Tips on dealing with employee who constantly has issues?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an employee like this and some of it is cultural. She is older, but it is an entry level job. It is always something with her. Her adult son needs to borrow her car. Her niece needs someone to watch the baby. She needs to take her mom to get a prescription at lunch time and it somehow turns into a 2 hour errand.

As best I can tell, she is the only person in her family with a “professional” job. Her siblings and adult children all seem to have hourly jobs like being a gas station cashier where if you don’t show up for your shift you don’t get paid and probably get fired. Since our jobs are largely work from home and allow some flexibility like occasionally taking a long lunch for an appointment, her family seems to view her as the most responsible and successful and call her for every possible issue. They also don’t understand what she does since she’s “just looking at a laptop” and assume she’s 100% always available. They seem to live adjacent to poverty and there is a lot more drama that comes with that - which I picked up on because I grew up in a rural area and am familiar with the patterns. Her husband was military and I don’t think anyone she knows has an office job that is not customer service related.

I struggled at first to talk to her about setting boundaries because I didn’t know how to explain that the frequency and duration of her absences were in excess of the flexibility others in the team have to go to the dentist or a parent-teacher conference. What I settled on was coaching her to schedule her appointments for the very beginning or end of the day and to minimize the mid-day breaks because they seem to lead to mistakes in her work and inefficiency. I also told her that we understand things come up as emergencies, but she needs to have a backup plan.

In the case of the employee you describe, I would tell them to check their car the night before if needed. They should borrow or rent a car, ask for a ride, or take an Uber if they don’t have their car. If they are only in the office one day a week, they need to have a back up plan for childcare that day.

Good for you for actually trying to understand and work with your employee. Nice to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the olden days you just fired them. For any reason.

The good old days…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in my office is supposed to be in person every Tuesday since the beginning of 2023, I have one employee who has made it in just over half of the Tuesdays. Sick, car trouble, plumber coming, etc. Her performance review is about to be a shockingly negative experience for her and I will be surprised if we keep her into 2024. Our senior leadership is so fed up with people ignoring RTO they are happy to hire new ones instead.

I would have a hard conversation with your employee about attendance, it’s not good for the entire office.

Good luck hiring new people with draconian RTO

Is one day a week in the office draconian RTO? Really?

Are you OP? Anyways Draconian is looking for punitive action for missing an RTO day. Things come up. Lots of people are sick this time of year. Maybe your employee is lying, but eventually they will run out of cars to run into deers.

They aren’t just saying “won’t come in” they have a reasonable reason. It’s been 3 months. I would focus on actual work and deliverables not calling them a liar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids? I’ve got a 4 year old who seems to be a constant harbinger of disease. Not sure if the pandemic messed up her immune development or what, but these last two years in preschool have been brutal. Even catching less than half of what she’s brought home has led to my sickest year to date.

Broadly agree with others that you should focus on productivity. Trust me, I personally would much rather be at the office than home sick yet again. If in office matters, have him or her try to make it up. I do.

It’s self evident in office doesn’t matter

8 in office days out if 60!

I disagree. I manage a team of 15 people in a department of 110 and we all worked remote 80% pre-pandemic. We didn’t do all the video calls and Zoom happy hours and other goody stuff because we assumed we knew how to work from home already. Except we would go into the office 1 day a week. Life happens, kids get sick, people have planned PTO. People probably ended up coming in 3x a month.

Fast forward 9-12 months and things started falling apart. People complain they feel disconnected and not engaged on HR surveys - yet all the free lunch, fancy coffee, and happy hours in the world won’t bring them back to the office face to face to build connections. Personally I think once a week is the sweet spot, but even one day a month makes a huge difference in personal interactions and feeling engaged with your work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids? I’ve got a 4 year old who seems to be a constant harbinger of disease. Not sure if the pandemic messed up her immune development or what, but these last two years in preschool have been brutal. Even catching less than half of what she’s brought home has led to my sickest year to date.

