Tricky employee

[SingingGoldfinch]

Hi - I'm just after some different perspectives/advice. I work in local government and manage a small team. One of the team members has a track record of poor performance and a general attitude problem. The biggest issue is his attendance/working hours. It's a regular office setting and flexible working is welcomed but this employee seems to think it's perfectly acceptable to turn up to work at 11am most days and to be completely vague about his working patterns. I took over management of the team about 3 months ago and confronted him with this issue then and made it clear that I was on to him in terms of working contracted hours, being visible during core office hours and also discussed general performance. He was in the office by 10 the next few days (miraculous for him) but it gradually started slipping back. A few weeks ago his wife had a new baby, their first, and he took a week's annual leave and a week's paternity leave - all fine. Since returning to work his working hours have been even more random than before. Now, I know how tricky things are with a newborn so did try to encourage him to take longer off and but he insisted he was ready to return - except he's not worked a full day in the 4 weeks he's been back. The situation is further complicated by the fact the baby has been in and out of hospital for tests/treatment. It's obviously been a really stressful time and I do feel for him but he has been 'playing it by ear' on the work front for weeks now which basically means being generally AWOL, turning up when he feels like it, if at all, "working from home" but not actually being contactable etc. Ive suggested he takes annual leave or parental leave and have offered to support him with a request for 'special leave' - he's ignored all this. I've had to keep a log of all the ad hoc time he's taken off and will have to ask him to book it off and I can't imagine that's going to go down well. I've been really patient and not put any pressure on him during this time - I can imagine how worrying it all is - but I feel that he's really taking the Micky now. I'm also getting pressure from my boss to sort it out. I'd be really interested to hear people's views on how to handle this one - should I keep up the "softly, softly" approach until things with the baby are a bit more settled or do I start getting firmer with him? Thanks for reading!

Yes, miraculously he turned up at 10am this morning. I nearly fell off my chair!! He did leave at 5.15 though. Unfortunately our team meeting was cut short due to something else over-running (not his fault) so we didn't have as long to cover the flexitime issue but I did remind them about expectations etc. He was typically disengaged during the meeting and actually got a pack of cards out and started shuffling it at one point. I kid you not. As I've said, the issues with this one are many and varied!

An added complication has emerged today too. He's realised that his salary is substantially short this month. Suspect it's due to a mix up over paternity leave but he's not happy (understandably so!) and is saying that payroll are 'trying to pin it on me' - this gives me a very uneasy feeling. I have to say I was tempted to suggest to him that he's actuality just been paid for the hours he's worked but restrained myself thankfully.

'Trying to pin it on me' as his line manager.

I think the most important thing in advice given to you here is written record of your 1-1s of him. This could be by emailing a confirmation of the conversation to him and outlining agreed steps forward. That way you have an audit trail.

Unfortunately, the lack of audit trail makes it hard for you to hold him to account for absence up until now.

If you hold a team meeting reminding all of the flexible working policy, make sure this is minuted and notes are circulated. Or perhaps all team members to sign that they understand and will adhere to flexible working policy following the reminder. If your team see you are proactively addressing this and bringing it to the fore, they will respect you more. I imagine they are all pretty sick of him flouting the rules and it is likely demotivating for them all.

Oh wow. Not used to browsing mumsnet on my laptop completely missed the final two pages of the thread! Ignore my out of date reply! Great to see things are getting better :)

Thanks MissStressBum - not sure things are improving really, but at least he turned up today and did almost a full day's work ! I'm definitely putting everything in writing from now on!

Sounds like a messy situation.

One thing I don't understand is how you have a flexitime system but people don't record their hours. Makes no sense. Can you introduce local recording of hours (on paper or spreadsheet) then keep your own record of his hours. That will show very clearly if he isn't performing.

You'd need to ask all staff in your team to do this. But that would make a lot of sense to me as a manager. And as an employee- because you can then provide evidence that you're entitled to a day off say (if your system works like that).

NewIdeas - I'd imagine it's informal flexitime, which is fairly common in the public sector. But your suggestion of introducing a proper recording mechanism is good

Keep strong OP - it's hard work, but you are doing well

Yep, Olennas is right - it's informal flexitime. I am tracking his working hours as best I can but that's obviously not official. I would struggle to ask the team to fill in any kind of time sheet when it's nit done elsewhere - but as and when I up the anti with this particular employee I'm sure that would be a sensible line to take.

Even if it's informal flexitime it still needs to be managed so a paper or spreadsheet system could be used. Just say that you want to be sure that all team members are being treated fairly.

The other staff in your team will be delighted that you're addressing this as I bet it really annoys them too.

I agree with what your saying but I have to be careful when there's an organisation wide approach to it - and I don't think the rest of the team would approve at all however much he's annoying them!

