Writing formal complaint about team member's perf?
Posted by trojan_soldier@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 81 comments
My team members are not showing growth despite months of coaching and support through docs, pair programming, et cetera. They are also detached and quiet most of the time during team meetings as if they can't wait for the day they found a new job. As their team lead, this has taken a toll on me to pick up their bugs or unfinished projects during their absence.
Luckily my manager are aligned with my observations. The unlucky part is, she isn't hands on with our daily tasks, so she asked me to write an informal report about my team members performance for her to action on.
I would love to hear if you have similar experience about this "informal report". Did it result in successful inprovement on your team members performance? Or eventually led to dismissal? This is my first time doing this, so I would like to do it as objectively as I can.
apnorton@reddit
I think some of the advice you're getting is making assumptions about the situation that aren't necessarily guaranteed, or possibly being flavored by an anti-management perspective. You're a team lead, so it makes sense that your manager will value your input when making personnel decisions. I've seen this have to be done in the past, and it isn't necessarily indicative of poor management or some nefarious plot.
My recommendation is to merely stick to the facts about behavior. Something like:
...or whatever. You want very specific examples you can point back on; "they just don't seem engaged" is fuzzy, unless you can point to specific instances. Depending on how much you trust your manager, you may want to avoid topics that only you would have knowledge of, in case these get shared directly with the person you're reviewing and it results in a bit of disgruntledness.
I would also keep it brief --- it's an informal report, so just hitting on the high level issues is sufficient.
I'd also just end it at the statements of fact about behavior; I wouldn't aim to speculate as to what needs improvement or what a valid PIP might be. You're just reporting exactly what you've seen in as objective of a manner as possible.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Thank you so much for understanding. I will focus on the facts only.
Would you recommend this to be done publicly in some capacity? For example, should I start putting start and end date on the tracking tickets to fairly highlight the time it took to complete their tasks.
Mountain_Sandwich126@reddit
I do see few comments about self reflection on the process, culture and practices. I think this is valid to be done in tandem in the assessment, it always helps
thedeuceisloose@reddit
If you do it publicly expect blowback and unforeseen side effects. I’d bring this up only with your manager
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I was thinking about making the process transparent and give the underperformers a chance to improve (more seriously this time). This also gives more credibility to the report. But I understand what you are saying, I will definitely discuss with my manager what is the best course of action.
AnotherRandomUser400@reddit
I am not sure tracking the start and end date of a ticket is the right approach, at least without a context. For example it might have taken a lot for a ticket to finish but the engineer was actively working on it and communicating what they were trying, e.g. comments on the ticket or in the stand up.
I agree that keeping as close to the facts as possible is the right approach.
Personally I would add what they could have done differently. If your manager is a good one they will want to give actionable feedback to the other team members.
apnorton@reddit
I think you touched on something in this that I completely neglected to mention --- I'm approaching this issue/the idea of these metrics as an instance in which OP already knows the person is underperforming (which seems to be the case from the description). i.e. the question isn't, "is this person performing well or not?" but rather "how do I document and quantify their deficiencies to be able to justify their lack of performance to other people?"
Essentially any quantitative metric for productivity can fail to capture someone's contributions to a company --- a great example of this is "Tim" in the The Worst Programmer I Know blog post, where someone has almost zero measured productivity on their own, but they're the reason the entire team was functional. So, it's a difficult (if not impossible) task to go from raw metrics to a quantitative decision on whether or not to fire someone. But, if you do have a strong belief that someone is a drain on the team, having some of these (even imperfect) metrics can be useful to justify to higher management, HR, and/or a judge overseeing an employment lawsuit that the firing was justified.
AnotherRandomUser400@reddit
If the goal is to have a good justification in order to fire someone, then yes I agree with you that these metrics could help.
(BTW nice blog post the one with Tim, I added the site to my RSS feed)
apnorton@reddit
Yeah, I stumbled upon that blog from HackerNews a year or two ago; I think about that anecdote regularly in interacting with coworkers/thinking about metrics.
apnorton@reddit
Personally, I'd keep any record-keeping "under the radar" or in a way that that is innocuous (e.g. "I'm going to record this meeting while I explain this so you can look back on it in the future").
