Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

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cardsfansince82
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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by cardsfansince82 »

Schlich wrote:I understand youre put in a tough spot with your superiors. If you want to do the easy thing go along with doing your supervisors' callous bidding. If you want to do the right thing stand up to them. Just my naive opinion.
I'd find out a lot more about the situation before suggesting someone put their own career at risk on someone else's behalf. It was my impression it's not an issue with his superiors so much as other subordinates of GW see what this guy is getting away with and either want him held to the same standard or be allowed to do the same. Yeah, that guy has some problems and jobs aren't the be all end all. But when you are in charge of other people you have to be consistent or [expletive] falls apart in a hurry, and that guy easily could be exaggerating his issues. There are a lot of people out there who will take the mile every time you give them an inch and lots more who will throw a fit if they don't get the same. The guy can't even handle showing up at 9AM and still leaves before everyone else from what I understand. At a minimum you have to start making him use vacation time to cover it and let him know he's on thin ice. If he needs the job he'll shape up, if not he'll keep slipping until you fire him.

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Schlich
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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by Schlich »

That's all fair. I guess all I'm trying to advocate for is some kind of balance in consideration. Ideally we'd have enough PTO to deal with these kinds of issues.

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Schlich
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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by Schlich »

Like I said I'm speaking from a pretty naive pov as a millennial who has only ever worked within academia. But I still feel like this guy deserves a little slack

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CardsofSTL
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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by CardsofSTL »

Sounds like he has been given a lot of slack. And I am sympathetic to his issues but you still have to manage the whole section of people and you have to do it with equity. There is no problem with offering to help the guy by pointing him to services that might assist with the types of problems he is having. End of the day; a lot of people have to get to work and figure out how to get their kids to and from school; not all of them (I would say not most) have the ability to come in late and leave early and still keep their jobs.

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GeddyWrox
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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by GeddyWrox »

To clarify a few points...

So far, my boss (the CIO) has been relatively OK with us giving the leeway he has been given. But I'm not sure he realizes exactly how few hours this guy is putting in. The CIO is aware of the personal issues in his life, and so far has been supportive with giving him the space. But the problem isn't being just 30 minutes late. At this point, he is shaving ~90 minutes off a normal work day, and draws during his lunch hour (and sometimes longer) to give himself a mental break. We all need breaks, I get that. Hell, I spend a good chunk of my day on here and reading news and stuff. But he's legit only putting in about 5 hours of work a day some days.

I also *totally* get the fact that it's not entirely fair to the other team members. I even said that to the guy in our last "talk". The other people on my team know his life issues too, though, and they aren't the ones saying anything to me. I don't get the sense they feel slighted. I do let them off a little early here and there as well. So it's not like the one guy is getting all the preferential treatment and they're getting none. The complainers are peers of mine under the CIO. They've never really liked this guy because he kind of has a slacker aura about him. But he is incredibly smart, and like I said, does great work when he's focused. Honestly, we would suffer for a long time if he left. He knows that much about the company and what we've built. When he is producing like he's capable of, he gets more done in a day than my other two employees combined. And they are good workers too.

Lastly, my CIO has been out two of the last three weeks on vacation. He'll be back Monday. I sent him an email yesterday saying I wanted to talk about the guy when he gets back. I want to see if he thinks we need to put something in his file in HR. At this point, I'll go which ever way the CIO wants me to. I really don't want to lose this guy. I honestly just want him focused and producing like he can.

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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by TheoSqua »

We have a guy on our team who goes through some personal stuff and is really streaky. He'll have weeks where he is just brilliant and he'll have months where he does the bare minimum.

He's been with the team for five years and has been promoted 3 times. Why? Because finding competent people in IT is incredibly hard.

The team has trust problems with him and constantly complains about him but have accepted that he's gonna get away with it. Again, because finding a replacement for him would cost years of productivity.

It's just like sports. Your 5 win player pulls some drama the team puts up with it because he's hard to replace. Your AAAA guy who is hitting .215 pulls some crap and he's cut.

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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by Diddy »

Schlich wrote:Like I said I'm speaking from a pretty naive pov as a millennial who has only ever worked within academia. But I still feel like this guy deserves a little slack
Sounds like he's been giving him slack and he's continued to take advantage of him. He probably doesn't even see it. Extrapolate the time he's missing per day out over and entire year and he's missing almost two months of work. Not to mention probably holding others work up. He's a big boy and needs to be responsible for his actions.

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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by Diddy »

How long is it going to take him to get his [expletive] together? Is going back over the problems and giving him a week paid off to get his [expletive] together an option?

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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by GeddyWrox »

A couple of the things are already clearing up, like the sick dogs. But things like dealing with his ex, ongoing custody issues, his grandmother and father's health...those things won't resolve with a week off, or even two or three.

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Re: Rant: Putting an Employee on Notice

Post by Diddy »

I'm glad I don't have to worry about firing anyone anymore it sucks. What I've found is that most of the time the employee doesn't really understand the issue. Like you said you go over things that need to change but all he hears is "I'm indispensable". Changing the tone can be a realization that things need to change. I like to try to show the bigger picture and why the little things are important. The chain reaction of what can happen when one person doesn't do their job. That's why I showed the time in a year instead of a day. 9-5 with lunch is a seven hour work day. If he is missing 1.5 hours out of the day that's 21.4% of the day. 35 hr work week x 52= 1820. 1820 x 21.4%= 389.5 hours in a year. Dividing that by 35 shows you that that 1.5 hours a day is just over 11 weeks or almost 3 months of work.

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