My friend is having an issue with one of the people that works in her office. This person was a temp and my friend pushed for this person to be hired on a permanent basis. That was 2 years ago. This employees performance is consistently sub par. Reports are almost always turned in late with misspellings, grammatical errors, and are not created / filled in according to her company procedure. My friend is responsible for signing off on this person's reports and the mistakes are so prevalent and the reports are always so late that something usually ends up getting through her checks because she runs out of time. Recently, other people in the company made a comment to my friend about this employee. That the employee had a poor work reputation and that they were known to be a poor employee. It would come to a surprise to no one if this person were fired. My friend does not want to do that. She would rather take on additional duties and keep the poor employee doing only the few things they are good at than fire them and find someone else. She asked me for a solution. My first instinct is that she is simply denying the inevitable. Eventually this employee will mess up bad enough to get themselves fired and may drag my friend down with them in the process. My advise is to tell the employee that their performance has consistently been below acceptable standards and they would be better off seeking employment elsewhere. If they don't move out themselves, start being very strict as to their duties, document each time they fail at a task and escalate the punishments. Verbal warning, written warning, written reprimand, termination. What do you guys think?
Your first instinct is the only correct answer. There's simply no hope with some people and you can't let emotion get in the way. Your friend is only going to damage her own career by allowing this to continue.
If they have never been notified and given a chance in these past 2 years then that's wrong. Give them a chance. If they've already then time to go.
Sit down, discuss the problems, and create a 3 month performance plan regarding the changes you expect to see. If these changes are made - the person keeps their job with another "performance plan" being put into place for the next three months. If the changes are not made then it's obviously an easy decision.
2 years of poor performance is reason enough to fire someone. I don't understand companies that keep bad employees around. What purpose does that serve? It's bad for morale. It's bad for business. Hire good people and let the bad ones find something else to do .
My point is they should have let that person know early on. You don't string someone along, letting them think they're doing well (well enough at least), and then suddenly say you've been sucking all these years. How would you like your wife to suddenly say, 'I want a divorce! I've never been happy in our 5 years together. You never did anything right.'
I'll agree to that. However, there are times when you just have to cut bait, regardless of the extenuating circumstances. His friend thought she was doing the right thing when, in fact, she is only working towards bringing herself down.
Wow - your friend should not be in a position of managment. Because she should have dealt with this a long time ago....honesty is always the best course of action. Sit the employee down, discuss the situation, tell them if they don't do a better job they will be fired. End of discussion. DD
No, you always need to manage your employees. They aren't partners, they are employees...you get to tell them what you need and expect that they do it. That's just how it works.
They apparently have been told numerous times about their many issues. They will improve for awhile and then slip back into bad habits. I like the idea about the performance plan. I will pass that along.
Many times, just the act of putting an employee on an official performance improvement plan or probation will either shape them up, or they'll see the writing on the wall and leave themselves. Also, once you have someone on a documented performance plan (keyword: documented), if you DO have to fire them, you have plenty of documentation of poor performance in case there is any kind of litigation.
best course of action imo and if the employee has been given notice in the past then its time to move on
that's what i was wondering. if they're not aware that what they're doing is incorrect or is being looked upon in a bad light, then it's not really fair to them, imo.
I didn't say babysitting, I said delegating. And yes, there is a difference between delegating and managing...managing is the big picture while delegating (not just specific work, but also delegating roles) is only one aspect of it. But you still must manage your employees. How can you tell if they are good employees or not if you aren't managing them? It's easy to say you're not choosing the right employees if you have to manage them...but how can you tell they're the right employees if you don't?