But, for the start/end date of tracking tickets, that's something that possibly is already being tracked for everyone no matter what --- Jira, for instance, will log when tickets go into "in progress" and when they get closed, so if you just "keep on top of ticket hygiene" and ensure their tickets change state or have some comment on them when they progress to someone else, that will keep track of how long they've been keeping tickets in progress without raising any flags/concerns.
The reason I suggest keeping this kind of thing quiet is because there's a possibility that they don't get fired --- they could improve, or management could decide that finding a new employee for what they're willing to pay is harder than dealing with an underperformer, etc. So, you want any action you take to not suggest that you're considering letting them go, just so things aren't awkward if they stick around.
JamieTransNerd@reddit
What are their salaries? What are their responsibilities? Is the environment healthy?
Look at all of the things that would motivate someone to thrive, and see if they actually exist. If not, you're just pushing a rock uphill.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Some folks downvoted my post, to give clarity:
A few of them are senior levels due to their interview performance, but their actual performance at the job is of junior or mid-level devs without showing any ownership.
They delivered bare minimum code without testing until being asked to. If someone reported bugs on our team channels, they will hide or will not address them for days until someone else triaged it to them.
"Environment healthy" in the sense that they typically receive bare meet expectations during annual perf review time and no possibility of being promoted.
"Motivating parts" are hard because they are not too communicative. They seem agreeable during coaching sessions, but they showed no improvements after that.
JamieTransNerd@reddit
I think answering the question "Is the environment healthy?" with "They receive barely meet expectations" is a good example. Think of them as human beings. Ask yourself how many hours they work, how much money they make, how they are treated, etc, and determine if they have any reason to see their job as anything more than a clock to punch.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I am a human being too, in case you forgot. In case you haven't read the post and comments, they have been treated as regular people and being offered a lot of chances to show improvements or ownership through coaching.
As team lead, I am being tasked to monitor and be responsible to escalate blockers. Failure to do so means the team's performance suffer. If the whole team suffers the failure cascades to the upper management and company. That is not fair for the real hardworking people as you put it.
Arguably, there are plenty of highly motivated job seekers out there who are in dire need of jobs. Who are we to say that my team members won't be able to find another job which fits with their work culture?
JamieTransNerd@reddit
"That is not fair for the real hardworking people as you put it"
Are you sure you're replying to the right comment? I'm not sure I mentioned "real hardworking people."
You are a human being, of course. That's why I'm not judging anything in your setting as good or bad, or trying to insult you. What I 'am' doing is discovering how you see them, how they see you, and how your manager sees both them and you.
One reason people are agreeable during coaching sessions, but not showing results outside of that, is because they're doing what they need to do to survive the coaching session amicably, and have no real motivation to follow through on it. I think you're noticing that and not digging deeper into that would make them 'want' to do it.
Offering an unmotivated person ownership or chances to improve is setting them up to fail. If someone doesn't want something, and then you judge them by how enthusiastically they do the thing they don't want to do, you're creating a trap.
If you have multiple people on the same team having this same problem, there is probably contributing factors. This is why I asked about the workplace environment. This isn't specifically a blame against you. I don't know you and that wouldn't be right. It could be as simple as "Joe has ADHD and the open floor plan office is distracting him to the point where he can barely work."
I'm made to wonder if they were ever different, early in their positions with your company.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I appreciate the thoughtful response. I am too tired to deal with some people here who are (even with good intentions) missing the original point of the question.
We can keep arguing about what and why they do what they do. But at the end of the day, the company needs results. They are not delivering the expected results despite our "best effort". You can argue again that our help is not enough or not aligned with their interest. You can nitpick and ask "are you sure you are replying to the right part?" As you can see this discussion becomes meaningless.
In the essence of the question. You can forget about me or my situation. But imagine you are in this position: what would you do to underperformers who are not coachable. You have enough confidence that one is not technically sound and requires handholding even after years of work and training. Your overall team performance suffers, and this hold back promotions and bonuses to everyone, your manager rewards the other teams.
What would you do in that very specific scenario where coaching these few underperformers proven to be not working?
JamieTransNerd@reddit
"""
You can nitpick and ask "are you sure you are replying to the right part?" As you can see this discussion becomes meaningless.
"""
Maybe from your perspective. Once you replied to me, I pretty much locked in on just your replies to me. I don't have an awareness of the overall discourse and generally don't try to on Reddit posts.
