Question: Hello OPAL World.  I am a manager with 9 employees.  Unfortunately, I need to get rid of one of them.  This person is always late for work, usually misses deadlines, and people don’t want to work with him.  I have talked to him but he says that I am not being fair because I am singling him out.  HR is no help because the HR person only really focuses on benefits and not employee relations.  I don’t know what to do.  Do you have any suggestions?

A.S.
Bay Area, CA

Answer: Hello A.S. – There are so many questions:
How long has this employee been exhibiting this behavior? If it has been longer than 6 months your problem is huge because it may be considered “acceptable behavior” and the employee becomes harder to seperate.
Is there an official counseling process? This is usually a verbal warning, then written warnings and if no changes are evident a counceling program is developed and initated all under guidance, support and witness of your HR professional.
Are there other employees who exhibit the same behavior? Again – if yes, “acceptable behavior”.
This isn’t something that you should undertake if you don’t have clear guidance. If you don’t trust you HR representative I suggest that you get legal advice if you need to go further because you don’t want to risk losing a possible law suit. And remember, there is usually a law suit, the objective is to minimize the company’s contributory factors. There’s so much more that you need to know but I don’t have enough information. Contact us at http://www.opalqsm.com and we can get you going in the right direction if you have the support of upper management.

Good Luck –
DM @ The Opal