Can't fire a brilliant employee, but he is late every day | Hacker News Reader

Can't fire a brilliant employee, but he is late every day

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21 pointsShihan22 comments

I dealt with this for years and it was incredibly frustrating. The problem wasn't so much with me and the employee (I didn't like it but he performed so I could look past it) it was more with the team and upper management. It looked poorly on me that one of my employees disregarded direct instruction (and obviously showed lack of respect) and it was difficult to justify the behaviour to the other employees who thought it wasn't fair and that they also should not have to come in on time.

I do agree that special employees deserve special treatment, but there are certain things that should be fair across the board, especially in small teams.

Yup. At the end of the day, morale is king. Kill morale and you kill everything.

This means that whatever across-the-board rules you have MUST APPLY ACROSS THE BOARD. Make exceptions and you start a morale slide, starting with people being miffed that one "star" employee receives special treatment. They eventually get pissed off enough at his prima donna status that they start ostracizing him in subtle or not-so-subtle ways, and the workplace gradually becomes toxic for everyone (including the boss).

Of course, it would be better to simply relax lateness rules across the board if such a thing can be done, but when that's not possible, you must remain disciplined and enforce equally to everyone, regardless of their performance (because this is no longer about performance; it's about morale).

If the position really requires the kind of punctuality he doesn't have, then you need to replace him. "Can't fire him because we would struggle for months if he was gone" is just bad management. If you need to replace him, and the barrier is the service hit that it would take getting someone new up to speed after doing that, then hire the additional person now, get them up to speed, and then fire the person who isn't there when you need them.

OTOH, there's no indication that the supervisor here has done anything but give verbal warnings to try to change the behavior, particularly, no indication of an attempt to determine if there was a problem that the employee was having that was causing the problem and attempt to work with the employee to identify a solution. Warnings aren't a serious effort to deal with the problem, especially when the "warnings" aren't backed by any consequences that the employer is willing and able to impose.

Its also unclear if the problem is uncertainty as to the employees schedule or a real need for the specific currently scheduled start time -- potential resolutions differ between these two scenarios (in the former case you might change the set schedule, in the latter case solutions are constrained to those that actually get the employee there at 9 -- or get someone else there in his place.)

I see many responses but no one seems to have asked a question that I view as fundamental: what's the role of that employee in that company?

1. Is this employee supposed to man the lines? Is he a support line person who has to answer phones? WHAT are his primary (and secondary) responsibilities? Is he there to help manage the infrastructure of the company so that his teammates can continue to focus on customer support tasks?

2. What are the specific task(s) that he does that the manger is impressed with and that he so good in? Is it his ability to grasp customer tech problems and provide resolution in a manner that no one else in the company can do? Or is he doing something else entirely like developing solutions that enable his company to enter new verticals or automating infrastructure provisioning and monitoring?

It seems like most of the answers on that post seem to assume that the person in question is in a developer kind of a role and then go on to enumerate the merits of productivity over timeliness, but I am yet to see a confirmation of that assumption. The answers will vary wildly depending on the role the person is supposed to serve.

Working in corporate America is such a disaster. 10 freaking minutes, really?!

a classic example of perception over production. on the one hand, if the guy is "the best" and is delivering at a much higher level of quality then what's the problem? on the other hand, (for better or for worse) management's perception carries tremendous weight when making decisions. we've all seen it with purchasing decisions and personnel decisions are usually treated within the same jurisdiction.

additionally, there's the overall team health that this person must consider. if "everyone else" is punctual and the superstar isn't, then this could affect team morale and degrade overall team output.

ultimately though, it sounds like this manager has only considered negative reinforcement - a poor strategy. i didn't see much discussion of how he's tried to offer alternative incentive(s) to this one employee to reward them for their contribution relative to the team (and it doesn't have to be monetary, as Patricia Lynn posted). a consistent benefit for that level of production may be something that could be used a method of collaborating toward a punctuality agreement.

in the end, it sounds like this person knows how much value they bring to the organization and probably believes that they're not being rewarded appropriately for it and is, therefore, creating their own reward.

finally, an invective against this manager - they sound awful. a distinct lack of creative personnel management, a reluctance to provide alternative perspective to their boss (inability to "manage up"), and a generally whiny attitude is not a person for whom i'd work for very long if i was a high producer.

dont worry, mr. manager, your employee will be gone before long anyway.

What the hell is this obsessing over 10 minutes?

Agreed. When I was younger, for multiple reasons but mostly stupidity, I was 30m to 1h30 late at work every. single. day. And the official work day started at 9:30am, so it wasn't that bad to begin with. In my defence I must add that I never left before my full 8 hours were over.

I was in good terms with everybody, managers as well, and I think in that stupid age I did some brilliant work I'm still very proud of. After a couple of years, when all the rumors about me being hired fulltime were materialising (I was working for them through an agency), they just decided to let me go.

It hurt at the time, but it was a good decision that served me as a lesson[1].

Employers, unless you're a bank with set opening times, don't fret over 10 or 20 minutes. Programmers are productive only in a stress-free environment. Obsessing over 10 minutes is the total opposite of that. But please fire engineers like me, you'll do them a favour.

1: I stopped being so late in future jobs, but I also discovered I have some kind of DSPS. It's still bad, but I'm now a freelance (in Europe) working for US companies, my clients are having their coffee when it's 3pm here.

Hey, I'm then-you now-me :) What is DSPS?

Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder

I haven't been diagnosed, but I've struggled with falling asleep at normal hours my whole adult life: I've tried sleep deprivation, advancing my sleep cycle[1], pulling all nighters to feel really tired in the evening and go to bed at an acceptable time, but it works only for a couple days, then I'm feeling sleepy a hour or two later than the day before, until I'm back going to bed at dawn. It's like having a circadian rhythm of 27 hours, instead of the normal 24/25[2]

The only thing I haven't tried is melatonin, but apparently in the UK you need a prescription to buy it.

1: Basically going to bed later every day, until you go around the clock and are going to bed at the desired time. Not applicable if you have a full time job -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotherapy_(sleep_phase)

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Humans

Have you tried shortening your circadian rhythm with light therapy? Mine's about 26.5 hours and it's been quite helpful, though I have to sit in front of this light for a little over 2 hours every morning.

http://www.cet.org/

It seems like it's a direct IT support position. Meaning that someone is supposed to be there ready to answer calls/problems from 9AM to whenever. Clients, whether internal or external do not want to call in at 9:15 and hear that they can't be helped because XXX hasn't come to work yet, especially when they've got an agreement from you that you will be open at 9AM every day.

If you are in support like that, you generally do need to be at work exactly on time. Same as being a cashier, factory worker, etc.

It's not like being a programmer, sysadmin, etc where exact hours typically don't matter much as long as you're available for meetings and the work gets done.

Sure, it's unfortunate if nobody answers the phone, or is not there to open a franchised store etc.

I just don't buy into the whole 11 workers do 10% more work than 10, or that 8 hours is more productive than 7.5. In any business that is, not just "brain work". Far-east sweat shop exempt.

I don't know. I've worked for grocery stores when I was in high school and one cashier running 15 minutes late was always noticeable, especially early in the mornings and late at night.

Ask him to come in 10 minutes earlier than he is needed?

If lateness doesn't actually change the job output, then is it actually a problem?

I hope that guy got a better job. His managers sound clueless.

Maybe he got a job working from home.

It's not clueless to expect employees to show up at the pre-agreed time. The post goes in to some detail about why this is important - it's not just a case of a manager demanding he be at his desk for no reason.

Let's say you are responsible for four team members who share support tickets. Support tickets begin arriving at 9am. One of the team is consistently ten minutes late, meaning the other three need to pick up the slack for him.

Forget about the management - this is unfair to his colleagues.

Its clueless to issue "verbal warnings" when there are no consequences that the manager is willing to follow through on beyond those warnings. And clueless, as seems to be the case here, to use "verbal warnings" in place of, rather than alongside or in response to failure of, efforts to diagnose and resolve problems with an otherwise brilliant employee that apparently the company is so dependent on that firing him, in the manager's eyes, literally is not an option.

So, regardless of the reasonableness of the expectation of timeliness, yes, the manager here seems rather clueless, from their own presentation of the situation.

If the late employee is only 6% more efficient then he will get the same number of tickets closed by noon.

My advice would be to fire the guy. It would make your timekeeper boss happy, and it would make some other company very happy to be able to hire a brilliant employee. A win-win situation.

"Poor cultural fit" perhaps? :-)

We had this "problem" at two of my workplaces; one where I was the one doing it and the other where someone else was doing it.

In my case I lived nearby but sometimes was 5-10 minutes late despite having moved to live literally 5 minutes walk away. Why was I coming in late? Because while my direct coworkers and manager were amazing, we had been acquired by an evil company, and being ordered by senior management (from the safety of another state) to treat customers without human decency.

The only way I could continue to work, aside from the feeling that I was in the belly of the beast and secretly helping all the customers that I could, was that I was in control of that 5-10 minutes in the morning. I was the one doing it, they weren't doing it to me.

After some poking and prodding my boss decided it was not a big deal. Yes the phones had to be answered, but it wasn't an issue when a few people were likely in the office, they can call back a minute later and have someone, and my mobile number was also published for outside of hours contact. No big deal, no internet post, no ego, no whinging.

At another company an employee was even more late; 30-60 minutes every day. I wasn't privy to the conversations about why (I think it was just more convenient because they had kids and both partners worked) but the boss had a talk with them and changed their working hours to start at 9:30. Again, the phones have to be answered, but it's also useful to have someone who stays later in the day. No big deal, no internet post, no ego, no whinging.

Do you see the pattern here? An employer and employee talking about something, realising they both want different things, and deciding well it's worth it to retain the talent. The idea of a manager and their bruised ego trying to force everyone to fall into line as if workers were cattle is disgusting.

What amazes me from the post is the number of managers (or manager wannabes) who insist that the employees are either insulting them, insulting co-workers, refusing orders, or failing to meet a contract.

* I can guarantee at every company, anyone with kids, comes late at some times and leaves early to pick the kids up. Nobody bats an eye.

* Coming late has nothing to do with you, the company, or the job. Some people just work this way and you can judge them on the work or be pig-headed and lose their talents. (There may be a slight correlation to being a bad boss and having employees come in late because they hate dealing with you.)

* As for not fulfilling a contract, if your lawn gets mowed once a week, or the paper or milk is delivered, or you're in the doctor or dentist's waiting room and they're ten minutes late - try refusing the bill and tell me how it goes. Good luck.

* You may write a cheque but you will never own a person and get to push them around however you like. Let them go if you must. But if doing so doesn't strongly benefit the business to the tune of the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars of investment it costs to retain an employee - versus ten minutes a day - then if you do it you're just a bad manager.

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