinet heeft delen van dat voorstel inmiddels geschrapt. Op het eerste gezicht is dat goed nieuws: minder regels, minder administratieve last. Maar in de praktijk blijven dezelfde toetsen overeind.

“De inhoud van de samenwerking is leidend, niet wat er op papier staat.”

De Belastingdienst handhaaft sinds 1 januari 2025 weer actief op schijnzelfstandigheid. En recente uitspraken van de Hoge Raad bevestigen dat rechters strikt toetsen of er sprake is van ondergeschiktheid en gezagsverhouding.

Voor uw praktijk betekent dit drie dingen. Een: leg de samenwerking duidelijk vast, met aandacht voor de inhoud. Twee: voorkom dat een zzp’er feitelijk werkt als werknemer. Drie: wees voorbereid op een controle, en weet hoe u de relatie kunt herzien als dat moet.

Heeft u vragen over uw concrete situatie? Wij sparren dagelijks met opdrachtgevers over hun zzp-relaties. Vraag een offerte op of bekijk onze Legal Safe abonnementen.