Termination or Probation. Which would you do??

Mary Poppins

Scenerio: Head of a certain dept. has been with the company six months (our probationary period is six months). During this time, HR has had complaints from three employees of verbal abuse and harrassment from head of the dept. (two men, one woman) The woman quit, a meeting was held with the head of the dept. and one of the men to air differences of opinion, etc. So far, things are ok there. The third employee, a man, was going to be terminated for poor performance and claimed harassment at the time he knew he was about to be terminated. We need to stop the complaints. Option 1, Terminate. Option 2, probation with some sort of anger management or stress management course. My experience in the past has been that volatile personalities do not change, yet in the past when we have had these types of problems, we always chose probation before termination. (and it always ended in termination) Our policy is open as to disciplinary actions. What would you do?

Balloonman

If still in probationary period it would seem like the best course of action, assuming you feel the complaints valid would be to part ways. Sounds like he is not a good fit with company/culture.
Just tell him that and wish him well.
My $0.02 worth.
DJ The Balloonman

TN HR

Based on the scenario you just described, the answer is clear. Terminate at the earliest opportunity. It doesn't seem logical to me that you would want to address performance improvement at six months with three complaints on the table.

JM in ATL

Although I usually take the other side of the fence and recommend that employees be given the chance to improve and "fit-in", especially in a new company, this guy sounds like he is going to be more of a headache then what he is worth.

You have already lost one ee over him, and that isn't going to help morale AT ALL, so I too am recommending that, based on the information at hand, you terminate.

Put yourself in his employees shoes... what would you want management to do?

Betty I_O

Terminate him. He just isn't a good fit for your organization. He can't keep his actions under control during what he knows is his probationary time, when he should be showing his best behavior. You already have an inkling of what life with him will be like once you "own" him.

sonny

Ditto the others.

ritaanz

Think about it. The purpose of a probationary period is to see if the employee is meeting expectations. So far he has become a thorn in your side. (I'm being nice here.)

Do yourself and your company a great favor. Sever the employer/employee relationship ASAP. Did not quality during probationary period. End of story.

Parabeagle

I agree with everyone else. Terminate. You have already invested more time and energy in trying to manage this employee than you should have had to. I can tell you from experience, if you don't terminate it will only get worse and you'll find the lion's share of your time spent putting out fires set by this guy.

Crout

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-02-04 AT 09:56AM (CST)[/font][br][br]If you feel that this person was given a fair opportunity in the six months that he's been there then you should definitely let him go. However, you need to ask yourself what "fair opportunity" means. Did this person receive regular feedback from his supervisor in regard to his performance? Were the employee issues brought up for discussion? Was all this communication documented?

Don D

My gut tells me terminate, and quickly! But, several things jump off the page: He's been there six months, so he's not 'probationary' any longer, and you say you've always put an employee on some sort of probation first, then termination.

I think you are safe to terminate. I'm just recommending you give a little thought to past practice and judge for yourself what degree of protection you think he may have under title vii or otherwise. Good documentation and decisive action should win for you no matter what level of redress he might seek. Good riddance.

Hatchetman

Wait.

I don't see that you, Mary Poppins, stated that the company looked into the complaints of harassment and found that they were valid -- the probationary manager had harased the employees. And I don't necessairly mean harassment based upon "potected status"; it could have been daily type harassment.


Did the company determine that the harassment occurred and if so, what did the company do at the time the harassment was occurring? Was there any counsleing or guidance or training from upper management for this manager. Or did the ocmpany just not care?

Mary Poppins

First of all, I want to thank all of you for your comments. They are extremely helpful.

Secondly, I think it is interesting that all of you assumed that this was a man I was talking about.

We believe that the harrassment may be taking place, and addressed this during the first meeting.

SMace

I didn't know women could harass. Oh wait a minute, I forgot about Ritapookiebeagletootpus. x:D

ritaanz

Ms. Poppins, did you think my answer would be different if I knew it was a female harrasser?

Mary Poppins

Doubtful. I think if I mentioned whether it was a man or a woman that the answers would probably be about the same. I just think it's interesting that it was assumed it was a man.

marc

I am jumping in late. I do not know if I would have assumed the supervisor was a man or not. I think Hunters observations about the lack of information regarding your harassment investigations need to be considered. One thing everyone is assuming is that the complaints are justified and the "fit" problem is the supervisors. I can think of a number of reasons that would not necessarily equate to the problem being with the supervisor.

One approach I always take when considering a termination is to ask three questions:

1. Has the EE been properly trained to do the job.
2. Has the EE been properly equipped to do the job (tools, computers, education, etc), and
3. Has the company created an environment to allow the EE to succeed in doing the job.

If you can answer yes to these questions, then additional steps are appropriate, if you answer no to any of them, then a different approach is in order.