Broadly agree with others that you should focus on productivity. Trust me, I personally would much rather be at the office than home sick yet again. If in office matters, have him or her try to make it up. I do.

It’s self evident in office doesn’t matter

8 in office days out if 60!

I disagree. I manage a team of 15 people in a department of 110 and we all worked remote 80% pre-pandemic. We didn’t do all the video calls and Zoom happy hours and other goody stuff because we assumed we knew how to work from home already. Except we would go into the office 1 day a week. Life happens, kids get sick, people have planned PTO. People probably ended up coming in 3x a month.

Fast forward 9-12 months and things started falling apart. People complain they feel disconnected and not engaged on HR surveys - yet all the free lunch, fancy coffee, and happy hours in the world won’t bring them back to the office face to face to build connections. Personally I think once a week is the sweet spot, but even one day a month makes a huge difference in personal interactions and feeling engaged with your work.

You are blaming WFH and less RTO on people’s disengagement, when many surveys have shown people are more stressed in general and less satisfied about work overall, regardless of how they work. It’s likely people on your team are dealing with new realities (perhaps seeing how badly their schools are doing for kids, maybe they moved some place with new challenges) and value your work less because of a evaluation when faced with their own mortality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in my office is supposed to be in person every Tuesday since the beginning of 2023, I have one employee who has made it in just over half of the Tuesdays. Sick, car trouble, plumber coming, etc. Her performance review is about to be a shockingly negative experience for her and I will be surprised if we keep her into 2024. Our senior leadership is so fed up with people ignoring RTO they are happy to hire new ones instead.

I would have a hard conversation with your employee about attendance, it’s not good for the entire office.

Good luck hiring new people with draconian RTO

Is one day a week in the office draconian RTO? Really?

Are you OP? Anyways Draconian is looking for punitive action for missing an RTO day. Things come up. Lots of people are sick this time of year. Maybe your employee is lying, but eventually they will run out of cars to run into deers.

They aren’t just saying “won’t come in” they have a reasonable reason. It’s been 3 months. I would focus on actual work and deliverables not calling them a liar.

She is a liar. My old boss got sick of people like this. He started rule of key person and 4 or more inches or snow predicted they can come in night before check in to hotel next door on company prepaid account, dinner, drinks at bar breakfast all paid for.

Two slackers called out due to snow, I did not check weather report, I feel asleep early before snow, I thought weather forecaster wrong, my favorite how would I know it is snowing where boss said so you live in a house with no windows? These people are con artists.

I honestly think my old boss built in a no excuse situation to box these slackers in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in my office is supposed to be in person every Tuesday since the beginning of 2023, I have one employee who has made it in just over half of the Tuesdays. Sick, car trouble, plumber coming, etc. Her performance review is about to be a shockingly negative experience for her and I will be surprised if we keep her into 2024. Our senior leadership is so fed up with people ignoring RTO they are happy to hire new ones instead.

I would have a hard conversation with your employee about attendance, it’s not good for the entire office.

Good luck hiring new people with draconian RTO

Is one day a week in the office draconian RTO? Really?

Are you OP? Anyways Draconian is looking for punitive action for missing an RTO day. Things come up. Lots of people are sick this time of year. Maybe your employee is lying, but eventually they will run out of cars to run into deers.

They aren’t just saying “won’t come in” they have a reasonable reason. It’s been 3 months. I would focus on actual work and deliverables not calling them a liar.

She is a liar. My old boss got sick of people like this. He started rule of key person and 4 or more inches or snow predicted they can come in night before check in to hotel next door on company prepaid account, dinner, drinks at bar breakfast all paid for.

Two slackers called out due to snow, I did not check weather report, I feel asleep early before snow, I thought weather forecaster wrong, my favorite how would I know it is snowing where boss said so you live in a house with no windows? These people are con artists.

I honestly think my old boss built in a no excuse situation to box these slackers in

So anti parent policies. Hotel for snow?

