Employee always has a conflict when they need to travel or present

[Anonymous]

I have a similar issue OP. I have an employee who just completed an innovative and successful project. I would like her to present on it internally and at our trade conferences. However, she doesn't have the confidence and declines to do it. It would make our program and our unit look good, yes, and also the project should be replicated to help others in the field. She's otherwise excellent and I hate to overstress her. Most would love to fly to a cool city to have their work recognized. Not this person. It's a conundrum. I will be providing her with smaller scale presentation opportunities and coaching for her staff development - this is my approach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a decent HR dept? I'd check with them.
Next question: are these presentations and site visits an essential part of the job? If so, she is not meeting performance standards.

Yes, they are part of her position description and essential parts of her job. Training is one of her primary job responsibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If people don't mind picking up the travel for her, I would leave it. Obviously she's going through a health issue and doesn't want to discuss it. If HR wants to meet with her, that's on them.
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If other people on the team are getting upset that they have to travel more, I think you need to have a frank conversation with her.

+1 She could be experiencing health matters that should only be discussed with HR, be in an abusive situation at home, or suffering crippling panic attacks related to travel/site visits (which of course cannot be scheduled in advance). If others on your team love to travel and have no issue with picking these assignments up, is it a big deal impacting your team? Should the JD and responsibilities be amended and updated?

She is the lead for a team that mainly does training. So it is an essential job function and part of her PD. If she can't do it, she would need an accomodation through that office at our agency. She would probably need to be moved to a different job series since we are required to travel 25% and presentations are at a minimum weekly. We typically have 1-4 site visits a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If her job is to present and represent the agency, then it is absolutely a performance issue. She is unreliable and creating more work for others, which reflects poorly on your team. You’ve been accommodating enough. I’d follow HR’s guidance.

Thanks. I can tell that the team is starting to get irritated that they are picking up her slack. At first, they were very helpful. But now they see it as a pattern. I have documented the conversations I had with her, and I obviously cannot share her personal challenges with the team, but they are frustrated that she is the team lead and not doing our essential job functions. When she presents, she is dynamic and a really engaging trainer and presenter. She is by far the best on the team. But she is not reliable and I am having to take on more of her job responsibilities on top of my own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have a decent HR dept? I'd check with them.
Next question: are these presentations and site visits an essential part of the job? If so, she is not meeting performance standards.

Yes, our HR is phenomenal. They tend to be a bit more black and white than I am as a manager. I try to find a way to assist an employee before asking them to go through a formal accomodation process. I cannot force the employee to request an accomodation. I did start addressing it with her in our 1:1 meetings and her mid-year and performance review (I did not include in her written review, but had a separate conversation and followed it up with an informal memo, to document). I did include information on how to get job related accomodations from our HR office. I also told her that I can't access her on these essential job functions if she is not presenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If people don't mind picking up the travel for her, I would leave it. Obviously she's going through a health issue and doesn't want to discuss it. If HR wants to meet with her, that's on them.
.

If other people on the team are getting upset that they have to travel more, I think you need to have a frank conversation with her.

+1 She could be experiencing health matters that should only be discussed with HR, be in an abusive situation at home, or suffering crippling panic attacks related to travel/site visits (which of course cannot be scheduled in advance). If others on your team love to travel and have no issue with picking these assignments up, is it a big deal impacting your team? Should the JD and responsibilities be amended and updated?

It's an essential job duty. We can't rewrite her job description without it going through the union and she has to apply to other jobs. We don't have non-competitive job postings. Yes, we don't mind doing it, but people are starting to get a bit burnt out doing their job on top of hers. It's not that simple. People don't mind helping, but for the last six months, it is always something. I don't think it is a health issue. This employee shares openly with the team at our meetings what is going on. She has an ongoing medical procedure that she has managed, but this is something different and unrelated. She has shared in vague terms. I do not want to press as it is really none of my business other than how it is impacting the work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stage fright?

Nope. This person enjoys presenting. We have a few people like that on our team. In the past, another manager didn't make them present and do something else as an alternate. Since it is an essential part of our job which involves training (externally and internally), it is imperative to the position description.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If her job is to present and represent the agency, then it is absolutely a performance issue. She is unreliable and creating more work for others, which reflects poorly on your team. You’ve been accommodating enough. I’d follow HR’s guidance.

+1 Her refusal to get RA set up makes zero sense.

It makes zero sense to me too. I keep referring her to our RA contact but she keeps declining my offer. My HR said she cannot be forced to get an RA. I can only offer it as a resource. So frustrating!

[Anonymous]

Now you know how teachers feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There must be something deeper here that this employee is not sharing. What is the real roadblock other than medical?

Maybe she needs to be given a ultimatum from HR

I wish I had the answer to that...HR said I cannot force her to get an RA. So now I have to write a memo about how she is unable to perform this essential job function and needs to get a RA or discuss the barrier to present. She claims that the dates are always last minute, dire needs for a medical procedure. But I have asked her for her availability in advance of setting our site visit and presentation schedule. And we work with a lot of other agencies so we are coordinating with multiple teams and people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if she caring for a dying love one

That is not the case. She has been a long term team member. I'm trying not to make assumptions and just ask her what is going on and how can I help her do her job? If she can't do the work, then this might not be the best fit for her since it's essential work. We are pretty flexible as to when people travel, according to what works best for their schedule. We also are flexible about doing virtual presentations rather than in person or rather than traveling to a site as a cost savings measure.

[Anonymous]

I would talk to her and ask her what is going on, and that she needs to level with me so that I can stop asking her to present and then have her take last minute leave and instead just ask the willing members of the team. Would reassure her that she could come to me when the issue is resolved, because then I could put her back on the travel rotation.

It may be something temporary, it may be that a family member has more frail health and she doesn't want to travel and then expose the family member at home post Covid. If she / he has kids, it could even be a child care issue. Or some sort of travel anxiety problem that she is working on right now. I have suddenly developed a driving issue, she may have something similar. It really does sound like she is ok with the travel / presentations until the last possible day or tow and then she might be having a severe panic attack that she doesn't want to talk about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that the employee is not being forthcoming, so OP can't trust her. What is there about RA that could not be meeting her needs? I think OP needs to have a frank conversation with her about what HR is planning and that OP won't be able to protect and defend her if she continues being unreliable without setting up formal accommodations.

OP here. This. I have stressed this to her multiple times. We talk on a daily basis. This is starting to be a morale issue with the team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you tell her what you wrote here: it has become a performance issue impacting others on the team. You respect her work and don’t want to make this a bigger deal than it needs to be, but she either needs to reduce the unplanned leave or get accommodations through HR if she cannot. You don’t want to, and shouldn’t, get into the need for leave - that’s an HR thing - but if she anticipates that this may continue to be a problem she needs to get accommodations through HR.

This all assumes this is an important part of her job!

This is what my last move was, to say exactly this. I told her that her inability to present or travel has become a morale issue and also a performance issue because I cannot access her on a critical area of performance. I referred her to HR and explained the RA process and how her leave is starting to become an issue as it's unscheduled--I also explained her rights as far as a bargaining unit employee.

[Anonymous]

She is your best presenter — it’s clear traveling presents some hardship — have you tried just virtual presentations?? I lost that in your thread

If you fire her, her replacement may willingly travel, but at gov wages you won’t attract anyone half as competent until that recession is roaring.