Here's a core part of the problem from a corporate culture perspective:
You're rating these people as "barely meets expectations." But that means they DO meet expectations. If you honestly do expect more out of them then that, it needs to be a documented part of their job that they're honestly assessed on. This also causes another problem I'm seeing in the culture. You're saying that people are being held back on promotions. If your company is valuing people as individual contributors, holding people back for someone else's behavior is a sign they have no clue how to assess your people's value.
I have always cared about people over the company. So what I would do in your shoes is document what management actually wants from them, what the actual expectations are, and then sit down with each of these people in person. Lay it all out. "Management is asking for this. You're not doing this. I'm being asked to help determine if you should continue working here." Offer to help or support them, but make it clear that things have to change.
So what would I do?
-If people are being held back for another person's problematic behavior, and the held-backee is not their direct manager, I'd see that as a sign the company's evaluation system is borked, and I'd agitate for everyone I believe deserved recognition.
-If people "barely meet expectations," they are meeting expectations. If I'm dissatisfied with their work, then I would need to either evaluate them as not meeting expectations, or modify the expectations presented.
-If someone I was training who literally can't do the job (I once had a guy writing code in MS Word), I would recommend they be let go.
-If someone I was training 'can' do the job but is not doing well, and they are in the danger zone, I'd have that conversation with them honestly and openly.
-If that person has been notified that they're in the danger zone, and there's no change, I would warn them in advance that they will be let go, so that they can have time to get their financial situation in order.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Very well, I am already reaching the very last step exactly as you listed there. Someone literally can't do their job, didn't do well with the training and open conversation, and notified that they were not performing at their level.
My manager relied on me to write all the evidence on a report to start the process. Have you written any such reports and do you have any tips? That's all I am asking.
Conscious_Support176@reddit
Interesting. Have you skipped across steps 1 and 2 and landed up at 5? It looks like it from reading the thread but maybe I’ve missed something.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
You probably missed something.
Conscious_Support176@reddit
You say you need to address these underperformers specifically because it hurts the whole teams performance. The first point above says people should not be held back in their performance assessment because of somebody else’s performance.
I mean, you could have argued that it’s wrong, you can only assess while team performance objectively because it’s there are no objective measurements of individual performance,… but you didn’t.
It’s hard to see how you’ve addressed that?
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Sorry I'm lost already what's your point here.
Let me ask a few things before we continue: 1. Have you ever become a team lead? 2. Have you ever had to deal with underperformers?
Conscious_Support176@reddit
Interesting. Have you skipped across steps 1 and 2 and landed up at 5? It looks like it from reading the thread but maybe I’ve missed something.
Snoo34567@reddit
Anytime someone’s response to an employee/coworker not meeting the expectations of a job is “how much do they make”, know you will never get a good answer from them.
Unless you like the answer “ignore it and wait for management to notice” or “you need to have a 1:1 to ask them if you can make their life easier, so they will feel like doing their job”. Either way they will call your company toxic.
DeterminedQuokka@reddit
If someone is ignoring bugs in a channel you @ them on the bug and ask them to do it. The fact is that they have a semi valid “I didn’t see it” otherwise.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I did for months and I do not think it is healthy or looks good on them. Sorry folks, but can we move on to discussing the original question instead of scoping the problem too long? I believe I have given enough examples and context on multiple comments
Conscious_Support176@reddit
You say you need to address these underperformers specifically because it hurts the whole teams performance. The first point above says people should not be held back in their performance assessment because of somebody else’s performance.
I mean, you could have argued that it’s wrong, you can only assess while team performance objectively because it’s there are no objective measurements of individual performance,… but you didn’t.
It’s hard to see how you’ve addressed that?
ResponsibleLife@reddit
Never rat on your homies.
Swamplord42@reddit
Awful attitude. If you're not here to do your job, I'll try to get you fired. I don't care that it's not my responsibility, I don't want to work with slackers.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I hear you. Trust me, I do not enjoy it.
Imagine you have 10 people in your team. One is dragging down others despite everyone's best effort to help for a year.
Team performance overall impacted. Nine out of your 10 not getting enough bonuses or promotions compared to the other teams because the upper management had to report each team's results to execs and investors.
What would you do as their leader?
ResponsibleLife@reddit
I hear you. What's the difference between team leads and managers in your company? If it's manager's job to evaluate performance, then it's their responsibility.
