I have an employee who my previous boss promoted into leadership 2.5 years ago, against my better judgment. My boss was since terminated. I now am working with this employee. I am their boss. Since then I have gradually attempted to give them greater tasks as I am being pulled in many directions and cannot do it all. They seem to struggle with anything that is complex. They will call myself or another employee and spend a good hour on the call trying to understand what to do. I believe they have a learning disability. Drafting a simple email took 2 years to master. Thank god for chat gpt. They have been working on a company paid certification for 4 years and are at 0% completion. Last year they caused a loss due to negligence. I wrote them up for that. I contacted HR to see options such as demotion. I was told I have to do a write up and continue to look for opportunities for improvement. I am now feeling a write up will only cause tension and not help the situation. Feeling conflicted.

22 Comments

1. AnonymousMay 14,2026 at 1:30AM UTC

   This is an exact duplicate of a post from about 6 months ago. Did FGB just revive this to try and gain some traffic traction?

2. AnonymousMay 14,2026 at 1:02PM UTC

   Why not talk to the employee and find out how they learn best? Some people have auditory processing disorders, while others may have dyslexia or other disability that makes reading difficult. Try to help them build on their strengths. As for the certification, ask them what the status is on that. Do they need the certification for the job? If so, are there tutorials they could go through online or is there some sort of manual they could review? Make it a win-win if you can.

3. AnonymousMay 14,2026 at 8:44PM UTC

   The certification process as requested by them and my previous boss paid for it, well the company. They cannot handle complex tasks. It can be frustrating.

4. Paulla Fetzek, MSEdMay 15,2026 at 1:11PM UTC

   What a thoughtful reply! Are you a teacher? I am, and much of what you stated was running through my mind as I read the post!

5. AnonymousMay 15,2026 at 3:17PM UTC

   Yes, I am! Thank you so much. I think that most of the time when an employee isn't doing everything that's expected, it's not that they don't want to. (Once in a while, it really is that, but not usually). If the person has been with the employer for several years, they likely want to be there and want to do a good job.

6. AnonymousMay 16,2026 at 2:09AM UTC

   They want to but do not seem capable. I do feel for this person and genuinely like them, but they fall apart at any challenge.

7. AnonymousMay 15,2026 at 2:55AM UTC

   You need to develop a paper trail if you want grounds to remove someone outside of a layoff list. The writeup is the first thing. Perhaps documenting a request to progress on the certification (or obtain it) would be a start.

8. AnonymousMay 15,2026 at 1:09PM UTC

   Yes thats what hr said. Documentation aside from the first write up is needed, to show the struggles.

9. AnonymousMay 18,2026 at 10:29AM UTC

   You are a manager. You are well equipped to make the call as to the best path forward. If performance is not crucial then allow things to stay status quo. If your role is to improve company performance then provide training, strict supervision and PIP. you cant have both.

10. AnonymousMay 18,2026 at 9:43PM UTC

    I was told to work with them and coach them. Very frustrating.

11. KatMay 18,2026 at 6:54PM UTC

    Sounds like the person is not a good fit for the position. If you need to make a paper trail, do it. This has been going on way too long and you need to take action. If it's been a while since you've updated the employee's job description, start there. Meet with them so they know what you need them to do and what your expectations are for their performance. Use specific metrics, like "obtain certification required in 6 months", "respond to all emails in 24 hours", "0% loss rate for 12 months". These are things you can put into a PIP so they have goals too meet and a time frame to meet them. Make sure it's about the job requirements and not them.

12. AnonymousMay 18,2026 at 9:44PM UTC

    My company is likely scared they will sue. It happened in the past. They asked me to continue coaching.

13. AnonymousMay 19,2026 at 2:15PM UTC

    If you establish and document the steps taken to improve the performance and the communication of expectations with deadlines and deliverables there is far less risk of being sued. Create a timeline and file of every communication, training and PIP keep things professional and extremely clear.

14. GirlBossanova934974May 19,2026 at 12:32PM UTC

    You were not the manager when this person was promoted. That was not your call. However there MUST have been some sort of job requisition or job spec that this person was hired under. Find it. Go through the list of tasks. Go through the last few performance appraisals. See where they are falling short. See what tasks they were hired to do and are not doing. Then you can put together an action plan. Are you asking this person to do something they were never hired to do? I am not getting a good idea what is happening here. I see words like complex, greater tasks, and long time spent on calls learning new stuff.

15. AnonymousMay 19,2026 at 1:03PM UTC

    Sounds like you have tried coaching. You need to be very specific in your write up with the examples and all the instances of coaching and the lack of results. Unfortunately, this employee isn't working and is holding the team back. Trust me nothing demotivates your high performers more than having a low performer skate by.

    Demotion usually only works if the poor fit is realized quickly.

16. AnonymousMay 19,2026 at 1:58PM UTC

    You need to throw out the disability out the window. People with disabilities can overcome and perform their job. Yes, it may take a bit more time to master something - but it is not an excuse for NOT doing their job.

