Dear Madeleine,
There is no way to sugar coat this: I suspect one of my direct reports has taken another job.
Most of my team is virtual. A few people live locally, but after Covid we never insisted that people come to the office. I got quite good at managing a hybrid team (I took the Blanchard class) and all was well for a long time.
Now one of my consistently high performers who is super dependable and accessible seems to have gone underground. His work product isn’t bad, per se—it is still high quality—but his presence for team collaboration, in terms of choices/decisions that need to be made in real time, is non-existent. His input has always made a difference to the team, and it is now noticeably absent.
He seems to be online, but when I ping him on Teams it can take hours for him to respond. Up until about six months ago, it would be minutes. He used to always be on camera and now he never is. In a few of our on-on-ones I have shared some observations, and he has responded with “well, it would be much better if we could do a lot of that stuff in scheduled meetings. I am trying to focus on my work and protecting my thinking time.”
I remarked on the situation to my partner, and he is the one who said, “He has probably taken another job. A lot of people are doing that now.” It had simply never occurred to me, but now I can’t get the idea out of my head. When I look at his behavior through that lens, it all starts making sense.
The question is, what do I do about it? If I am wrong, I risk sounding accusatory. If I am right, and he admits it, then what?
Doubtful
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Dear Doubtful,
Oh, isn’t this a can of worms? First, I would caution you not to simply blurt out your suspicions. The fact that the idea (now that it is in your head) keeps being re-enforced is a perfect example of confirmation bias, defined as “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.” Your MIA (Missing in Action) person could have any number of things going on that aren’t what you anticipated and you could risk damaging the relationship beyond repair. Even if you are right, without some clear idea of what you might do about it, you won’t get very far.
To decide what to do you will want to get HR involved. Presumably there is an employee handbook, which hopefully outlines what is expected of a full-time exempt employee. I checked Blanchard’s and it outlines that employees shall be sanctioned for things like:
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- Excessive absenteeism or tardiness, including a pattern of absenteeism or tardiness
- Job abandonment
- Sleeping or malingering on the job. (When was the last time you saw the word malingering used in a sentence?!
I suspect that your company probably has something similar. The ability of people to hold down two full-time jobs seems to be a fairly new development, and most companies do not specifically prohibit it. Those who do worry about it tend to invest in employee monitoring software like tracking software, video surveillance, and email monitoring (which fills me with dread).
If there is any action to be taken, it would need to be in response to concrete evidence of MIA’s change in performance, not unsubstantiated suspicions. I would submit to you that team members making themselves available to weigh in on fast-moving decisions might actually be part of a job description. If MIA is unable or unwilling to do that, it would mean that he has simply decided to not do part of his job.
I can’t argue against people needing focused work time to concentrate and get work done, but that kind of thing needs to be structured with the team’s needs in mind. You are absolutely within your rights as a manager to request that all team members indicate when they are engaged in focused work time, as well as when they expect to be available.
You have some choices:
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- You can ask MIA what is going on and continue to get the runaround;
- You can decide that his contribution is good enough and simply accept it; or
- You can pinpoint exactly what feels like a significant drop in performance, call it out, and request a change. Be prepared with specific examples of what a good job looks like and the consequences for lack of compliance with your request. Oddly enough, this approach might trigger MIA to share the truth with you if it isn’t a second job. A health issue or that of someone close to him is a likely culprit.
At the very least, it is critical that you carefully document every single incidence where you expect your employee to be engaged with the team online and find that he is not. You may very well see a pattern emerge that will shed light on the situation. Even if you don’t, if it becomes a performance issue, you will have what you need to let him go.
It is very disappointing when a formerly high-performing member of your team is all of sudden barely showing up. Often it is because they have some kind of personal crisis going on, and you’d like to think that your employee would trust you enough to share it so you can properly support them. But some people are very private and have experienced employers using private information against them. I personally would err on the side of giving them the benefit of the doubt until actual evidence that causes me to change my mind becomes available.
Be discreet, be fair, and be kind. Document thoroughly. All will become clear with time.
Love, Madeleine
About Madeleine
Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.
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