Alarmed_Inflation196@reddit
You're being really quite aggressive in your replies to comments. It speaks a lot about you.
old-new-programmer@reddit
It is the managers job to take care of this, full stop.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
That's what's happening here? I am asking the manager to take action but they need evidence.
old-new-programmer@reddit
I guess it works differently where you are. I’m an EM and I code, run stand ups, do people management, I’m on most PRs, etc. I 100% know who sucks and it is my job to deal with it.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
My EM manages 40 people with different domains and skills, if that gives you more context. She can't be everywhere and can't possibly know all little details
old-new-programmer@reddit
Oh yeah very different. God I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
I guess my advise now is present the report and if nothing is done this is fully on her and you can make a decision on if it’s something you can tolerate or if you should leave.
wrex1816@reddit
I don't think you're understanding your own job.Your.manager out you in this position to manage it... If they have to manage it themselves, then what do they need you for? I think you really need to start understanding that your role is to make this team work.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I am seeing different opinions here. The original one said my manager should take care of it. And now you want me to do it.
What would you do in my situation?
wrex1816@reddit
Sorry to tell you but if the entire team that you lead is checked out, that's more a reflection on your leadership than on them. I think I'd you want to salvage this and not loose future hires also, you need to assess your own performance.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I am sorry, but which part of my post and comments mentioned "the entire team"?
wrex1816@reddit
The very first sentence indicates it is multiple people and not just one person.
I can only read the words you chose to write.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
You can choose whichever version you believe or simply take the higher road. Instead you chose the negative one full steam. If this is incorrect, I can help you.
wrex1816@reddit
I literally just read the words you wrote. It's right there win the first sentence!
If that information is incorrect then add an edit to your post to clarify. I don't know what you're on... But Jesus Christ, if this is how you communicate and react then no wonder you're having issues.
Snoo34567@reddit
Is English your second language? I am not trying to be insulting but, this reads like someone who is using a foreign understanding to interpret English.
For clarification:
My team member = 1 person
My team members = implies more than 1 person but, not the entire team. This is sometimes used to imply the entire team if used with a small 2 or 3 person team but, traditionally is used to describe a few people or small portion of the team.
My team = implies the entire team
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Assuming you are still having a shred of interest to answer the original question, what would you do if you were in my position?
The post was already updated a while ago. You can keep focusing on my communication, or you can choose to help. Your choice.
wrex1816@reddit
I already tried to give you some advice in my first comment.
Given the discourse here, I think you're unhinged. Good luck to your team members, they'll need if this is your average behavior and frame of mind. Jesus Christ man.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I am not sure which one made you think that way?
Your advice is to calibrate myself. At this point, I don't know if it helps to mention that my perf is good, and all my team members including my underperformers are only giving good feedback to me (my manager relayed the 360 feedback).
Regardless of my behavior. If you are given a team member who did not perform well after series of coaching and drag your other team members down, what would you do? Calibrate yourself too?
Careful_Ad_9077@reddit
To me it sounds like this will repeat itself again.
First you are the lead so you are ok in caring about this, but you will fire the guys, hire another group and they will fall thru the cracks again. If it were just one guy, there would be no problem , but que. It's multiple guys,there is a problem with the system.
I'd look at fixing the system that makes this happen. One red flag was reporting bugs in teams, another is having to work extra hours so often.
There are industry estándar practices that " fix" that.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
You can see other comments to see the problem. Just let me know if you are still not convinced the people are not the problem. I told multiple people just to keep this post anonymized. Not as many as whatever you thought.
To save our time, what would you do in my position, given enough confidence that your team members will not improve after wasting all possible supports? Imagine you have been picking up their work for a year while your underperformers are being coached.
allKindsOfDevStuff@reddit
Are you a mind reader? You’re projecting some wacky stuff onto them because they’re quiet in meetings.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
No but I can tell you are not an avid reader because there is plenty of context in the comments.
Let me help by pasting them to the original post
jek39@reddit
if you aren't the manager, that's not your responsibility.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Not saying you're wrong, but isn't a team lead supposed to show some level of responsibility for delivering results (as reasonable as possible) despite some setbacks?
If I want to draw boundaries and be okay with not delivering, wouldn't that imply a lack of ownership in the eyes of the upper management?
