Letting someone fail at work - aibu to let it happen?

[MrsBede]

In brief, I have a deputy who has failed to perform since appointment. I have followed all procedures to deal with this but my organisation is poorly led and I have limited support from those above - eg I should have a line manager but the post is vacant. We're public sector.

A senior manager has now told me my deputy needs to be given a project to lead on and when it flops it will be the point at which the lack of performance is finally dealt with. It's horrible, but the team and our clients are being detrimentally affected by this person's lack of competence so it has to happen - I've tried so much to bring them on but they just haven't responded.

So the project has been explained to them and they have got started. There are already issues becoming apparent but they have now sent me details of their next steps and it's really poor. Do I intervene or just let it play out? It will be a fuck up (not dangerous or anything) and should bring things to a head, but what if they come back and say they ran it past me first and I didn't voice concerns?

My problem is lack of support from above but there is none, so MN - please help!

@MrsBede - I know you said HR are limited but have you actually been in direct contact for advice? If not I'd encourage you to at least try. (See my reply to Bollindger below about going about that). At the very least they can go through your case for under-performance with you. They SHOULD be impartial and fair and challenge you if your case is weak, but support you if the case is strong.

Can I also ask, when you say Deputy has been through capability 'unofficially' does this mean no formal warning/Performance improvement plan was put in place? I got the impression there had been a PiP in place after last meeting? If so in normal civil service procedures that would usually constitute a warning, and even if not a PiP is evidence of a track record of underperformance.

As you hopefully know, if a warning is 'time expired' it cannot usually be used to justify a new disciplinary warning at the next stage but it can certainly be used in reviews to show ongoing performance issues. Referring to it is not forbidden.

As for the subjective nature of feedback, yes that's often tricky (imagine trying to explain to an HR person why the advice they are giving managers about a capability isn't good enough!) But it's still entirely possible - your professional knowledge and expertise counts for a lot.

I know you are fed up and sick of this. And yes I believe you that employees can be lazy or have a 'don't care' attitude as well as incompetent. I had one in my own team a few years ago which was very very painful. But don't give up, either this employee improves and delivers or they don't but you need to keep following the procedures, for your own sake if no other reason.

@Bollindger In all my organisations, copying HR in to random emails would not go down well, we'd just delete them. I'd be responding the first time saying "don't clutter up my inbox with managerial issues that you need to handle". BUT I'd also say do feel free to set up a meeting and come for a chat, and do bring along the bundle of evidence you've been collating showing what the performance issues are, how the employee has been told about these, the targets set and outcomes measured (these can be manager judgement, not just qualitative) and records of training & coaching supplied to support the employee. Oh and if you don't have that bundle? sure we can have a brief chat but then you need ot crack on with the evidence gathering. Only with that can I advise if the case appears strong enough for formal capability action.

And if later a manager wants some support in writing a tricky email response to the employee, or preparing for a feedback session, or me to review an outcome letter from a formal meeting, absolutely send me the draft for feedback. I have the background now and know the manager. In my last job I had 70 managers and team leaders to support and 1500+ staff under them. Drowning me in emails was never going to help me help a manager.

You need a paper trail.

'Could you advise me of the current position with... including the timescales you have identified?'

'Thank you. I need to draw to your attention that the legal requirements (specific laws) are that ... must be completed within ... days of... Could you send me a revised timescale by ... , taking into account the statutory obligations...?'

'Thank you. However, this does not appear to take into account... Could we discuss this tomorrow at xpm?'

'Following our meeting on ....., I would like to clarify that you have ... and ... and will be making the following changes by and we will review this at ... intervals or sooner if necessary'

'Following our conversation on ... here are the links to .... where you will be able to access further information in order to resolve the issue with... If you require further support with this, please let me know by ... as the consequences of ... would result in [negative outcome for clients and organisation]'

'Thank you for your update today, where the revised timescale of ... was agreed in order to comply with .... and that you will be ...... by Tuesday 15th. If there are any problems or you need input from ...., please let me know by 1pm Thursday 10th and I'll be able to ....'

[4.40pm on 15th] 'Good afternoon, just checking in to make sure that .... is progressing as agreed and whether you require me to arrange for input from .... to be able to complete stage 22b/4/d.1234 by Tuesday 15th'

'Thank you for your update. I am concerned that ... has not yet been taken into account. I have contacted ... to ask whether they are able to offer their expertise/experience in...'

'Good morning, ... will be available on .... for you to discuss ... Could you contact them and confirm a meeting, letting me know the outcome by ...?'

It's all a huge arse covering expedition, unfortunately, but documenting all the times that you have contacted them, asked questions, checked for progress, provided information or sources for them to obtain the information and any shitty messages received in response will give HR enough to deal with any grievances raised against you when they realise the shit is about to hit the fan, along with giving HR and the Union enough evidence to be able to say 'Well, all the processes were followed, but x happened/didn't happen, which resulted in y, which the employee was made aware on multiple occasions', which leads to unions saying 'it's less than 50/50, so you don't get legal cover to take this further, we're better off discussing an agreed exit and reference than claiming discrimination or victimisation, and even then, you'll be lucky to get an agreed reference'.

Thanks Lemon I have sent so many emails like that over the last few years - I realise I need to keep it up!

I did see HR when this started but then the senior manager inserted himself into the situation. When I first went I was praised because I did take a folder of evidence and I had already spoken to deputy and made them aware. HR person said they get lots of people coming who haven't done that and it makes it hard for them to help.

I don't agree that our line of work having an element of subjectivity to it means that deputy must be disillusioned rather than incompetent - there is a creative side to what we do and it's not all done by a clear cut checklist. However, what this person does isn't up to scratch and, while you can't exactly quantify why sometimes, it's plain to see. They do also fuck up objectively by missing deadlines etc too though.

It is really difficult without knowing what this employee is getting wrong. Is this is some type of marketing project perhaps?

It’s not necessary to know the line of work, just that the employee has been directed repeatedly and still provided poor outcomes.

God this is depressing (not your fault op)

There are so many ways to interpret this.

I've seen plenty of examples where management have claimed 'we have told them to do it, and they keep doing it wrong', and it turns out that their instructions to do things have actually been far from clear, and they've simply repeated the same process (and got the same outcome) multiple times without ever taking a new approach, or attempting to understand where an employee (or entire team) might be going wrong, or what they need in order to do their job.

Of course sometimes, there really is a genuine lack of performance, and it to be so bad that dismissal is the only option, but usually, under performance CAN be corrected if both sides approach it fairly, cut a little slack and get to the root cause of the problem.

A demotivated employee is never going to perform as well as a motivated one. If someone's scared of getting things wrong, they might avoid approaching their manager because it'll be deemed as another example of not being capable.