updates: telling a new employee he’s not cut out for the job, and more

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Telling a new employee he’s not cut out for the job

First, a clarification for the readers: I was new to the team, but my direct report Tom had been in his role for 2 years.

I did worry over the readers’ advice that maybe I was jumping to conclusions, so I started with a few one-on-ones directed at learning why he chose this path in the first place and what he enjoyed about it. Basically, he said he likes black-and-white work with clear rules, and our specialty involves rule enforcement.

After a few more weeks of learning his side of things and carefully watching some of his work, I explained to him that a robot can blindly enforce rules, but someone good at our specialty needs to understand and be comfortable using grey zones. I also explained that his skills XYZ were a better fit in other departments, and ABC would hold him back in this one. I mapped it out on a Venn diagram with the role I was recommending, which I was honestly kind of proud of.

Before talking to him, I met with the other department head to let her know I might have someone who could move over to replace a planned vacancy in her team, and to expect an informational interview request from Tom. I also gave Tom the contact info for a friend I have in the proposed specialty, who works at a different company, so that he could get some outside feedback. And I gave him a pile of alternate job descriptions and explained we could keep looking if the proposed path didn’t appeal to him. Tom never spoke to either person.

Instead, he went to a mentor (in our specialty at this company) and told the mentor that I told Tom he “sucks at his job” (for the record, I definitely didn’t say that). The mentor reassured Tom that he was a perfect fit for this job, and then told me off for hurting Tom’s confidence. The mentor agreed to take a more direct role in teaching Tom, since we thought maybe a different teacher/perspective would help. About a month later, the mentor came to me, apologized and said it was hopeless and suggested I put Tom on a PIP.

During this time, Tom’s performance significantly dropped off. He stopped trying hard just to tread water, and just stopped treading entirely. I caught him leaving work hours early multiple times, he was hours late 1-2 days a week, and came in probably-hungover every Monday when he wasn’t calling off entirely. At that point I got HR involved and explained that I was worried about mental health issues or burnout. We put together a tough-love conversation outlining the behaviors that needed to improve immediately while also offering flexibility and support, and advised him of resources like FMLA. To Toms credit, he did 95% return to the required work hours.

Then, an opportunity came up to create a project-based position on my team. To be honest, it’s a really fun job, and other members of my team probably deserved it more, but I was still feeling somewhat obligated to help Tom after he had such an unsupported start to his career. Plus, it was right in his skill wheelhouse. So far he’s doing … extremely mediocre at it. He’s doing the bare minimum despite it being work he said was interesting. It’s a little frustrating because I can tell he knows what a “C” level effort is, and puts in exactly that much effort. But he seems in better spirits, and the backfill for his old role is much better received by the team, so everyone is a little happier now.

When this project ends, if things don’t miraculously change when he goes back to a more traditional role, I’m afraid it’ll be well past time to execute the PIP. At this point, I can’t in good faith recommend him to another department. Overall, I think I was probably too soft on him throughout this process, but I also feel good about trying everything in my power to help him be successful.

Sometimes you can lead a horse to water, but they have to learn the hard way.

2. A nonprofit kept badgering me to interview their disabled client

I had mentioned in comments that my HR was really against me talking to the woman, or any of the applicants at all. I did feel bad for basically ignoring her, even when I got back from my brief vacation. I think in the future, if I have something like that, I’d actually either reach out and explain that I can’t answer questions or ask HR to speak to them.

I did end up emailing the rep after we called for interviews and explained how we weren’t interviewing Ferguson and apologized for not getting back to her earlier. She was very nice in her reply, and didn’t seem too upset. I get the feeling she’s this hands on no matter where she sends in his app and isn’t surprised by the lack of contact. We regularly have a part-time position open in a different department, so I told her that Ferguson should apply and we can’t communicate with applicants but if she sends it through the system, she’ll get notification when it’s been accepted. As far as I know he hasn’t, so I hope that means he’s employed elsewhere!

3. A good news story

(This was a letter from a manager who successfully helped a struggling employee whose mental health crisis had been affecting his job.)

It’s been six months since I wrote in my experience managing Cedric using a lot of the tips and tricks I’ve gleaned from AAM over the years.

Overall Cedric is continuing to thrive. Once we established a good way of working I was able to pass a few of my projects to him, as he thrives on being busy and being able to choose what he works on. Some of these were new to him, like comms strategies and budgets. It turns out he loves comms and hates budgets, so we pivoted and all the finance stuff is now back with me. On his own, Cedric said, “Before you arrived, I would have felt like a failure with how the budget project turned out. But you encouraged me to treat it as an experiment in seeing where my skills and interests lie, so it’s not a failure — it’s just gathering intel about myself.”

Unfortunately the funding for our department has come under strain lately, and Cedric’s fixed term contract is not being renewed for next year. However he’s actively job hunting, and most importantly he told me that he knows what accommodations to ask for, and he knows he can rely on me for a good reference.

When I started this role, I honestly thought Cedric was going to make it difficult. But it’s been the opposite — creating an environment where he can thrive has been one of the most rewarding challenges of my career so far. He’s a great guy and I’m hoping we can keep in touch professionally once his contract finishes up.

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