TDA HR

When someone is underperforming at work, managers often rush to brand it as a capability problem and address it as such. Instead, workplaces should foster the conditions where workers have the capacity to cope, says Claire Libby.

Mental ill health costs UK employers billions every year. Yet despite growing awareness of workplace wellbeing, many organisations are still responding to problems far later than they need to.

One of the reasons for this may be that we are looking for performance problems when we should be looking more closely at the conditions that produce performance in the first place.

I have shared the sometimes-unpopular opinion that I don’t believe there is such a thing as work-life balance, for the simple reason that we spend a disproportionate amount of our lives at work.

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Whatever we have going on in our personal lives ripples into our work lives and vice versa. I am also not a fan of the word “wellbeing”.

For me it doesn’t pack the punch it needs to because the consequences of poor wellbeing are life changing. The term wellbeing feels a bit fluffy and optional rather than optimal.

Yet in many organisations, performance and wellbeing are still treated as separate conversations.

False assumptions

When performance begins to decline, the assumption is often straightforward: additional training, development, support, or performance management may be needed. But increasingly, research suggests the picture is more complex.

Most of us have experienced periods where we are technically capable of doing something, yet for a variety of reasons we no longer have the internal capacity to sustain it.

We find it harder to concentrate. Our decision-making becomes more difficult and tasks that were once manageable begin to feel overwhelming. We don’t have the patience we once did and we can’t pinpoint the reason why. We start to become less resilient to everyday pressures.

The challenge is that these experiences are often interpreted as capability problems when they may be the early warning signs of reduced capacity.

What we don’t see

One of the things I notice most in organisations is how often stress goes unnoticed until it has already become embedded in everyday functioning.

Think about the image of a swan on a lake. On the surface, the swan appears calm and composed, yet beneath the water its legs are working furiously to stay afloat.

For many employees, this is exactly what is happening. Everything appears fine from the outside. Targets are still being met. Meetings are still being attended. Responsibilities are still being fulfilled.

Yet beneath the surface, sleep may be suffering, stress may be accumulating, recovery may be limited, and emotional reserves may be gradually becoming depleted. People start to become a more diluted version of their brilliant selves.

The thing about stress is that it rarely announces itself dramatically. More often, it builds quietly over weeks, months, and sometimes years before becoming visible.

By the time organisations notice it, the underlying causes have often been present for far longer than anyone realised.

At this point it can become so much harder to support the employee. That sense of overwhelm has gathered momentum.

Creating the conditions

One of the emerging themes in my research is that performance may be better understood as a state shaped by multiple wellbeing systems rather than a fixed measure of ability.

Sleep, recovery, stress regulation, nutrition, movement, social connection and psychological safety all influence how people think, feel, communicate and perform.

These are not simply wellbeing factors. They are the conditions that influence how people think, feel, communicate, make decisions and perform every day.

If we take sleep as an example, research has consistently shown that poor sleep can impair attention, decision-making and emotional regulation.

Chronic stress can narrow cognitive focus and reduce flexibility in thinking. Over time, these effects accumulate.

Yet many of these factors remain largely invisible in workplace performance conversations despite their very real influence on how people function day to day. We tend to focus on outputs rather than the conditions that produce them.

This can result in employees being perceived as disengaged, underperforming or lacking capability, when they may actually be experiencing fatigue, burnout or reduced cognitive capacity.

The cause often remains undiscovered while the symptoms become increasingly visible often resulting in employees being “managed out” of the business.

Awareness is not enough

Many organisations have made significant progress in recognising the importance of wellbeing, and that progress should be acknowledged. However, awareness alone is rarely enough.

A wellbeing day, awareness campaign or annual initiative can play an important role in starting conversations, but meaningful change rarely comes from a single moment or action. We don’t expect to have clean and healthy teeth if we brush them once in our lifetime.

Meaningful change comes from the environment people move through each and every day. Culture is often shaped less by what organisations say and more by what people see.