[Anonymous]

Contact HR and ask guidance, providing documentation of the issue. Be best friends with hr. Always.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in my office is supposed to be in person every Tuesday since the beginning of 2023, I have one employee who has made it in just over half of the Tuesdays. Sick, car trouble, plumber coming, etc. Her performance review is about to be a shockingly negative experience for her and I will be surprised if we keep her into 2024. Our senior leadership is so fed up with people ignoring RTO they are happy to hire new ones instead.

I would have a hard conversation with your employee about attendance, it’s not good for the entire office.

Good luck hiring new people with draconian RTO

Is one day a week in the office draconian RTO? Really?

Are you OP? Anyways Draconian is looking for punitive action for missing an RTO day. Things come up. Lots of people are sick this time of year. Maybe your employee is lying, but eventually they will run out of cars to run into deers.

They aren’t just saying “won’t come in” they have a reasonable reason. It’s been 3 months. I would focus on actual work and deliverables not calling them a liar.

She is a liar. My old boss got sick of people like this. He started rule of key person and 4 or more inches or snow predicted they can come in night before check in to hotel next door on company prepaid account, dinner, drinks at bar breakfast all paid for.

Two slackers called out due to snow, I did not check weather report, I feel asleep early before snow, I thought weather forecaster wrong, my favorite how would I know it is snowing where boss said so you live in a house with no windows? These people are con artists.

I honestly think my old boss built in a no excuse situation to box these slackers in

Lol such a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids? I’ve got a 4 year old who seems to be a constant harbinger of disease. Not sure if the pandemic messed up her immune development or what, but these last two years in preschool have been brutal. Even catching less than half of what she’s brought home has led to my sickest year to date.

Broadly agree with others that you should focus on productivity. Trust me, I personally would much rather be at the office than home sick yet again. If in office matters, have him or her try to make it up. I do.

It’s self evident in office doesn’t matter

8 in office days out if 60!

I disagree. I manage a team of 15 people in a department of 110 and we all worked remote 80% pre-pandemic. We didn’t do all the video calls and Zoom happy hours and other goody stuff because we assumed we knew how to work from home already. Except we would go into the office 1 day a week. Life happens, kids get sick, people have planned PTO. People probably ended up coming in 3x a month.

Fast forward 9-12 months and things started falling apart. People complain they feel disconnected and not engaged on HR surveys - yet all the free lunch, fancy coffee, and happy hours in the world won’t bring them back to the office face to face to build connections. Personally I think once a week is the sweet spot, but even one day a month makes a huge difference in personal interactions and feeling engaged with your work.

You are blaming WFH and less RTO on people’s disengagement, when many surveys have shown people are more stressed in general and less satisfied about work overall, regardless of how they work. It’s likely people on your team are dealing with new realities (perhaps seeing how badly their schools are doing for kids, maybe they moved some place with new challenges) and value your work less because of a evaluation when faced with their own mortality.

I’m a manager of 75 employees and I also blame WFH for our disengagement. It’s been a huge hit to productivity and any feeling of engagement to our work or workplace, according to multiple surveys of our employees over the last few years. I would bring people back a few days a week if I could, right now we limp along with 1 day a week in the office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids? I’ve got a 4 year old who seems to be a constant harbinger of disease. Not sure if the pandemic messed up her immune development or what, but these last two years in preschool have been brutal. Even catching less than half of what she’s brought home has led to my sickest year to date.

Broadly agree with others that you should focus on productivity. Trust me, I personally would much rather be at the office than home sick yet again. If in office matters, have him or her try to make it up. I do.

It’s self evident in office doesn’t matter

8 in office days out if 60!

I disagree. I manage a team of 15 people in a department of 110 and we all worked remote 80% pre-pandemic. We didn’t do all the video calls and Zoom happy hours and other goody stuff because we assumed we knew how to work from home already. Except we would go into the office 1 day a week. Life happens, kids get sick, people have planned PTO. People probably ended up coming in 3x a month.

