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

[Anonymous]

This really sounds like someone who has developed a severe public speaking phobia post-COVID times. A lot of people can cover their anxiety to make it seem like they are ok, but use avoidance whenever possible. In this employee’s mind, it might feel like a life or death scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she is required to travel 25 percent of the time, and she is traveling 0 percent of the time, isn’t that cause for dismissal? Why aren’t you working with HR to document a case against her? Her behavior will poison your team and impact your credibility as a manager. You need to get rid of her to save your team. She is dead weight and your team is at risk.

She is a Fed and a woman. If she is a POC, virtually impossible to fire her. Move on.

[Anonymous]

The smartest person I ever hired and managed was seriously claustrophobic and unable to even take an elevator. She managed to cover it for many years and finally disclosed it when we were planning to switch offices and sign a lease on the 42nd floor of a new building.
You never know what is going on with a person. If she is a good employee, I would let it be for the time being and reevaluate in 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My HR wants me to send her a memo about leave restriction for unscheduled leave. I think that is a little excessive. She has no performance issues and I see this as a conduct thing. However, she is placing me in a bad position as another team member has to present and many times, I have presented for her. Most people on my team enjoy traveling, so that is not as big a deal. What would you do?

I don't know how you could possibly think this isn't a performance issue. She's not doing her job, and others are forced to pock up the slack, including her supervisor. That's the definition of a performance issue. And if it's legit, there's no reason to not seek an accommodation - that's the whole point of an accommodation.

You should involve HR.

It seems hard to imagine someone saying an absence was “life or death” without it being a significant thing unless the employee is really wacky in which case you’d probably know that already. If she’s otherwise a levelheaded seeming person it dies sound like there’s something significant going on / the person mentioning IVF might be on to something.

Is she absent other times that don’t correspond with needing to present or travel? If not…that’s a little weird it it’s more than 2-3 times and only on those occasions. If she’s just been out a lot in general, could you limit her role on some of these things for a while - especially travel, since it sounds like others would be happy to do it, but it’s hard to sub someone in at the last moment.

OP here. I hate to comment on someone's mental health, but this employee can be a bit dramatic. Once she was upset that we were asked to provide pictures for Zoom conference. Yet she is very active on social media. She often balks about providing her bio for conferences and speaking sessions, yet she is constantly bragging about her past experiences in the private sector and high profile boss on the Hill.

She’s working multiple jobs.

That’s why she doesn’t want her pic and bio out there and google able.

I like this theory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rule out:
Fear of flying
Fear of public speaking
Anxiety disorder
Other medical issue

If none of those, just put in a performance standard for the whole group - everyone must deliver X conferences per year. When she falls behind, doesn’t deliver you have a legit reason to fire her. But she may go on Leave first so be ready for that.

Are you a supervisor? You CANNOT just ask people if they have an anxiety disorder or a medical problem. OP offered reasonable accomodation process, employee turned it down.

[Anonymous]

I'm this person at my job.

It's because my husband had a mental breakdown and is now somewhere on the alcohol use disorder spectrum and also has suicidal ideations and I'm terrified to leave our 4yo and 1yo in his care. I also can't leave another adult here for the kids and subject them to my husband's terrifying mental health issues. I don't feel it's appropriate to tell my job this and I don't know what else to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm this person at my job.

It's because my husband had a mental breakdown and is now somewhere on the alcohol use disorder spectrum and also has suicidal ideations and I'm terrified to leave our 4yo and 1yo in his care. I also can't leave another adult here for the kids and subject them to my husband's terrifying mental health issues. I don't feel it's appropriate to tell my job this and I don't know what else to do.

This is exactly what the reasonable accommodation system is in place to deal with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

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.

When is the last time she actually led a meeting or did a presentation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm this person at my job.

It's because my husband had a mental breakdown and is now somewhere on the alcohol use disorder spectrum and also has suicidal ideations and I'm terrified to leave our 4yo and 1yo in his care. I also can't leave another adult here for the kids and subject them to my husband's terrifying mental health issues. I don't feel it's appropriate to tell my job this and I don't know what else to do.

You need to file for FMLA while you figure things out. It'll protect your job while you take time (either intermittently or in a chunk) to take care of your family. Otherwise, if you get fired for performance issues, you're up shits creek at home, too.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The smartest person I ever hired and managed was seriously claustrophobic and unable to even take an elevator. She managed to cover it for many years and finally disclosed it when we were planning to switch offices and sign a lease on the 42nd floor of a new building.
You never know what is going on with a person. If she is a good employee, I would let it be for the time being and reevaluate in 6 months.

Did you sign the lease?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She may be afraid to fly.

Ha! She flies at least 2x a month to visit her family in another state. She loves to travel and goes on at least four international trips a year. She was really risk adverse about COVID, so I thought it could be related to that?

No, she is not risk averse or she wouldn’t travel for personal reasons either. She is work averse.

OP said work travel is to remote places with spotty internet — I bet she feels uncomfortable there for some reason. Is she POC?

[Anonymous]

When I was doing IVF, I had to go in for monitoring blood tests and ultrasounds three days a week dying every cycle. I rarely knew the dates that I would be doing a cycle more than a week or two ahead of time. For me, this went on for eight years. I ended up staying in a terrible job for years because the accommodated that schedule. I could never take a new job because I couldn’t expect them to let me take a couple hours off a couple times a week. Maybe that is what is going on. You really don’t have much control or warning about the schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm this person at my job.

It's because my husband had a mental breakdown and is now somewhere on the alcohol use disorder spectrum and also has suicidal ideations and I'm terrified to leave our 4yo and 1yo in his care. I also can't leave another adult here for the kids and subject them to my husband's terrifying mental health issues. I don't feel it's appropriate to tell my job this and I don't know what else to do.

This is exactly what the reasonable accommodation system is in place to deal with.

ADA doesn't cover someone in your home having a medical situation. It covers the employee. So not this is not what an accommodation is for.

If this is happening to someone, tell your supervisor would be my advice. If you area good employee, the supervisor will try to work with you. In an absence of information, people fill in the blanks and it's usually worse than the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was doing IVF, I had to go in for monitoring blood tests and ultrasounds three days a week dying every cycle. I rarely knew the dates that I would be doing a cycle more than a week or two ahead of time. For me, this went on for eight years. I ended up staying in a terrible job for years because the accommodated that schedule. I could never take a new job because I couldn’t expect them to let me take a couple hours off a couple times a week. Maybe that is what is going on. You really don’t have much control or warning about the schedule.

This is a really good guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was doing IVF, I had to go in for monitoring blood tests and ultrasounds three days a week dying every cycle. I rarely knew the dates that I would be doing a cycle more than a week or two ahead of time. For me, this went on for eight years. I ended up staying in a terrible job for years because the accommodated that schedule. I could never take a new job because I couldn’t expect them to let me take a couple hours off a couple times a week. Maybe that is what is going on. You really don’t have much control or warning about the schedule.

This is a really good guess.

Except OP debunked this earlier in the thread - this woman is in her 50s.