How to deal with an unqualified employee who is impossible to fire
Strict company policies and unhelpful management often prevent managers from firing unqualified employees who lack basic skills. Dealing with this leaves managers stuck spending hours creating remedial training plans while the employee shows no progress.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Creating extensive training plans and weekly knowledge assessments
- 2Writing up counseling reviews and documenting all employee progress
- 3Considering buying online boot camps or instructional training materials to prove support was provided
- 4Filing fair housing complaints
- 5Contacting code compliance
- 6Trying to reach higher-level corporate contacts or property owners
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“A couple years ago, I was promoted to Assistant Manager at a small IT office. I was immediately put in charge of new hires despite having no experience with it.”source ↗
“It's now been a year and a half, and the employee has shown no progress to understanding how we operate.”source ↗
“The problem is, this is taking up a lot of my time. I've had to create a full training plan that essentially starts at basic A+ level knowledge”source ↗
“Shouldn't I be able to fire them on the basis that they do not have the basic knowledge required and expected to do the job?”source ↗
“What in the world does it take for a large PM company (or property owner) to fire managers?”source ↗
“Both the property manager in the regional manager won’t do anything to stop the other people from being unprofessional.”source ↗
“What is it gonna take for there to be discipline in personnel changes?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to manage an older employee with more experience who undermines you
- 3Fired after trying to fix a dysfunctional workplace
- 23How to deal with uncooperative coworkers who don't do their work
- 2How to handle an employee who keeps threatening to quit
- 3How to fire someone without warning
- 8How to deal with a manager who is confidently wrong