    Your employee is not performing - plain and simple. In your coaching you can ask if their is something or accommodation that can be made to help them accomplish their tasks/learning. This way it is on their shoulders and they are part of the solution. Then when they can not make changes and become a meaningful contributing member of the team, you are able to say they are not a good fit and move on. I know this sounds really harsh and I will get blasted on here for it, but in today's business world - dead weight will only bring you down your company won't care that you didn't get your work done because and employee failed at theirs. You are the manager and as such you are being paid to manage your direct reports. . Help them be part of the solution to succeed and if they don't - walk away with your head held high knowing you tried.

17. AnonymousMay 19,2026 at 3:58PM UTC

    I think a PIP is in order here. As an alternative if you think this can turn around while keeping them in the same role some training with an external company on the things they consistently fail at. One of the hardest parts of managing others is doing what you are being asked to do. It will be a disservice to that person to not try to fix this for their own sake as well as yours. Use your HR person to help write things up, keep firm on the deliverables or let the person know you need to move them to a lower rung. You need to do the paperwork to indemnify the company against any and all retaliatory legal action from this employee, regardless of whether you are in an at-will state or not. As for feeling conflicted, don't! It will make you a stronger manager to manage through the conflict and get to a good solution.

18. maria roseMay 19,2026 at 6:09PM UTC

    You have been given many good options for managing this specific employee performance and all it will take is you doing the job as their manager and doing the correct performance evaluation and emphasis on what they are expected to achieve without needing constant guidance— your main objective is to get them to do assignments. Perhaps you may not have been given a detailed assessment of this employee since you “inherited” them already employed but you learned how they performed since taking over the role you have. But if your goal with this employee is to eliminate the constant need for hands on guidance from you then it is up to you to create a plan of action using the tools suggested—regardless of whether you feel that it might cause some discomfort emotionally from the employee—you are simply being the manager and if there’s some undisclosed “ disability “ that is affecting their ability to do the job, it would be up to them to disclose and not expect you to know because you are treating them as equally capable as any other employee. Good luck with this and let us know in feedback

19. Jody LaflenMay 19,2026 at 8:48PM UTC

    Oh, I know what you’re going through, and it’s a very uncomfortable situation. I had a direct report, a tenured professor at that, who was underperforming to the point that their popular degree program was hemorrhaging students. Not only is it difficult to deal with an employee who isn’t capable of, or doesn’t want to do their job, but in my case, I had to work through the tenure status and faculty union. It took 4 years. I documented all interactions, student and colleague complaint, copied the union president, HR, and my supervisor on all emails, everything, in order to build a case. I also used data analytics software to gather quantitative data each quarter to track the amount of students, tuition revenue, and industry interest in the program we lost after students took the professor’s basic skills courses. I sent out a lot of surveys and such.

    Document everything with date and time stamps and copy everyone who needs to know. If there are customer complaints, forward those, along with the amount of time taken from your own work to remedy the problems. Document everything reminder to complete performance improvement tasks and the tracking of (non) completion.

    It is out of whack that such employees have more legal rights than we do, so this all takes a lot of time. Ask your supervisor or HR to assist you on a call with the company’s lead legal counsel for more actions you can take.

    Good luck!

20. AnonymousJuly 3,2026 at 12:20PM UTC

    I’m very curious what rights you think this employee had that were “out of whack”? They had tenure for a reason. They were obviously performing well enough for long enough to get there. Which just means that they were and are in fact capable and competent. It sounds like you had a great opportunity to lead with compassion; talk

    to them to find out what exactly caused such a shift for them, work together to address those issues, provide them with support, tools, accommodations, regular check in’s, encouragement, reasonable goals to

    work toward, find out what motivates them, etc and you blew it. Instead you decided on their behalf that they “didn’t want to do their job” then spent years monitoring them, gathering ‘evidence’ against them, blasting them to colleagues, and destroying their livelihood all so *you* didn’t have to your job. Had you done your job properly and worried more about the human being standing in front of you it’s likely that you could have both directly and indirectly improved that persons quality of life at work resulting in less dissatisfied students, less loss of revenue, and more program engagement in half the time you spent tearing them and their career down. It’s doesn’t take four years to justify a truly legal termination. I’m going to take a wild guess that employee was dissatisfied with their unsupportive, poor management and the resulting hostile environment they had to work in every day and you didn’t appreciate that so you retaliated (yea- the illegal one!) and painted it as poor performance. You can lie to yourself all you want but the only thing you protected was yourself.

21. LAMOY COBURNMay 28,2026 at 12:29PM UTC

    Please Don’t be so quick to shoot the bullet. Everyone is not as fortunate to have all the skills but if they have the right training and attitude they can grow. If they have adhd they may need an accommodation. Everything isn’t about discipline. Try to come up with a plan to set them up for success. They have been doing the job all along. Build trust with them will make them want to do better. People are only as good as your leadership skills.

22. Paulla Fetzek, MSEdJuly 8,2026 at 1:05PM UTC

    What a beautiful reply, Lamoy. Thank you!!