EE wont do more work

LeslieC

As HR, I sat in on meeting between Manager and a staff member. Manager told staffer, "I need to be able to delegate more work to you." Staffer said, "I am not accepting any more responsibilities, I'm giving the company all that I can... you'll have to hire someone else (to do my job..)" He also stated, "you need to re-assign some of my current responsibilities to someone else, its too much."
Yikes, we need this guy to do more and he wants to do less. Manager and I agree we should let him go. He is over 55, so we are being (perhaps overly?) cautious. We are an at-will employer, I see no reason why, based on his refusal to take on a work load that we see as apppropriate for his job, we cant let him go without repercussion.
Any thoughts here? Any land mines I am missing?
thanks,
LeslieC

HRinNH

>Yikes, we need this guy to do more and he wants
>to do less.

By not taking on more he's doing less?

Cheryl C.

LeslieC

hi Cheryl,
no he asked us to give some of the work load he already has to someone else. He wants us to lighten his current load, as we're asking him to take on a heavier one.

marc

Sounds reasonable, but the proof is in the pudding as someone said.

When you replace him with a younger person, be sure the bigger workload is included and that you do not reassign those other duties to someone else.

Gillian3

He doesn't want to work for you under conditions that are your prerogative. Accomodate him, but make sure that you do what Mark suggests.

Whirlwind

I would handle it a little differently, especially because of the age thing. I would sit him down and say, "Okay, Joe, we've heard your concerns about your workload and we have to tell you that we've carefully evaluated the situation and your workload relative to others. On the basis of that, we must tell you that we can't reduce your load and, furthermore, we must assign you this additional work." Then, see if he quits, sinks, or swims. Of course, all this is predicated on the fact that you have, in fact, done some sort of analysis to determine that your expectations of him are fair relative to the workload of others and that you're not setting him up to fail.

I understand that you're At Will. So am I, but At Will can go out the window if someone wants to complain that they were actually or constructively discharged on the basis of age.

LindaS

I do not agree that he should be terminated at this point. I think further investigation is needed to determine WHY he feels some of his current work load needs to be removed. I agree with Whirlwind that you need to first examine his workload in relation to others both in his department as well as in other areas of the company. I would be careful that you are requiring him to take on more duties than you are asking of others.

Now if, after having done the assessment, you determine that the additional duties are relative to what you are asking of others I would sit down with him and inform him that these new duties are essential functions of the job. If he refuses and doesn't make any statements that bring some job protection law into the picture then you could look to terminate.

Whatever

If he is truly working the full day then asking him to take on additional responsibilities may be unreasonable. Maybe you do have take away some of the jobs he does. If he is not working a full day (lots of time in the coffee room, on personal calls etc.) then it has to be explained to him that he is being paid to work x hours and he has the time during this period to take on additional responsibility.

Shadowfax

W/o more facts, I don't see an age claim here, but you could create one if you are not careful. I agree you need to satisfy yourselves that the requests of this employee are fair compared to others. Once you are satisfied however, I would not have another sit down, and I certainly would not ask hime why he thinks the request is too much. You would just be giving him an opportunity to inject his age, lack of energy, desire to slow down, etc into the conversation, and effectively put you on notice of a perceived problem of which you have no reason to suspect at this point in time. I would also suspect you have other employees of similar or greater age, so there is no chance you get hammered with a statistical case. Do your analysis, amend his job description, tell him what is expected, and let him take it from there. No one has mentioned anything about age yet, and assuming they do not, there should not be any basis of a valid claim.

neveradull

Let me ask what was he hired to do? Is he still doing it? At time of hire was this a full time position? What if anything has changed? If this was a 40 hour position then why isn't it now?
Based on the limited information provided, I would do a job analysis as Shadowfax recommends. Making sure that over the years he has not had too many things added to “his plate” because someone knew and counted on the fact that he would get the job done and would never say enough is enough. Of course I am assuming that he is a good employee otherwise you wouldn’t be considering him for additional duties. An analysis of what he actually does will show you if your request is reasonable and fair in comparison to other like positions. I believe additional conversation is appropriate and necessary with this employee before reaching a termination decision. You will also have some of the documentation to dispute an age discrimination complaint when he files. Tread carefully!

