Addressing management issues: Jekyll-and-Hyde employee

Medical Laboratory Observer, June, 2006 by Christopher S. Frings

Q I believe our lab's unionization is the root of most of our management problems. A woman on my staff has been here 18 years. I am at my wits' end with her. I believe she is basically an unhappy person who drags all her woes to work everyday. She runs our automated chemistry instrument, knows it inside and out, and believes she is indispensable. She picks at other employees with critical, snide remarks to the point that no one wants to work with her. She is caustic to all the managers in the lab, using the union as her "shield."

We have scheduled her on projects so the rest of the staff does not have to be exposed to her. She is so negative that we do not allow her to teach students or train new employees. This resulted from her unprofessional behavior on several occasions. Once, she was cited by another employee for unprofessional behavior, in addition to receiving a letter of reprimand for screaming at a supervisor. She seems cyclic to me. She can be so sweet, it is sickening--and other days, she comes off like Attila the Hun.

The former managers here did not like confrontation so have allowed her to grow into a malignancy. After 15 years of experience in management previously, I have grown so thick-skinned in my two years here that it is all I can do to keep from throwing her out of my office when she comes in whining. When I counsel her about her behavior, she cries about how no one appreciates her and how she does so much more than anyone else. I have tried recognizing her accomplishments.

Our Human Resources office has required her to attend anger-management classes, which did not seem to help. She threatens to quit weekly, and I tell her that working in another lab might be a good change for her. She is not going to leave. Her salary is one of the highest, and she gets five weeks of vacation.

With the union environment, it is nearly impossible to fire someone, especially someone who has been here a long time. It seems we have no recourse other than useless counseling sessions and letters in her file. Her behavior is so erratic and chaotic. How do I handle someone who is a Jekyll and Hyde?

A Marti Bailey warns, "It is high time for you, your lab manager, HR, and employee health administrators to sit down and make some hard decisions. You need to get over your mindset that the union is at the root of your management problems and that your chances of terminating this employee are next to none.

"On the other hand, you have a very clear understanding of other aspects of the situation. Your description--'allowed her to grow into a malignancy'--is very telling of what can happen when managers tolerate poor performance relating to behavior problems. You also did a good job of documenting how managers often opt to keep the peace by isolating problem employees via special scheduling, and how problem employees frequently end up getting special consideration (e.g., exempted from teaching new employees due to their poor performance). Does this make sense? Of course not.

"It sounds as if you and HR have made some attempts at disciplinary action, but no one has followed through. Clearly, this employee does not have satisfactory performance. You speak of a letter of reprimand for screaming at a supervisor, but is that the only letter of reprimand she ever got? You say HR required her to attend anger-management classes, but they did not help. Is any of this documented?

"You can only prove an employee's performance deficiencies and failure to correct them through detailed documentation of incidents, counseling sessions, and follow up of performance improvement. I would hope that your hospital has an HR policy that outlines how many letters an employee can receive before she will be terminated. It seems to me that if you follow through with the abundant incidents that this employee apparently provides, you would surely have justification to terminate her. If she fights it, so what? If a union technicality allows her to win, so what? You're only defeating yourself by doing nothing."

Larry Crolla advises, "It might be possible to work with this person and ask her for her help on a project in making the lab the best place to work in the hospital. Based on her experience, you could ask if she could help you construct a system to help build morale and customer service in the laboratory. My goal here would be to get her to use her skill set in a positive way to help build up the lab and not tear it down, especially if she was in charge of such a project. Also, in these types of projects, make sure there is plenty of peer recognition--not just for her, but for her team. In this way, you might be able to change the situation by giving the person some responsibility for the temperament of the laboratory."

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Alton Sturtevant opines, "I would make notations in her 'fact file' relating to her behavior. In general terms, a fact file is a supervisor's/manager's written record of each employee's work performance. At a minimum, it should include: 1) date, 2) situation, and 3) what happened (e.g., behaviors the employee exhibited and any relevant outcomes). This is a document used, as the title states, to record facts, both positive and negative, in the supervisor's internal employee file for future use. The instrument may be used in discussions with HR or as documentation for any future employee actions. Your HR department or union may have another term or format they use to document employee work performance.