Fast forward 9-12 months and things started falling apart. People complain they feel disconnected and not engaged on HR surveys - yet all the free lunch, fancy coffee, and happy hours in the world won’t bring them back to the office face to face to build connections. Personally I think once a week is the sweet spot, but even one day a month makes a huge difference in personal interactions and feeling engaged with your work.

You are blaming WFH and less RTO on people’s disengagement, when many surveys have shown people are more stressed in general and less satisfied about work overall, regardless of how they work. It’s likely people on your team are dealing with new realities (perhaps seeing how badly their schools are doing for kids, maybe they moved some place with new challenges) and value your work less because of a evaluation when faced with their own mortality.

I’m a manager of 75 employees and I also blame WFH for our disengagement. It’s been a huge hit to productivity and any feeling of engagement to our work or workplace, according to multiple surveys of our employees over the last few years. I would bring people back a few days a week if I could, right now we limp along with 1 day a week in the office.

Do you personally only go in once a week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an employee like this and some of it is cultural. She is older, but it is an entry level job. It is always something with her. Her adult son needs to borrow her car. Her niece needs someone to watch the baby. She needs to take her mom to get a prescription at lunch time and it somehow turns into a 2 hour errand.

As best I can tell, she is the only person in her family with a “professional” job. Her siblings and adult children all seem to have hourly jobs like being a gas station cashier where if you don’t show up for your shift you don’t get paid and probably get fired. Since our jobs are largely work from home and allow some flexibility like occasionally taking a long lunch for an appointment, her family seems to view her as the most responsible and successful and call her for every possible issue. They also don’t understand what she does since she’s “just looking at a laptop” and assume she’s 100% always available. They seem to live adjacent to poverty and there is a lot more drama that comes with that - which I picked up on because I grew up in a rural area and am familiar with the patterns. Her husband was military and I don’t think anyone she knows has an office job that is not customer service related.

I struggled at first to talk to her about setting boundaries because I didn’t know how to explain that the frequency and duration of her absences were in excess of the flexibility others in the team have to go to the dentist or a parent-teacher conference. What I settled on was coaching her to schedule her appointments for the very beginning or end of the day and to minimize the mid-day breaks because they seem to lead to mistakes in her work and inefficiency. I also told her that we understand things come up as emergencies, but she needs to have a backup plan.

In the case of the employee you describe, I would tell them to check their car the night before if needed. They should borrow or rent a car, ask for a ride, or take an Uber if they don’t have their car. If they are only in the office one day a week, they need to have a back up plan for childcare that day.

If her husband was in the military she definitely understands the need to come in to work, be on time, etc. She'd just prefer to do her own thing, instead of work, and still get paid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an employee like this and some of it is cultural. She is older, but it is an entry level job. It is always something with her. Her adult son needs to borrow her car. Her niece needs someone to watch the baby. She needs to take her mom to get a prescription at lunch time and it somehow turns into a 2 hour errand.

As best I can tell, she is the only person in her family with a “professional” job. Her siblings and adult children all seem to have hourly jobs like being a gas station cashier where if you don’t show up for your shift you don’t get paid and probably get fired. Since our jobs are largely work from home and allow some flexibility like occasionally taking a long lunch for an appointment, her family seems to view her as the most responsible and successful and call her for every possible issue. They also don’t understand what she does since she’s “just looking at a laptop” and assume she’s 100% always available. They seem to live adjacent to poverty and there is a lot more drama that comes with that - which I picked up on because I grew up in a rural area and am familiar with the patterns. Her husband was military and I don’t think anyone she knows has an office job that is not customer service related.

I struggled at first to talk to her about setting boundaries because I didn’t know how to explain that the frequency and duration of her absences were in excess of the flexibility others in the team have to go to the dentist or a parent-teacher conference. What I settled on was coaching her to schedule her appointments for the very beginning or end of the day and to minimize the mid-day breaks because they seem to lead to mistakes in her work and inefficiency. I also told her that we understand things come up as emergencies, but she needs to have a backup plan.