Not fair on the others really.
Dh and I are public sector and see this all the time while we are toiling away and making arrangements to actually work the hours we should!
Our baby was extremely ill for months and had surgery and our son had a kidney transplant but we still had to either take leave or go to work.
I hate piss takers with a passion

Honestly it sounds like he's completely out of hand and as you were his level not that long ago I'd be tempted to refer it all to your boss
Arrange a meeting with your boss and say you can't manage him, you want to out him on performance management with a end view of getting rid

Imo people like this don't change or if they do he'll still be a nightmare

Tell your boss he doesn't listen, he shuffles cards ffs

You need to start shutting every avenue he is using as an out. If he tells you he didn't know X, write him a letter outlining X. Each time he uses an excuse to get away with things, close it down.

With difficult people like this, sometimes that is your only option.

Use this thread OP, everything you've written, to bullet point all issues. You've got enough evidence already.
Read it to him in your 1-2-1, send email, and agree the next time to review.

With respect, I'm not sure what's stopping you?

Have you done some of the basics? You sound scared. Why are you not dealing with this in a systematic way?

This could be dealt with in a very short time if you just held firm. Why are you not addressing this head on?

Agree. You need to discuss this with your boss and HR.

I also agree that you need to speak to hr. and/or look into the handbook to see if there is anything soecific about monitoring working time in such situations.
with regards to the fexi time rules that you didn't have time for during the team meeting, as it was for information anyway, you can just send this information to everyone via email.

Gosh - how do people on good salaries get away with this, when there are plenty of people on min wage having to work their allotted hours?

^^ I so agree with this comment and this is why public sector employees often get ridiculed because of this attitude, I know there are plenty of hard working public sector employees but there are some real piss takers around. I have never worked in the public sector but no way would this attitude had ever been allowed in any of the private sector organisations I've worked in - and no, I don't earn a 'fat, private sector salary' - I earn barely more than NMW and considering the hours I put in just to do my job to my personal satisfaction I don't even earn that.

We have timesheets at my work but we also have a signing in/out system as for health and safety reasons (if there is a fire alarm) the company needs to know who is in the building as we also operate flexible hours working times. For a long time it was just done on a book, but now we have a swipe card system so the fire marshals get an instant print out if the alarm goes off. I would have thought that most offices would need something like this for the same reason, can you do this to have a more formal record of working hours without making it about the abuse of the flexibility system? You could say it's part of obtaining ISO quality / safety accreditation

Thanks again for the helpful comments. Oblomov - I am tackling this. I've been managing him for 2 months and in that time his wife has had a baby and that baby has had serious medical problems. So, I've not had long and it's not a straightforward situation - hence my posting in here. At my first 121 with him I outlined the issues and set out the expectations and then not long after that he went off on paternity leave and it's been issue after issue ever since. Plus, in reality this kind of issue is notoriously hard to push through in our corner of the public sector. It shouldn't be, but it is. I'm not scared, but I am concerned that I handle this right - and I am coming at thus from the position of having very recently been working alongside him which makes it tricky.

How are you tackling this, now, OP?
He turned up to your recent 1-2-1 on Wednesday, last week?
How many of your bullet points did you manage to go through? Did you clarify with him at the end? That he agreed to a/b/c and that this will be discussed at the next review? When have you set the next review for?
Did you follow up the meeting with an email to clarify? So that you have a paper trail?

Since this thread has started you've had tonnes of great advice.
So really, the dealing with this, should be well into full flow.

Sorry. My mistake.

You said : "i then have a 121 with him on weds so will follow up"

So presumably that is today. Good luck for today OP. Be firm. Manage the meeting properly. Stop him if he starts wittering and say that if he has any other issues he needs to discuss then he'll need those in writing and you just can discuss those at the next meeting.

but then bring it back to your agenda by saying moving on we need to discuss these points ..,.make sure that you get all your bullet points said to him. clarify at the end, verbally.

send an email afterwards, and then you will have moved this forward greatly.

Good luck!!

no way would this attitude had ever been allowed in any of the private sector organisations I've worked in

It happens in all large organisations, public and private sector. If you've never seen it, you're lucky.

Do you have access cards to get into your office space? If so, your security department will probably have logs of who has logged in and out and when. You may not be able to see the details of it, but HR will if necessary. Obviously it won't cover when he's at home, but even short days in the office would be enough.

Agree that this happens in all large organisations. People like him do give the public sector a bad name though and that really frustrates me as for every one of him there are many, many more who go above and beyond.

Yes, we do have door passes so there might be scope for some monitoring of hours via that route, although guess what? He quite often forgets/mislays his pass!! Our IT system also shown when someone is logged on/off so I'm monitoring that too.

121 is this afternoon and I'm currently trying to tally his leave requests against his completely random working hours over the past few weeks. Not easy and unsurprisingly it's not adding up

121 done. Working hours discussed and need for reliable working arrangements emphasised. He's agreed to work 10-6 with 30 minutes for lunch. Everything has been put down in writing in an email back to him.

He was very defensive and was clearly flailing around when challenged - and He's still trying to pin the blame for his missing salary on me but at least he didn't get a pack of cards out abc start shuffling!