SquiffSquiff@reddit
No. That's a supervisor's job. Team lead gets to be tie breaker on technical choices and possibly some mentoring.
ThePillsburyPlougher@reddit
That barely even sounds like a tech lead. More like a senior engineer who's got the team leads ear.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I am fully aware of that. If you are in the same situation and your team couldn't deliver, what would you do? Blame managers and quit in this job market?
SquiffSquiff@reddit
Not your problem. My take:
Man sitting in big chair get big problems. My chair too small for big problems. I pass to him.
KhonMan@reddit
The man sitting in the big chair already passed it down to OP to document. It’s now a small chair problem dude.
jek39@reddit
there's a lot of reasons your team members could be "failing" in your eyes. divorce, illness, addiction, burnout, etc. it's a manager's job to manage that.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
You are very kind for suspecting me to be an unreasonable person. I've added more details on the top comment.
Unfortunately they are not with divorce, illness, addiction, burnout, etc. They were also given plenty of chances to explain their situation during our private meetings. I can assure you that they are healthy and capable because they regularly take time offs without fail and are physically able.
jek39@reddit
that ", etc" list is quite large. It's gonna be hard for you to convince me there's not something in there. Of course none of us are in the room so I may just not be picking up what you are putting down clearly.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
I mean, I don't need to convince you if you don't have anything to share anyway. Maybe someday you will be in the same position and we can talk again.
NoleMercy05@reddit
Wtf. Insanity
onefutui2e@reddit
I've fortunately never had to pip or shadow pip someone. It must feel shitty that you're essentially building a case for firing the person, but actually have no authority to do so. It's like walking on eggshells, I'm guessing.
People gave good advice here. I'd focus on direct evidence and document what you observe. As others said, don't assign value judgments to the observations. Tie the observations back to your engineering ladder, assuming you have one. That way you and your manager can see in what ways they're not meeting expectations.
Jira is good because so much data is tracked. The google sheets plugin is really good for pulling it and analyzing. But it's not everything. I had a member on my team who would mark his tickets as "Done", even though no work was actually done because we descoped it or determined it was no longer feasible; we're supposed to have a separate status of "canceled" or "rejected" for those (how we account for spike efforts is a whole other story). So people thought he was very productive and it wasn't until I noticed there were no PRs attached to these supposedly completed tickets that we realized what he was doing
I'd also voice a concern to your manager that if you're going to be doing this, your own productivity may suffer for a bit. Just to set expectations that you're essentially working on this as a project. And I'd be open with them about how you feel, and make sure they can provide you support.
Good luck! It sucks, but you're doing necessarily important work.
Xsiah@reddit
People are being weird here. This sounds totally fine.
If you don't have a strict deadline for this, I would start by outlining expectations, and then for a couple of weeks observing the team and writing down specifically what's not going right according to those expectations - include what you've done to address it, and as many dates and objective measurements as you can find. Also include how much time you spend on picking up after them.
This feels like a weird flex, but as a team lead I've gotten several people fired lol - but they genuinely deserved it.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Thank you, this is the first relatable response. I will give it a try.
I fully understood that reporting my own team members may carry significant impact on other people's lives, but at the same time it impacted my own personal life. Arguably, there are many other highly motivated candidates out there who are equally in need of jobs.
How were you able to set expectations and track these items ? Were they done publicly through public channels, tickets, and documents?
ThePillsburyPlougher@reddit
Setting expectations comes from 1-1s where you clearly tell them in no uncertain terms what you'd expect from someone in the role theyre in. Clearly theyre failing at some of things you outlined - things such as showing ownership by addressing bugs, putting up MRs with tests, etc. Go into the meeting with specific examples of where they didnt meet those expectations.
Most people are reasonable and want to do well at their jobs, but occasionally there will be people who will do their best to pick at your arguments to straight up gaslighting (I had a friend who had to fire someone who later turned out to be overemployed who would white lie to her face that they weren't late every morning and to every meeting). Don't necessarily prepare for every argument, but be ready with a holistic assessment of how theyve been doing so you can recognize where they've done well but how its not enough for them to meet expectations.