LeslieC

hello all, thanks for the input. Let me clarify a bit: this is a full time exempt employee (Accountant). Everyone in his department works well over 40 hours/week. He was told at hire that this is the case. The expectations we have for him are not unreasonable for his position. Everyone's work load has increased over the past 6 months due to our company having been acquired by another. Everyone is stepping up to the plate except this employee. I beleive that his outright refusal to take on more tasks and his statement that if we want him to do more work, then we should hire someone else for his position, says it all. He outright stated he is looking for another job. I think we should tell him that his job requires that he do more, and his refusal is grounds for termination.

WT

Aside from the discrimination issue you are worried about, what about work load. How many hours a day does this person work? Is he always "on the run". Does he come in early and work late? Is he otherwise a good employee? It is not smart to burn out and throw away good employees as you may not find a replacement that is as good. If the person is a plodder, look at reducing rank and/or pay if necessary and give him a job he can perform. If he is a bad employee that you have just put off dealing with, and what you really want is to terminate him, then you need to go down that road by making your actions and decisions very fair from the point of the inevitable third party.

LeslieC

He does not come in early or work late. He is a "9-5" person and we cant function that way. We are a small company, he is in a small department, we do not have a different job to give him. He was hired to do a job and he's not doing it.

Balloonman1

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-12-05 AT 08:43AM (CST)[/font][br][br]If you can document all that you have laid out, then bring him in and let him go. Don't discuss age, sit him down and say that after your last meeting it is clear that he has no intention of meeting the job requirements, wish him luck, send him packing......

Do it before he can claim any discrimination, stress or work related injury. Place an ad the same day. Don't sweat the work, the others in his department will appreciate you getting rid of the non team player and will pick up the slack until you hir another.

My $0.02 worth,
The Balloonman

Shadowfax

Ditto!

LeslieC

thanks Shadowfax and Balloonman, this is exactly what my gut (and experience) were telling me, just wanted to make suere I wasnt missing something.
This is the part of HR that just aint fun....

Balloonman1

Not fun, but you know he is looking to bail...which always made it much easier for me. I always thought, well now they can look for a new job full time! :-)

It ain't fun, letting someone go never is but that is why they pay us the semi average bucks!

My $0.02 worth,
The Balloonman

Whatever

He was hired to do a job and he's not
>doing it.

In your initial posting, you stated that you wanted to delegate additional duties. Now, you are saying he is not doing the job he was hired to do. Statements appear to be in conflict-please clarify.

LeslieC

No conflict. He was hired to be our staff accountant. There are specific job tasks that are part of that position. Although these tasks are bigger now that we are owned by a parent company they still fall into his job description.

neveradull

Sounds very similar to an account type person we had once. Exempt but would only work his eight hours, and spent two of those hours for his daily walk. We gave him the opportunity to excell elswhere. An age discrimination was filed, and good documentation saved our a**. Recommend you do the same.

E Wart

I agree with all the comments on analyzing the job to determine what he is doing, how long it should take a normal person to do, etc.

I take it he is an exempt employee (accountant). If you feel comfortable that what you are asking him to do in not unreasonable... you could have a performance problem. I would talk with him and explain that what you are asking him to do is not unreasonable and he should be able to complete this within a normal period of time. Again let him know that his job is not a 9-5 non-exempt job... you are paying him to get a job done, not by the hour. If he can't get the job done within this time, address it as a performance issue. (i.e. he accepted the work, but couldn't get it through or didn't do a good job with it, errors, etc.) However, if he outright refuses to do it, I would sit him down and explain the analysis of the job and duties are reasonable. That what his manager has asked him to do is a reasonable request. If he still refuses to do this, I would remind him that this is insubordination and could be grounds for immediate dismissal. Give him a day to think about it and then take action if he won't even give it a try. Or, you could give him the work to do and if he refuses, you could just ask him, Since we are asking you to do your job and you are refusing, I assume you are voluntarily resigning your position?
(The last suggestion would be to say you will be glad to take work away from him but his salary will be cut to .....$$$ since he was being paid to do more work and you will have to hire someone else to do the work he was being paid to do.

Good luck. Don't you hate it when people won't even cooperate and give it a try.


E Wart