Without going into too much detail I have a depute working for me, who previously covered my post for a temporary period. I don't think they have ever liked reporting to me. Was very nice when covering my role, but when moved to temp depute role became very difficult, moody, hard to manage etc.
Anyway, part of the role is staff management, in support of my role. She hates this, doesn't like to address anything and wants me to be bad cop all the time. Whilst covering my post she made a bad hire. Didn't address this during probation and now this person is becoming a bit of a nightmare.
There have been customer complaints about the staff member and other team members don't like her attitude, however nothing was progressed officially. Customers wouldn't complain officialy and team members were just moaning over tea. I have met with difficult staff member on a couple of occasions to discuss their general manner and they have explained that they don't like the job, agree that they should find something else but to date can't find anything. In addition difficult staff member admitted they have massive debt problems and is currently undergoing investigations for a brain tumour- I know this in confidence, team and depute do not at difficult team member request.
I was out of the office for a week and when I returned I found out another team member reported an incident to my depute where he witnessed difficult staff member give very bad customer service. Depute dealt with it; spoke to complaing staff member and then to difficult staff member who denied etc. Then waited for me to come back to sort it all out! I explained that depute would need to enter a mediation meeting between both staff members so that they could talk out what happened, depute refused to do this. I then spoke to staff member who made complaint and they said the difficult staff member was putting pressure on them to admit they told management. I suggested mediation which he agreed was best approach and given I was out of the office when incident happened I explained to depute she had to do this, but I would meet with difficult staff member first to ask how things are and explain why meeting was organised.
Depute then accused me of not dealing with problem, said she'd never been in a situation where something had been left so long. I explained that we didn't work in an environment where we could just discipline staff over he said, she said and this was first witnessed official complaint. I also asked why she hadn't addressed during probation etc and she suggested that it had become much worse once I was back, despite telling me at handover that staff member was an issue. She then followed up with an email saying that she was concerned about welfare of team and staff member due to nothing being done.
I have emailed HR for advice regarding difficult staff member, given personal situation and the fact that there have now been a few incidents. However I have a terrible feeling that this wretched depute is trying to set me up as not being capable of managing this situation. Does it sound like I'm doing the wrong thing? Should I not have suggested this mediation? I'm so worn out with the constant back biting and cloak an daggers of this nasty depute.