Hi all, Bit of an unpleasant subject... The IT manager at my place of work (and the only IT guy) is without a question utterly incompetent. This is beyond doubt - don't think it's unreasonable. He's been here for a bit over a year if I remember correctly. Bluntly, he needs to be got rid of as he's actually hurting the business. Does anyone know how to go about this?
Arsenic? Oh wait you mean terminate his employment? Unless you're the boss, you can't really do much. However, the employer shouldn't need to give much of a reason if he's been there under two years.
Assuming not NI. As long as said employee has worked there less than two years, they can be let go for any reason really, make sure its not a discriminatory reason. Which incompetence isn't Employed longer than two years? Well that's a headache
Incompetence is usually promoted so they can do less damage. Anyway, can the position not be renamed, requirements changed and he has to reapply with other candidates? That sort of thing happens alot in the public sector.
Are you his boss? If so, as @Andersen says, you can let him go for any (non-discriminatory) reason within the first two years of his employment. If not, there's not really anything you can do beyond having a word with whoever actually is his boss.
Thanks for the replies so far all. No, I'm not his boss, but I'm considered part of the senior section of employees. We're actually a weirdly socialist SME. I can happily (well, not happily, but you know what I mean) grab the CEO and have a chat. Two years eh? Better get a shufty on in that case. For those of you who are curious, some things he's done: Still hasn't limited a folder on the server to read only excepting a couple of people even though it's been asked for over the last few months. Being corrected on the phone by an undergraduate multiple times about scripts, coding etc. Stopping a furnace for a few weeks because he buggered around with the PLC and reset the IP address. Taking months to get new laptops and PCs in, before the head of department lost his patience and ordered them. Also just generally an arsehole. We even had a machine supplier complain about how bad he was.
If you have the ear of the big boss, might I suggest performance management? Set achievable criteria/goals that give him a chance to improve, or prove his lack of capacity for the role.
There will (should) be a HR process for managing poor performance somewhere. See if you can locate it - work intranet maybe, or from your HR department/advisers. You don’t need to say what you want it for! You’ll need evidence of the poor performance to start the process (sounds like you’re fine there) and then make sure the process is worked through meticulously so that there is no opportunity to challenge it effectively. Where I work the ‘managing poor performance’ process requires a fair bit of effort from the line manager: evidence, new goals, extra development work, extra support from the manager, more regular 1-2-1s, formal meetings, etc. and it takes a significant amount of time as you have to give them a legitimate opportunity to bring their work back up to standard. Gross negligence or gross misconduct would almost certainly be quicker but a much higher bar of impact to meet.
Again, appreciate the replies. Looks like on Wednesday I'll sit down with my team leader (who's also sick of his crap) and we'll draft a list of stuff he's supposed to have delivered on, as well as objectives that need to be solved. Once done, I/we'll take it to the CEO. Sucks to be doing this, but we're a smallish company and when everyone's working hard, it's detrimental to moral to let people who are continually terrible at their job continue to be employed. For fun, other things: Failed to get a couple of machines back on the network after their PCs were replaced. After a couple of weeks, the supplier engineer was back in and literally fixed it in 30 seconds as it was just allowing access for the new IP addresses. One of my team wrote a small python script (prolly ~30 lines tops) using a combination of his own knowledge and a bit of ChatGPT so that we could continue to import items into the ERP software without having to continue to pay for a very expensive plug in. The IT manager refused to allow it (so far) as he said it "could have a virus" .
I wouldn't trust the useless f**k to clean a spoon. Seriously, I have never met anyone so useless. I've met people who aren't clever but give it their all, but this guy is not only useless, he tries to pin his foul-ups on subcontractors, keeps spewing bullsh!t that even I as a non IT person* can see is rubbish, and has little to no work ethic. He's the kind of tw@t who when on a call to our subcontractors trying to fix our mess of an ERP system, actually said on a Teams call "Well, it's 4, I'm done for the day, so catch you next time" and hung up. My team leader stayed on until 6 on that call that was about fixing our IT infrastructure. *I'm just here to build computers and play PC games. Although I haven't really done that since 2017.
I don't know what the laws are in the UK, but document as much of the the incompetence as you can, but do it quietly (not on company computers, where possible). People who have admin access to critical IT systems just need to be escorted to the door and given *just* enough severance that a lawyer wouldn't help them.
Is there any nepotism / partiality regarding his employment? We had a similar situation in the office for a few years, although it was slightly different because the guy was sound as a pound... he just wasn't able to bring an appropriate level of professionalism to the role, and he was kept on chiefly because of the family vibe among the shareholders. His behaviour was brought to the MD on a few occasions but nothing was ever going to happen. It wasn't until funding was pulled that something could be done. Hopefully you find a way to make this situation better!
Fortunately not. The main problem is that he's the only IT guy, so there would have to be a backup plan. We originally hired him to take over from some subcontractors who weren't very good either. Sounds funny, but I was instantly suspicious when early on I asked him what were his favourite games and he replied he didn't play computer games. Never met an IT person worth their salt who didn't play games. Definitely going to be a question in the interview for the next person.
Time for some granular performance management I would say. Clear and detailed objectives as well as BAU. All documented in a Personal Dev review/plan, with 'big' quarterly reviews and more regular check ins.
