Manager I manage refusing to manage someone

If the working relationship has broken down, that would be a reason for management change

If the offensive behaviour would be impossible in some other dept, likewise.

Obviously if the other manager feels threatened or intimidated, that matters.

But otherwise, the gap here seems to be in your disciplinary processes. There should be a plan to support the employee to work to the appropriate standard and ethos following the written warning. His manager should work with him and HR to draw this up, ideally. It's not just a matter of choosing whether or not to manage the person. His manager needs to commit to managing the situation, fairly and constructively, and to leave personalities and private views out of it.

So yes, back to HR to work out a plan for support and monitoring and to help this manager to implement it.

With the information we have, yes, A should just suck it up and manage B.

But.

I do wonder if HR are in “protect the business” mode, rather than “dismiss someone they should” mode, given the fact that no-one had seen / heard the incident, and that manager A has made allegations about performance that weren’t part of the other, third party, complaint, but hadn’t actually documented how they were dealing with that.

I think you need to have some conversations with A about plans for managing B - whether you expect the outcome to be that B improves, or is eventually dismissed, the approach needs to be the same. You also need to support A as much as you can, and ensure you document that.

Having said that, if the original allegation was of sexual harassment, and there are gender dynamics at play, I do think it could be far more complicated to navigate.

Sorry OP, this sounds like a sticky situation.

You are at least 2 grades up the management structure and think it’s appropriate to lay out an employee dispute , and seek advice on social media. From unqualified randoms

.I hope no one recognizes themselves.

And you are calling people odd?

I’d prefer not to manage a person in my team but it’s part of the job and I can’t pass them onto someone else. I suspect this person shouldn’t be in a management position and if they can’t move on in a positive manner, I agree with a PP who said this needs to be referred to HR.

Whichever manager wants to keep them in the company should manage them.

Agree with this.

On the other side i dismissed someone when personally I felt it was very harsh and i disagreed with the company position on it, but the employee went against a very strict policy and put the business at risk.

Its tough but you just have to crack on with situations like this and if manager is incapable of large parts of their role - which involves dealing with difficult situations and managing people - then maybe they need an improvement plan OP?

Well be honest with yourself has she just been dumped with all the crap /problem staff?
It does sound like you just don't want to manage this person yourself, but you are presumably paid more money to reflect better experience and capability and so may be better able to manage this individual.

Managers can't pick and chose who they manage.

Tell the manager that as the matter has been dealt with they will just have to get on with it and respect the outcome of the process.

Get HR to support this and advise on next steps if the manager continues to dispute matters.

I just wanted go offer some support for the OP. Managing an employee properly takes a lot of time and effort. I would be really annoyed to pick up an extra direct report and all the work that comes with them just because someone else decided they didn’t want to.

That the manager that you manage continues to line manage employee A

I agree

@MumofCandR I agree you need to bring HR into the solution.

The manager needs to continue to manage A.

From the managers perspective they have been given a shit job to do.

The discipline process will have negatively impacted both A and their manager in terms of:

• Their working relationship (mutual trust & confidence)
• their mental health
• focusing their resource on management not deliverables.

Slopey shoulders at senior level exists, managers follow procedures and do everything right and senior managers don’t follow through.

What you need to do is convince the manager that if they follow procedures they will 100% be backed and not left in a cycle of A going through performance management/disciplinary and senior managers giving them another chance. I’ve seen it happen too many times that senior managers bottle it.

Person A admitted to the allegations and was punished accordingly. The manager needs to be professional and get on with their job. The manager wasn’t involved in what happened so they need to remain impartial

You now need to support the manager while they manage the employee, unless there is a parallel manager who could become the employee's LM, which would probably be the best way forward.

Surely it's common sense they're kept apart.

How would you feel about making allegations so severe about someone you felt they should be fired, only for you to have to remain in the very same position that caused the offences they were disciplined for?

This is a ‘people’ thing and an awkward one, so get a conversation with your HR person for input on a plan to manage the situation.

That plan might look like:

• You, As manager and HR sit down and talk through the approach for managing A going forward. How that feeds into 1:1s, appraisals, performance reviews, performance monitoring etc. a PIP might be a relevant option to consider.
• You, As manager and your manager sit down and talk through the risks that A is concerned about issues reoccurring, and how between you you’ll mitigate those risks.

It would seem from As managers response that they’re concerned there might be future issues and aren’t comfortable being left solo to handle those. The above avoids any buck passing but also confirms support via the line and appropriate escalation.

One of your stated concerns originally was that you might have to manage the person so you are just contradicting yourself here.

If your manager reviews this process and takes the view that it is untenable for the existing management structure to continue because of the history between the manager and staff member then surely you will be consistent in your own requirement that people respect a process.

Best not start threads then, or at least post a CV for applications to qualify for the role of giving you advice.

Honestly, people are posting here in good faith.

Even if they're wrong, it's incredibly rude to respond as you have.

Your manager can't pick and choose who they manage, but they can submit a grievance against you if they feel you've failed to support them. Dependent on the nature of As behaviour towards your manager, it may actually be deemed unreasonable for you to be insisting they continue to manage A. So if I were you, I'd tread very carefully and be prepared to discuss this at a much deeper level than 'it's your job to manage who we tell you to'.
Your best bet is to talk to your manager supportively. Tell them that the aim is to resolve the situation so that they can manage A in a way they feel confident about. Explain why the business needs them to manage A rather than anyone else (if you don't have a good reason here, that's a weak spot) and ask what support they need from you to do it. Document the meeting.
If they continue to refuse, then you'll need to escalate it higher, but will have done nothing they can criticise you for.

Why so rude?

You've said we clearly don't know all the details from your deliberately high level info, you're telling people their suggestions won't work, so obviously you know more about it than we do. So what are you looking for from this thread?

I've been a manager for 13 years. In my view moving A is the best thing to do. If that absolutely won't work (are you civil service/public sector?) then you need to performance manage B (their manager). They might need additional training, or they might need to just adjust their behaviours and expectations. Getting advice from HR and/or your manager is a good idea.