Big questions | 'How do I manage someone taking the pi** at work?'

Dealing with an employee who is struggling in the workplace is complex; both ensuring that the business doesn’t suffer because of their lack of output yet attempting to support said employee is a tightrope walk that can expose cracks in your leadership.

However, with an employee that genuinely wants to improve, creating a roadmap isn’t impossible. Yet when you’re dealing with an employee that shows all the signs of being ineffective and they simply don’t want to change, this creates a very tough position for leaders.

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This is the situation that one advice-seeker on the message board Mumsnet found themselves in recently. The user explained in a thread titled ‘How do I manage someone taking the pi** at work?’ that she was dealing with an employee who simply wouldn’t attempt to address her deeply poor performance. “One member of the team who was previously the strongest has unfortunately been deteriorating recently – mostly due to some personal issues but also because the overall department management has changed and she seems to be unable to understand or adjust to the changes,” the boss explained.

“She is spending an inordinate amount of time on the phone for personal reasons, mostly with long distance calls to Australia. Her routine now is to come in at 8:30 or so, do a few things, then spend at least 20 minutes, often more like 30-40, on the phone to her mum in Australia. Every day. That's on top of multiple calls to friends etc during the day.