After these 1-1s, start a (private) word doc and describe everything that went down in the meeting, including the specific expectations you set, examples you cited, and their reaction to those expectations. In addition send an email to them containing a bullet point list of expectations that you communicated to them, the idea being its proof that they've seen them, and its also a reference for them which they can check on (this sounds aggressive, but can actually be helpful in normal 1-1s with junior people who are still figuring things out and not in performance management).
Xsiah@reddit
In my situation I was lucky that my boss trusted me enough to put them on a PIP from just a couple of complaints - but I was also responsible for overseeing the PIP. In my case they were aware that they were on a PIP and which tasks they were being evaluated on, but that came from the manager - as a team lead you don't have the authority to initiate that kind of thing. Maybe talk your manager into it.
If you don't have a formal PIP process, I would do like a "shadow PIP" - take the tasks they're assigned, especially ones where you expect which they'll struggle with, get relatively generous estimates from them about the time and effort needed to complete them (they will look worse if they don't meet generous estimates, so don't squeeze them here)
I just used a private document to track the progress - basically like a diary. For each person take some notes every day about what they say they're doing during standup, if there are meetings about any of the tasks include what was discussed in case they want to claim that they "didn't know" later.
Make sure you note down things that didn't happen - no status update, no questions asked, etc. Asking questions should be treated as a positive - but asking the same questions after claiming to understand the answer the first time is a negative.
If you do their code reviews, make a rough list of things you asked them to change, with some notes on the severity of their failures. Are they making reasonable mistakes that you can expect from a difficult task, or is it something that a junior should know?
At the end of the estimated time, outline what's not done, how long it took, and how much more time and effort it would take to complete the task.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
Very good examples, thank you so much. Especially about the private journal docs, asking questions, and being generous with the timeline parts
Xsiah@reddit
No problem. Good luck!
jek39@reddit
it just seems like if it was up to you to get them fired, your manager must be blind.
Xsiah@reddit
Your manager isn't looking at pull requests - they don't know if someone is trying to throw hot garbage in the codebase to make it seem like they're working.
Good managers know who they can trust and delegate to.
apnorton@reddit
Sometimes it's not that the manager is blind, but that the manager doesn't have first-hand, verifiable evidence of ineptitude --- they might just know "this person is always slow and I keep hearing people complain about how they work."
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
This is what happens in my case too. Manager is managing at least 40 people (direct and indirect) in the department. She needs to assign some more senior devs to be team lead to delegate the day to day tasks. She will not have full visibility over our work unless we highlight them
jek39@reddit
quite right. though "inability to see" and "blindness" aren't so far apart.
engineered_academic@reddit
Its your managers job to manage their performance not yours. Your job is to manage the project. It may seem like these two things are linked, but they are not.
Your job is to manage the project and manage upwards. Don't manage down directly. That's the manager's job. Report the issues with completion to your manager. Be objective. Do not speculate. A lot of your beginning post is opinion and not facts. Stick to proveable facts, not observed opinions. If it's not in jira, slack, or the vcs it didn't happen and you cannot reference it.
DeterminedQuokka@reddit
Okay so I have done this before. And I don’t like doing it. But basically she’s probably asking you to either write their pip or the supporting documentation for their firing. So I would probably push back unless you actually want them fired.
If you do it be super evidence based. “They haven’t grown is subjective”. It’s more like here is evidence that they are making the same mistake now that they made 6 months ago.
Or like this is the requirement for their level here is a concrete example of them not meeting it.
Examples should be recent. You can’t say someone isn’t growing and use an example from 6 months ago.
Honestly the easiest way to do this is for your manager to put them on a pip first and give them a very defined project and evaluate that project. It’s really hard to do a hand wavy they aren’t that great thing. Because they can say that wasn’t what was communicated to them.
The most effective instance of this I’ve ever done was me writing up 4 potential pip projects the manager facilitating them picking and then 3 of us keeping assessments of that project.
This should not be on you alone, if it’s true someone else should also be giving feedback.
It’s a cop out for your manager to say they aren’t directly involved if they are this unaware it’s because they aren’t paying any attention.
SquiffSquiff@reddit
You're being lined up as scapegoat. They aren't going to for the team and keep you.
trojan_soldier@reddit (OP)
That came to mind. But is this something you've personally heard or experienced?
slimscsi@reddit
They have made their choice and are engaging the way they believe is appropriate. If the situation is acceptable, then nothing needs to be done, if not, they should be let go. Skip the passive aggressive middle.