re: Older Employee's Memory is becoming an issue in the office

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WG_Dawg

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so what happens when she receives the emails and still doens't do her job? Then what? Institute a system where you send her hourly updates on things she shoudl be doing?

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Then you have documentation and hard evidence that she's not performing the work that she's capable of. This is the entire reason for the insertion of a written policy or process here. So you can have the documentation. Where we differ is that you can't fire someone on the 2nd foul-up.

If you get into that habit, it's going to destroy the culture of your office and make everyone walk on egg shells around there. This isn't the Manhattan Project. They're not splitting the atom or working on strains of super-contagious Ebola, man.

These are human beings in an office. They will make mistakes. If you 86 someone based on two mistakes, you're going to create a STAGGERING employee churn level and you'll be investing even more staggering sums into HR hiring, job postings, onboarding process and training, which all costs MONEY.

Typically, you insert the policy, you indicate that failure to comply with the policy can result in progressive discipline and then you enforce the policy. The first issue results in a verbal coaching. You follow that with an e-mail just reiterating the contents of the conversation to document what you did verbally.

The 2nd violation would normally require a written acknowledgement of a violation of policy and that subsequent issues could lead to further disciplinary issues up to and including termination for cause.

Subsequent to the 2nd documented case, you're definitely within the bounds of Employment Security Law to terminate with cause for failure to comply with company policy and/or reasonable request. You've got documentation of a pattern of this failure and the e-mails confirming the verbal warning along with the written documentation of the final two will help you sail through any attempt by the employee to file for Unemployment Benefits.

Bam. Just a little more patience and with ZERO extra cost and you've saved your company money on the bottom line, reduced workplace friction and solved a human capital problem by eliminating someone from the workplace who can't do the work.

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The woman in question in my personal example has shown a long history of frick ups. It has gone on for so long there was no choice BUT to put a system in place. And start documenting everything. And have meetings with her. And having her sign acknowledging that we've had these conversations. She still sucks. The best thing for all parties involved except for her would be to fire her first thing tomorrow morning. But it doesn't work like that.

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I didn't care about your personal example. I was speaking to the OP. Using your method would cost companies a ton of money, and that's why employee handbooks that flesh out documentation and progressive discipline via verbal/written/termination are usually utilized by successful companies who handle employee relations better on average than most.

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who said that? She does have opportunity to improve. Hence us having these meetings. And me taking time away from my work to show her how to do basic job functions. And scheduling trainign sessions for her to learn basic duties of her job. She is a liability to our workplace adn no amount of assistance will change that.

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Again I didn't care and wasn't speaking to your example. I thought you were discussing the OP's example, which is what my advice was targeted at.

If you clearly defined the work metrics through objectives and job definitions and an initial job description then subsequent training sessions should be part of progressive discipline. If she's not adhering after that and you've given her opportunity, then yes definitely termination is an option you can pursue without a problem IMO.

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Oh, but I can. If you have someone who can't do their job, you find someone who can do the job. If the OP's employee isn't able to do their job, he should find someone who can. Period.

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I'll say it again...Having a hair trigger is never the right answer. You aren't going to build long-term culture and chemistry, and you'll never create a positive office climate like that. You put policies in place to protect against employees having issues with things like this, and then you simply follow the policy.

From that point, it's no longer a situation where it's you siding with one employee or the other. You're simply adhering to a policy that the employee knew about long before that's tied to the objectives and mission of the office you work in.