Employee trying to get fired
 

I'll be seeing my employment attorney tomorrow, but I'm wondering how the brain trust would handle this. I have an employee who I gaven permission to work off-site while she recovered from surgery. Her doctor gave her "no restrictions" on her health status letter, but she says she can't drive to work because of pain. Her production is still through the floor even though she is healthy enough to be working. One week ago demanded that she start working in the office again to get her production back up. She has been here 1 day out of 6 and communicates with anyone else in the office but me when emails or calls (only 4 communications from her in 6 days). I have emailed her and called her and told her she needs to get to work, but she ignores me and tells my secretary that she's working from home. I'm sure she is trying to tick me off and get fired so she can collect unemployment. I don't want to fire her, I want her to quit so my unemployment premiums don't go up. I'm not sure how to go about this. Any ideas?

Out here you write up an employee for a problem and after 3 write ups you can fire them and they can't collect unemployment. I'm sure your attorney will know a process.

Tough deal... But my gut shot is to give her notice that if she is not performing x by Y date that she will be terminated. After several notices you should be able to can her and fight the unemployment claim. That is where my dad screwed up in firing a guy...


However... If shes not productive and a suck on your time and money.. May be worth paying the claim to get rid of the leech!

Give her a pay cut or reduce her hours below full time and take her benefits away..

Yup, take your time, document, document, document. Patience is your friend. No private conversations with her, always have a witness or two to conversation.

If you write her up and ask her to sign it she may refuse. Ask her to make a note on the write up about what she does not agree with so she can't say later you never gave it to her.

Bingo. It's all about the written notices. She has to sign them to acknowledge receipt. I'm no expert or attorney, (consult one), but my understanding is that there is a difference between "fired for cause" and and just fired or laid off.

No idea on the short run but for long run I'd get in touch with whoever can make Ohio a right-to-work state and vote accordingly.

Fired for cause = no unemployment. As the others said, document the hell out of it. You could also consider disabling her remote access in conjunction with demanding that she work on-site. Not showing up for work is a really easy was to show cause.

I'm no lawyer, I can only tell you what I've done.

What kind of employee has she been up to the point where she went out? Ohio's an at-will state. You can fire her for anything at any time, but if you show cause and an escalation then unemployment goes out the window. The only rub in there would be the 'ilness'. Dont know eactly what her right would be under that, but it sound like she's playing you to fire her so she can come back and play the disability card.

Showing evidence of poor production is enough to go to her and state factually that she appears unable to perform her duties, so - option A - goes on LTD (unpaid) until she gets her act together, or she hits a pre-determiend period of time; or B - seeks employment elsewhere on her own.

Clarifying her duties and responsibilities makes it pretty black and white. Burden of proof would be on here to prove that she's unable to do so, and why she's a protected class. If she can't, then option a/b again.

There's also nothing wrong with putting a mandate in place to her that she must communicate with you, and failure to do so is a fireable offense (did that, it worked...).

$hitheads like this are what forces you to put multiple, detailed, ridiculous HR policies in place.

A few questions:

1) Do you have other employees that work from home exclusively?
2) Do you have quantifiable measures of performance?
3) Does she have a specific measure of performance, in writing?
4) If she were actually performing up to par, would you care if she was working from home?
5) Does your employee handbook, or HR Handbook have any specific details about working from home?
6) Is there some measure that she can point to that shows that she is performing?

I am sure your atty will ask all of these. In my business, I didn't care where people worked from, as long as they performed. If they weren't performing, then there were issues.

Some owners or managers like face time. They want to see the person in the office. Doesn't have anything to do with performance, but has more to do with personal preference. You should make sure you know which one you are before you see and pay for atty fees :)

She could easily find work in D.C.

Can you have a sit down conversation with her?

Even though her doctor gave her a clean bill of health she may still be in pain and the "not being able to drive" may be legit.

Is there anyway you can help her increase her productivity while she works at home?
Ultimately you're her boss so her not responding to you communications is unacceptable but that shouldn't stop you trying harder to help her.

Make her want to quit on her own? Can you give her an unpleasant assignment, not to be punitive but to challenge her skills?

DO NOT do anything that can be perceived as singling her out or discriminatory.

Changing her hours, assignments etc... is a bad move.

If she's smart and doing this intentionally it's exactly what she's looking for.

If she is really an unproductive employee who has checked out you need do nothing more than follow the rules and be patient.

Anything else is just making unnecessary trouble for yourself.

I was fired in late July after a written warning and I was able to collect unemployment. I knew it was coming long before the warning, but knew it was imminent when I got the written warning, which, from its wording, was very obviously dictated to my boss from above. I was given two weeks "dismissal pay", which HR said was not the same as severance. They said severance is only when your position is eliminated. My position was eliminated. They did not replace me and they handed all my accounts off to others. I filed for UI, but, because of vacation and dismissal pay, had to wait a month to collect. I got two weeks of UI before I started a better job.

I always thought if you don't come to work, you have quit...


KT

If you want her at the office? When payday rolls around and her cheque is not direct deposited she will call looking for it. Tell all the staff she needs to talk to you directly about her pay cheque. Have it ready for her but not till she picks it up. If she has no restrictions from her Doctor then she has no reason not to come to work. If she shows up with a new note from the Doctor then have her assessed by the company Doctor or better yet schedule her a visit to the company Doctor before she can show up with a new note.

Thank you all for your input.

Peter - Yes, we made it easy for her to work from home. She's in sales and has a laptop and a company phone. She logged 106 hours in the last pay period (2 weeks) and her phone log shows she spent 47 minutes talking to clients, plus dozens of local calls (friends and family). Her sales are 55% of what they were this time last year.
We had an employee out for 6 weeks after a knee replacement and she worked from home. She called in every day, logged her hours honestly, and got her job done. The contrast between her behavior and this woman is like black and white. She's playing us.

Jeff - right to work has nothing to do with this.

Something similar happened about 10 years ago. A trusted female employee, single, 300+lb, great worker, found "love" and her man started telling her she wasn't paid enough, didn't get respect, worked too hard, etc etc and she went to hell as an employee. This woman, 350+, no love life, good worker, found a man about 3 months ago. The parallels are startling.

that sounds like a winner. cut her hours and pay. send her a letter that sayd she will only get paid for hours worked in the office as of such and such date. if she does not show up, she does not get paid.
cut her down to one day a week in the office

I think the lesson here is obvious......

http://img2.moonbuggy.org/imgstore/fat-chicks.jpg