The behaviours leaders model, the boundaries they respect and the expectations they reinforce often become the unwritten rules that shape everyday experience.

Awareness matters, but sustainable change requires conditions that support wellbeing consistently rather than occasionally.

A preventative approach

Perhaps one of the biggest opportunities for organisations is to shift from correction to prevention.

If we think about elite sport, performance is rarely viewed in isolation from the conditions that support it.

Sleep, recovery, nutrition, stress management and mindset are all recognised as essential components of performance. Without them, performance inevitably suffers.

Yet workplaces often expect people to perform at a consistently high level without paying the same attention to these foundational factors.

Chronic stress can narrow cognitive focus and reduce flexibility in thinking. Over time, these effects accumulate.

A preventative approach starts by helping people better understand themselves before they reach a point of crisis.

It involves creating environments where people can recognise the early signs of stress, understand what may be contributing to them, and feel supported in taking action. Our bodies are in constant communication with us, but due to overload we are either missing the signs or simply not paying attention to them.

Prevention also recognises that responsibility is shared.

Employees have a vital role in making choices that support their wellbeing, but organisations have an equally important role in creating environments where those choices are realistic, encouraged and supported.

From capability to capacity

If we begin to view performance through the lens of capacity as well as capability, the conversation changes.

Rather than asking only: “How do we improve performance?” We might also ask: “What is affecting this person’s capacity to perform right now?”.

That shift moves the conversation from correction to understanding and, ultimately, to prevention. Because performance is often treated as something we do, but increasingly, it looks more like something we enable.

Sustainable performance requires sustainable people. So the next time you feel as though someone’s capability is dipping, consider if what you are witnessing is actually a capability problem or might it actually be a capacity problem.

 

 

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Reform UK would introduce an ‘employers’ migrant labour levy’, making it more expensive to hire workers from overseas.

Robert Jenrick, the party’s economic spokesman, said it would also cut employers’ national insurance for British workers back to 13.8%, but charge the current 15% rate for foreign workers, essentially creating a two-tier employment tax.

At a press conference on Monday, Jenrick promised to put “British workers first, migrants second”.

“For more than 20 years now, we’ve had British workers coming second – undercut by cheap migrant labour, which drives down wages and our people’s quality of life,” he said.

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“According to the government’s own figures, the millions of low-skilled migrants that have been brought into our country and they have cost us hundreds of billions of pounds.

“Not to mention the pressure they place on GP surgeries, on our schools, housing, on the roads. Well, under a Reform government, those days are going to come to an end.”

The employers’ migrant labour levy would affect businesses taking on lower-skilled and low-earning migrants worse than those recruiting their more highly skilled foreign nationals.

This could, Jenrick said, be set at £3,750 per year for a full-time foreign worker on the national living wage – an annual salary of nearly £25,000.

Higher earners from abroad would cost less, with those earning £50,000 attracting an annual levy of £1,500, and just £500 for those earning £100,000 or more.

However, he said specifying the exact rates would be “irresponsible” so far from a general election, adding that a reform government would consult with businesses on the measures.

The levy would raise over £11 billion, according to Reform, funding the cut in employers’ NICs for British workers. Jenrick said the levy would include migrant workers with EU settled status.

He said: “Under Reform, because of this levy, businesses will have to take responsibility for the costs and benefits their hiring decisions have on everyone else.”

He added: “The experiment of letting in millions of low-wage migrants, as millions of Brits languish on benefits, has failed catastrophically. Reform will end it.”

Labour described the policy as Reform’s “latest half-baked plan” that would leave British businesses and British people worse off. A spokesperson said: “Their proposals threaten to hike bills and leave working families paying the price.”

Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride said Reform was “throwing out a litany of policies in the hope something sticks”.

He said: “Announcing tens of billions in entirely uncosted promises is not serious. It’s a symptom of a party that deals only in gimmicks and headlines, with no real plan for government.”

In 2024, Reform UK proposed a 20% employers’ NIC on foreign workers, to cure the UK’s “deadly addiction” to cheap overseas labour.

 

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