Anonymous wrote:Make them quit.

How exactly.

Make them quit.

You put them on a PIP, and then you ride them until they quit.

Is it easier to fire a bad manager, or remove them from management because their staff hates them and is constantly complaining? Wondering what the deal is with my terrible boss and why they haven’t been removed from a position of authority yet.

Don’t even bother. You are going to waste way more resources trying to fire someone for performance issues than you are just trying to manage them, and make the best out of it. I work for a manager who spends lots of her days trying to document performance issues and fire people. She’s hellbent on it, and as such, nothing else is getting done. She is becoming the thing she hates. Take the lesson. Firing for misconduct is easier I think.

I have been a manager at two different federal agencies. At one we had strong ELR staff and employment attorneys and they helped me with the PIP process to remove an employee. At my current agency that staff is also useless and I don’t think I could get rid of anyone for any reason. It really depends how much support you have to take an action.

Just park her by a window and forget it

It's not impossible, just slow. You document, you make a PIP, you have hard conversations in performance reviews. Make sure your expectations are fair as well as clear.

Two other things to think about:
- Are there aspects of the job she's good at? My fast workers are good at certain things, but often not good at repetitive tasks. Some of my slower writers are great with customer service. And so on.
- will you be able to replace her? A lot of us are not hiring right now, you may prefer her to no one.

Talk to Employee Relations. Every agency has a different appetite for risk when it comes to removing employees.

It's practically impossible and a waste of time.

I find out what they are good at, and I give them that work. Often I give them the rote work the other workers hate doing but they don't mind doing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is she in the probationary period? It’s not too hard at that stage.

No, I would of course put her on a PIP before I attempted firing, but so far I'm just considering my options.


I'm also thinking about the effects on morale in both directions. Everyone can tell she is not pulling her weight and some people probably resent that but at the same time firing someone is often bad for the morale of even the high performers.

Also, she has been at the agency for decades. She probably was decent at the job at one point.

Anonymous wrote:Is she in the probationary period? It’s not too hard at that stage.

No, I would of course put her on a PIP before I attempted firing, but so far I'm just considering my options.


I'm also thinking about the effects on morale in both directions. Everyone can tell she is not pulling her weight and some people probably resent that but at the same time firing someone is often bad for the morale of even the high performers.

Is she in the probationary period? It’s not too hard at that stage.

This is one of many reasons I’ve never sought a management position at my federal agency. It’s not only impossible to fire an employee, you better be careful if you even write a bad review.

How did it go? I have an employee who is just not up to the job. She is just incompetent and cannot do anything required of her. I am documenting her inability to perform the job and weighing my options. I know firing someone in the federal government is no easy task and even though she is totally incompetent, she is not actively disruptive. What would you do?