I joined an a small organisation 7 months ago as a project manager and it seems like one my team members is trying to sabotage our delivery. He's one of the longest serving employees (14 years, but it's a newish company) but is also quite junior. He has a very important technical role for the project and my understanding is, he had no experience in it previously but they thought he could pick it up easily.
Except he didn't, and by the 18 month mark of him in the role, I joined as his line manager but was asked to cover his role for a few weeks - to show him how it should be done. The few weeks has now been 6 months because he just does not have the skill set to do the work. My boss made a decision that once this project is delivered, he will move into another role, and if he couldn't even perform in that, it would be a performance improvement plan.
However, the new role is not one he wants to do, and so seems to be sabotaging the project so we can never finish it, and he doesn't have to move on. My boss and I have given him very specific and quite easy tasks to complete, and he just doesn't do them. This means that we keep missing project timelines. All the tasks are maintained in a system and we can see he doesn't view them or update them - and they are incomplete. I started having a daily meeting with him to review the tasks and see where support was needed but he'd agree to everything asked, refuse any support and then still not do it. My boss had a few conversations with him and he didn't flag any personal/home life issues despite her asking. Another senior leader had a conversation with him as well - made no difference.
We moved him to a different line manager, no difference. And now he has started meddling in other people's tasks causing them to do re-work. He does things in a very sneaky way and so difficult to catch him out until the damage is done - e.g i found out he was getting one of our paid contractors to do his work saying i had signed it off. He has also started blaming other people/throwing them under the bus when there is evidence it's him.
However, nothing is being done about it. His behaviour is costing us £££ every week and i have had numerous conversations with my boss, his new line manager, and other members of the team. Everyone agrees he's a liability, yet no one is putting him on a PIP or even finding a replacement. I am burnt out from having to do his job and mine, and more importantly not delivering my project. When I finally had enough and showed my boss a conversation where he was telling one of the directors that two juniors were to blame for work he messed up, she told me she didn't think it was as bad as it seemed!!! I had to fight their corner and ensure they took no blame. It's madness.
I am considering leaving as my role feels like being a babysitter and detective, following him around to stop him messing things up, delaying the project or throwing others under the bus. Is there anything else I could do, as apart from him i like the job? The new role he would move onto is still one i manage indirectly and i already know he'd never be able to do it - he's not done any of the training and struggles to grasp the concept.