How to diplomatically tell someone to suck it up?

purpleshoes_2

Occupational health should be used to support people, as far as I'm concerned. Yes of course they can help with the process of someone moving on if their health is a significant problem, but after one incident where the person concerned will probably say something different?

The op raises her concerns with her seniors, strongly. It's up to them to deal with it. Tread very carefully because you are dealing with someone who seems unbalanced and if it's not the op who line manages this person, their line manager needs to be aware of what's going on.

Plus if you do decide to involve oh, the employer will need to make a referral, which the employee should have the right to see before it's sent, people have the right to see what's been said on paper. The referral will take time, a few weeks which means that you are still going to be dealing with the drama until then.

Surely there is a probationary period attached to the job because from the sounds of it, their ability to do the job is already in question.

GlasweJen

This person is a total nightmare and is coming back to a "quick chat" with their manager and a director tomorrow.

Problem is we can actually confront A at the time of doing something and A will argue that they aren't doing x even though they are physically doing it at the time! As it happens I opened my work email this morning and A had an encounter with a mystery customer who has scored us at 11% for the encounter (A was wearing the uniform and name badge), any other member of staff would expect to be fired given some of the feedback so we will see how this pans out.

I want rid or to be moved out of my radar - maybe A is hoping to go into the admin office as their last jobs were all admin?

GlasweJen

A passed their 3 month probation as none of this behaviour was displayed during that time.

There were some minor issues related to how A interacted with some groups (A was trained on how to assist blind people but quite often flounces away expecting said blind person to follow, doesn't instruct on things like swirly chairs, doesn't hold open doors, didn't bother to do some tests with a wheelchair user because "forgot" we remove the chair that's in there and just wheel in). All of this is fairly normal - you'll never encounter so many visually impaired people in any other situation and it can be overwhelming. We booked A onto a course and things improved there - at no point did anyone think "oh god this person is a nightmare".

I wonder if A resents being at work, As partner has some qualification for a 100kpa job in health and safety but works in a much more modest job and A does wax lyrical about when partner gets that job A will give up work and live the high life. It's unlikely As partner will get such a job without experience and there isn't a job market for it here so it is just a pipe dream for A just now. I don't think As partner even wants such a high pressure job, when I met partner he seemed to really love the job he has and was talking about doing a teaching degree.

DaveTheMus

persa wrote: »

How judgemental. Just... Wow. :mad:

It's down to every allergy sufferer to decide where they draw the line of acceptable risk. FWIW, I am an epipen carrier and I've nearly died several times, but that hasn't and wouldn't stop me from picking out a nut-free chocolate from a box of chocolates that contained some chocolates with nuts in them.

I can assure you, those of us with serious allergies find life difficult enough without people like you looking down your noses at us for trying to live as normally as possible.

I feel sorry for your ex-colleague.

You've nearly died several times due to a nut allergy yet that wouldn't stop you riffling through a packet of sweets containing nuts so you can get one that contains no nuts......

The MSE Darwinism award goes to you.

Errata

The behaviour of the employee certainly seems bizarre and toxic, but it seems to be compounded by a dysfunctional chain of command.
Is the organisation a charity?

Person_one

Errata wrote: »

The behaviour of the employee certainly seems bizarre and toxic, but it seems to be compounded by a dysfunctional chain of command.
Is the organisation a charity?

It's clearly an optician/ophthalmologist from the descriptions. I've never heard of any of those operating as charities here!

It does seem as though there's nobody willing to take ultimate responsibility or action though.

Mojisola

GlasweJen wrote: »

I wonder if A resents being at work, As partner has some qualification for a 100kpa job in health and safety but works in a much more modest job and A does wax lyrical about when partner gets that job A will give up work and live the high life. It's unlikely As partner will get such a job without experience and there isn't a job market for it here so it is just a pipe dream for A just now. I don't think As partner even wants such a high pressure job, when I met partner he seemed to really love the job he has and was talking about doing a teaching degree.

It doesn't really matter what the motivation is - a person who behaves like this won't stop because if that 'reason' is taken away, another one will be found. The longer she stays in post, the nastier things will get and that will impact on the good workers and the team's morale.

She's already taking more breaks than anyone else, has directly lied to a manager, has disrupted the work place by having the ambulance called, has seriously upset a client as well as all the minor issues and her general attitude - would anyone else still have a job if they'd done these things?

BigAunty

Suse* and Ames have a more compassionate take on it which I respect (lack of confidence in their abilities). In my mind, I had the employee down as a much older person with psychological/personality issues who had perhaps spent many years on IB.

Nonetheless, at a very basic level, they are an incompetent employee - lazy, careless and untrustworthy.

When the OP revealed their age, I had a flashback to 2 recent college courses I had attended as a mature student in Scotland where most students were 17-21 and I was shocked by their immaturity, inertia, lack of attendance and punctuality.

The vast majority were very unmotivated - they pretty much did the minimum they could not to get booted off the course and spent the majority of their time in class glued to social media.

Their social skills, basic manners, communication skills and so on were really poor. I remember coming home to my partner and declaring 'how on earth are they going to get and hold down a job?'. I estimate that only 2 or 3 in a class of 15-20 were work ready. Hardly any of them (and usually the keenest students) had a part time job during their course.

This is what a major employee reported about the work readiness of some of his young applicants - 80% of applicants to its recruitment programmes are unemployable.

"GTG Training, the training arm of Scots company Arnold Clark, claims that around 81% of the applicants his firm receives for its entry level jobs are "unsuitable for any employment".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-18158510

CH27

Jen I think you should ask for this thread to be deleted as it gives away a lot of info.
Who knows who reads this forum & you don't want to end up in bother because of it.

Errata

Person_one wrote: »

It's clearly an optician/ophthalmologist from the descriptions. I've never heard of any of those operating as charities here!

It does seem as though there's nobody willing to take ultimate responsibility or action though.

The reason I asked the question is because the OP states that employees are "people with mental health problems and a few physically disabled and learning disabled" which didn't sound like the usual bog standard opticians.