In the case of the employee you describe, I would tell them to check their car the night before if needed. They should borrow or rent a car, ask for a ride, or take an Uber if they don’t have their car. If they are only in the office one day a week, they need to have a back up plan for childcare that day.

Good for you for actually trying to understand and work with your employee. Nice to see.

I have been in this situation before. I agree with this PP. But it can be exhausting. I am first generation, I know hardships, and my parents had to walk a long way to work more than once. We only had one car, and we needed the money, so we worked. So, I am not sure what to tell you. It did not occur to my parents to call in.

At some point responsibility does have to step in. If the problem employee sees others WFH (usually higher ups, with more qualifications), it sparks issues. My family was not in a situation where the populace was sympathetic to language or other barriers. It was quite the opposite. There are so many things in place for people now, it really is different. Not saying it is perfect, but people have worked through worse socioeconomic times.

I have seen employees with no kids at home claim they have "so much to do", when it is just them. They have no idea, truly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in my office is supposed to be in person every Tuesday since the beginning of 2023, I have one employee who has made it in just over half of the Tuesdays. Sick, car trouble, plumber coming, etc. Her performance review is about to be a shockingly negative experience for her and I will be surprised if we keep her into 2024. Our senior leadership is so fed up with people ignoring RTO they are happy to hire new ones instead.

I would have a hard conversation with your employee about attendance, it’s not good for the entire office.

Good luck hiring new people with draconian RTO

Is one day a week in the office draconian RTO? Really?

Are you OP? Anyways Draconian is looking for punitive action for missing an RTO day. Things come up. Lots of people are sick this time of year. Maybe your employee is lying, but eventually they will run out of cars to run into deers.

They aren’t just saying “won’t come in” they have a reasonable reason. It’s been 3 months. I would focus on actual work and deliverables not calling them a liar.

She is a liar. My old boss got sick of people like this. He started rule of key person and 4 or more inches or snow predicted they can come in night before check in to hotel next door on company prepaid account, dinner, drinks at bar breakfast all paid for.

Two slackers called out due to snow, I did not check weather report, I feel asleep early before snow, I thought weather forecaster wrong, my favorite how would I know it is snowing where boss said so you live in a house with no windows? These people are con artists.

I honestly think my old boss built in a no excuse situation to box these slackers in

So anti parent policies. Hotel for snow?

You do know kids can come to a hotel!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone in my office is supposed to be in person every Tuesday since the beginning of 2023, I have one employee who has made it in just over half of the Tuesdays. Sick, car trouble, plumber coming, etc. Her performance review is about to be a shockingly negative experience for her and I will be surprised if we keep her into 2024. Our senior leadership is so fed up with people ignoring RTO they are happy to hire new ones instead.

I would have a hard conversation with your employee about attendance, it’s not good for the entire office.

Good luck hiring new people with draconian RTO

Is one day a week in the office draconian RTO? Really?

Are you OP? Anyways Draconian is looking for punitive action for missing an RTO day. Things come up. Lots of people are sick this time of year. Maybe your employee is lying, but eventually they will run out of cars to run into deers.

They aren’t just saying “won’t come in” they have a reasonable reason. It’s been 3 months. I would focus on actual work and deliverables not calling them a liar.

She is a liar. My old boss got sick of people like this. He started rule of key person and 4 or more inches or snow predicted they can come in night before check in to hotel next door on company prepaid account, dinner, drinks at bar breakfast all paid for.

Two slackers called out due to snow, I did not check weather report, I feel asleep early before snow, I thought weather forecaster wrong, my favorite how would I know it is snowing where boss said so you live in a house with no windows? These people are con artists.

I honestly think my old boss built in a no excuse situation to box these slackers in

So anti parent policies. Hotel for snow?

You do know kids can come to a hotel!

So they come to work with you? Or stay at hotel while you go to work?