Performance and Health Issues

[Anonymous]

I have an employee, Jane, who has health issues and takes a lot of leave for that (totally fine, I approve of everyone using their leave as much as possible). The issue was that when she was in the office, she did little to no work. I put her on a PIP and now she’s spiraling. She is often out on sick leave. I’m sure it’s legitimate sick leave too and I think it’s caused/worsened by anxiety and stress over the PIP.

I’m struggling with how to balance legitimate health issues with performance issues. I feel like every time I address performance, she gets very sick. HR isn’t being very helpful here. I’m trying to document but there’s a lot of her not feeling well at work or medications making it impossible for her to focus. She still has weeks of leave to burn.

Anyone have any tips? I have had this issue as a supervisor in the past, but the job market was better and the employee immediately quit or could jump to another job.

[Anonymous]

So instead of being patient with her while she is dealing with legitimate health issues, you decided to pile on and make her believe she is about to lose her job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So instead of being patient with her while she is dealing with legitimate health issues, you decided to pile on and make her believe she is about to lose her job?

OP here. Not at all. I've been patient for years. When I put her on a PIP she hadn't been having health issues for several months before. I only used her performance during this time to write up the PIP.

[Anonymous]

How long are you supposed to continue this way? Should she take a leave of absence or go on disability? How much leave does she receive and how much has she taken this year?

[Anonymous]

FMLA or STD or Lay-off with some severance.

[Anonymous]

HR wants to avoid a lawsuit, so they aren't going to weigh in on the intersection of her performance and her health issues.

I think all you can do is what you are doing. You did not give her this illness, and you do accommodate her need to take time off for her health. This job may not be compatible with her treatment, e.g. if it involves a lot of focus work, and her medication prevents her from focusing. Taht's not your fault.

[Anonymous]

If it's been going on for years maybe it's time for her to look into short term or long term disability. It sounds like her illness is preventing her from working and that's not going to change any time soon.

[Anonymous]

First of all, anyone who can't understand why this situation would be tough for you hasn't managed many people before. You're accountable for results and someone on your team isn't delivering, and it's not a matter of being able to coach them to improve. I would have a conversation with HR and/or look through your employee handbook to figure out the threshold when you'd be able to push her onto STD, with the explanation that you will meet your legal obligations but you need her in or out.

[Anonymous]

OP here- Do I only look at her performance on her days in the office? Her performance standards are very specific/quantifiable, but if she's not in the office, how can she meet them? I haven't ran into this issue before. However, if someone is out on maternity leave, I don't look at those months, so I guess sick leave is the same?

[Anonymous]

Need to talk with legal

[Anonymous]

Just keep documenting the performance issues and allowing her to use the weeks of leave she has earned.

Had this a few years back and the worst part was her supervisor who one day would be, "poor Larla, we have to do everything we can to help/support her," and the next would be, "she isn't doing the work that needs to be done, please do something."

Don't drag it out, just document, document document, and when the PIP expires, you have documented that she hasn't met the PIP requirements and also hasn't done these other things and you are letting her go.

[Anonymous]

Document everything, be very granular and specifically document the performance concerns so you are tying them to her in-office time. You may have to keep a running log yourself to keep track of her leave days so you don’t hold sick days against her. I think HR guidance in these cases will be vague since they don’t want to end up with a lawsuit.