Problematic employee

Sounds like the entire company is a mess, and she's certainly found the right place if what she wants is a job where she can take the piss.

Does your company not do performance management? Or keep a log of poor attendance and timekeeping? Not to mention reviewing productivity and performance of the section? This is partly done to ensure all colleagues are supported and not just one! What does everyone else think? I’m amazed they haven’t complained to you.

Talk to HR immediately. Keep recorded of performance shortcomings and evidence of her contract being broken. You won’t come out of this well. Who does your performance review? Are you public sector workers?

And don’t back down if she turns on the waterworks or complains about bullying. It is not bullying to speak to a workshy employee about their performance. Woman up OP.

I wouldn’t start on Ramadan but start issuing instructions that she needs to come into the office and follow through with discipline if she doesn’t.

If she is sick or her child is then it needs to be taken as unpaid leave or sick leave.

She’s only taking the piss because you’ve let her.

Sarah.. let's review your flexible working agreement.. we have an appointment in person next week with HR to discuss this.

You are contracted to work 9 -18.30.. and 10 days per month in the office. While working from home, while it is OK to schedule household tasks on those days, you are still required to work your hours.

I can see that in the past three months, you have worked only 5 days in the office. For the next three months, I will be reviewing this, and if you are not meeting your contractual requirements, your right to work from home will be reviewed (check with HR how they would like.you to do this and ask for their support).

I have been back over our communications and see that you often have reasons for working from home, in future, you will have to swap your other days to compensate, plan around your office days or take annual or sick leave if you cannot make it in to the office.

I would also like to support you better during your religious observations of Ramadam (again ask HR). We understand that it is difficult to work at full capacity during this time and invite you to propose how we can make reasonable adjustments for you in this time, while respecting your contractual obligations towards your employment.

Ask HR what is reasonable and what can be expected.

Lean on HR, invite them to come up with solutions and to be part of the discussions..

I think you can implement a number of things that will allow you to at least monitor the situation better and to build up a file that you can bring to HR in case still needed.
Make sure that her tasks are clear and give them in writing with a deadline. This way you can follow up easier if she does not achieve her targets.
Tell (where appropriate) all your staff that you will monitor the WFH situation a bit better - in many firms there is a push to have people return to the office more as productivity can be far better monitored and it is also much better for staff engagement. A very easy rule is that if ppl use an excuse to stay at home one day, they'll have to make up by coming to the office another day that week. If you bring this as a general rule, she won't feel singled out and it is clear that it is of general application.
For the Ramadan period - i would also not make a larger issue of this. If she's not performing the assigned work for this period, make sure that she herself is forced to admit it and leave a paper trail. For instance, send her an email near the end of her working day asking whether she was able to complete task a/b/c.

Exactly this. You are the manager and if she's not doing her job or putting in the hours then you put her on a performance improvement plan. There's too many poor managers around. My colleague barely puts in any hours, takes a 1.5 hour lunchbreak every when it's meant to be half an hour, does nothing to learn new skills or keep updated etc yet my manager does nothing, even passed her for probation when she was like this form the start. It's beyond belief what some employees get away with.

As a manager who has had a couple of challenging staff over the years including a couple of managers who I put on this (and believe me I am pretty easy going compared to some but people do take the Michael) I would look at the following.

I would definitely avoid like the plague doing anything about religious holidays and allowing reasonable adjustments. You are heading for a big grievance there and possibly even bigger issues. This has been allowed to happen previously and suddenly turning it around now would be see as discriminatory especially if other staff in the business get allowances for Ramadan.

If you are unhappy with the performance of the individual kick off with an informal performance plan with targets and make them SMART targets you can measure. This should be fairly easy by the sounds of it as it can be sickness, timekeeping, productivity etc.
Have regular review over the period its running say 1-2 months i.e. weekly.
If performance does not improve and agreed targets are not being hit then you can move onto an official performance plan with penalties for not improving such as staged warnings.
Generally either then people buck up (generally the best outcome) or it goes to then either leaving/ getting dismissed.

Its not fun to do and you have to stay the course if you want improvement. The alternative is to let it continue to the slide but this is awfully corrosive to the rest of the team generally if they see someone essentially getting away with stuff and either go the same way or lose confidence in you as a manager.

In fact I would bet that your team are thoroughly pissed off, have watched this go on for three years, and are either leaving or looking to.

Unfairness is the worst thing you can bring into a team. She sounds horribly selfish, and you sound scared of her.

I'd be out of there like a shot. Letting her go to conferences while she can't get to the office because of period pain? C'mon mate.

You should have managed her out by now
Set her performance target
Set minimum times she HAS to be in the office
You know what you have to do - you are a manager. But it appears you do not seem to be prepared to manage her because you can foresee the issues - you know what these are and you have alluded to them. I suspect you think that if you try to manage her effectively, she will 'play the race card' or something similar and you don't want to deal with it.
Either step up and manage her appropriately, or get in touch with HR and ask them to deal with her. Otherwise, the rest of your team is going to become very pissed off both with her and you.

Because excuses aren't always acceptable for piss poor performance.

She doesn't get to go to conferences as a right, they are a privilege and I'd be stopping that immediately - "thanks for offering Jane, but I'm conscious you've not been well recently / have lots of things on your plate with sick child and so I'm not going to allow you to do extra hours for now".

"Sorry to hear you have a headache so want to WFH, which days are you going to do in the office to make up for it?"

"Sorry toddler is sick, am I booking you off as unpaid parental leave / carers leave or annual leave?"

"Jane, why did you log off at lunchtime yesterday? Oh you're prepping for breaking your fast? When are you making up the hours you didn't work?"

And if she fails to make up those things you hold her to account. Every. Single. Time.

If any other employee said 'I've terrible period pain, is it ok if I work from home today?' I'd say 'no problem' that's reasonable.

It's not reasonable. If they're due in the office that day and can't come in, that's what their sick leave is for.

To be honest, you should be asking all these questions to your manager, not a parenting website.

Or recognise that you've let things slide for so long into this mess, there's no point in changing it until you've had your training and become a competent manager.

When is your training booked for?

It sounds to me like you need support as her manager @somenonsense - someone higher up or in HR needs to be made aware and advise you through the process. This is part of being a leader and it doesn't sound like you know how to approach it, and they need to help you with your skills gap.

Because they have actual tangible responsibilities surely? And a contract?

If they are not adhering to those, you either get them to start or issue warnings if they don't, which will eventually result in dismissal if she digs her heels in.

For the love of god though, don't touch Ramadan.

Talk to HR and start hold her accountable. Don’t make it about Ramadan. She either does her job or is fired.

Yeah I think you come across as an ineffective manager here. She's done this for so long as you haven't dealt with it.

Don't make this about Ramadan, it's months away anyway.

Make her objectives really clear, what she needs to achieve and by when. Put in some review points, address it if she's not meet expectations. If she's not working her hours address that too, before Ramadan!

This will be affecting morale in the rest of your team if they're feeling like they're carrying her or that she's getting away with poor performance while they put the effort in.