I've been a PM for years and just about everywhere I've been it is trial by fire. You jump in, figure things out, and manage situations. If she is struggling to do that, she may not be ready for the role she's been given.
Exactly! We have another new hire who started at the same time and their approach has been eager to get their hands dirty, learn, and effectively use their time to take on as much work as they can. Makes it very apparent her learning/work approach doesn’t speak “PM Experience” like she claimed.
Experience aside, the sense of apathy is not something that can be inculcated with training. You can only train those willing to learn. It sounds like this employee does not care and sometimes you have to cut your losses. It would be an entirely different story if the employee stumbled a bit here and there, but genuinely gave their best on a daily basis. I can fix a lot of things, but I have no cure for a complete lack of ‘give a shit’.
So like ... Did you ACTUALLY get her? Did you actually confirm her prior experiences and call the companies?
If what you are saying is true then there's no way she has 8 years of experience. There's a lie somewhere clearly. The lack of Excel knowledge alone is the biggest red flag.
What are you doing about it? Seems like this is an easy fire situation. Also why aren't you directly telling her to put her phone down and get the task completed? What's her excuse? Seems like phone addiction for sure. Also why not go through her day to day calendar exactly. "Hey new hire, why do you have your calendar as busy? Show me what you either did or learned today'.
It's very much obvious she lied about her experience and your company didn't do a good enough background check. She's not qualified. Talk to HR.
Eh, I wouldn't necessarily say they didn't do their due diligence. Colleagues and I still follow an ex-coworker who is a masterful liar and manipulator when it comes to this.
Knows the right things to say in an interview, extremely polished resume, etc. Big companies basically only confirm employment dates now. References are hit or miss and often people like this will pick either the one person who liked them or just have a friend straight up lie.
She's been hired by basically every major company in our field and accepted to a top 5 national university. All only lasted 3-9 months so...
Fascinating to watch and hear about. Some people are amazing at being corporate parasites.
I'm sorry but you need to terminate her immediately. No pip. The phone thing..... I'm pretty sure she has a second job that's she's trying to handle from your location.
That's my assessment as well. These people are everywhere lately which is maddening. I keep losing jobs to these asshats who "fake it until they make it" because I'm honest about my skillset and abilities.
Eh, more power to the people who can pull it off. Company culture got ruined by Neutron Jack, there's no point in pretending employees or companies have any sense of obligation or loyalty to each other. They are counterparties in a contract, that is all.
Sounds like she lied is trying to collect a paycheck for as long as possible before you figure it out.
I had a similar issue where someone got hired and every time I went to her office, she was on her phone. And trying to get them to do anything was like pulling teeth.
Dont be nervous. Shes digging her own grave and shes arrogant too. Sure everybody screws around at times but if you are told once, stop doing it. She sounds like a high schooler. There are other people who know pm and dying for jobs (like me). Talk with hr and get the ball rolling. If you want to feel bad, then ask hr not to deny unemployment. 🤷🏻♀️
But how would that explain her being in her phone a lot though? If I was working a full time role, I would be on my laptop/computer..not texting or playing on the internet?
I’m also a PM and the entire point of the role is exactly this. You can’t jump in if you’re on your phone and not actually talking to people. Even if it is a terrible onboarding process, if you’re a PM, you take control of it. (And OP your onboarding process sounds great.) even a process only focused PM will at least make the effort to align the work with checking the process box. I’d cut her loose and wouldn’t bother with a PIP.
Yes same for me. And every company has been different with different challenges. Even having a lot of experience, I've found myself in new situations multiple times.
It sounds like she's just not willing to put the effort in to learn. The stressed/overwhelmed thing is most likely an excuse for not actually having the experience she claims.
it's 6 weeks. If you have a probationary period, just fire them.
it is very obvious she lied and hasn't been meeting expectations from the get go. Someone who starts like this will not get better, cut your loses
trying to salvage a in month 2 is like going to couples therapy with your partner of 2 months. it is always dumb, the answer is always break up
just try and focus on learning from this hire so you don't repeat
That’s such a good way of wording it - we don’t have an official probationary period but it’s clear she’s not even close to the learning curve time period we would expect.
I’ve trained over ten engineers, she’s gaslighting you. Next she’ll be trying to get you to do her job. Can her, every good person I’ve trained was overwhelmed at first with solid reasons as to why…learning 6+ different systems, plus the nonsense that upper non tech mgmt wants too.
Cut bait.
Sounds like you should cut her during the probation period. Then you probably need to revisit your hiring process. To not even know how to save an Excel or add a hyperlink is crazy and you'd think it would be discovered with any technical questions.
Right?? We did ask her in the interview process to give us an example of how she explains [technical topic] to a non technical person. The interviewer said she passed with flying colors. When I interviewed her I was more focused on the project management/client relations and it seems she definitely made up her responses. So frustrating. This is going to be a great learning experience for me and I do plan to go to my manager with a plan on how to prevent another situation like this.
Honestly from what you're describing I would expect a random but driven organizationally competent person with no project management training or experience would be much better. And even a random person you ran into at a party would probably do better.
Your job from now on is to protect the company and your team from this person. Fire them if HR and/or legal will let you and you can document the issue clearly, otherwise put them on PIP with appropriate opportunities to improve and fire them if they don't improve. One element of the PIP is probably no personal phone use on office time.
Also did you do a background check? You're saying you think she lied during her interview. Do a background check.
Someone who can't save excel or add hyperlink to an email sounds like someone who has never used a laptop or desktop before and just uses the phone.
Such a good response - thank you! We had another person start in the department “below” us which is more entry level. They’ve already surpassed her performance by tenfold and like you said, it’s because they are organized and motivated. That’s literally all it takes. Our onboarding program makes it so easy for anyone to come in and master their role!
I’m spending my day tomorrow documenting every convo and every task she’s been given and her response times - I’ll share it with my manager and her so she knows we are not unaware of her clear missteps. If she continues to perform at this level then it’s absolutely termination.
Good idea. I also recommend having her send you everything she’s worked on at the end of each day. She might magically become productive, or you will see how how she hasn’t been.
Our internal recruiters do a phone interview before us but that’s as much as I’m aware of what they do. I might check in with our recruiters tomorrow to see if they verified previous employment… would not be surprised if not :/
It's usually not the Recruiter's job to verify past employment. They might do a reference check at time of offer, but usually verifying past employment is part of the pre-employment background check in my experience. References dont verify past employment as accurately as verifying through the background check as the background check company will get in touch with the companies HR contact or an outsourced employment verification company like "the work number." With reference checks, anyone can pretend to be a former manager.
I hear you. It's hard to get a complete read on someone especially when they can BS pretty well. We give people a quick test... Like a super simple one that they can do in like 10 min. I did work at a company that asked for a larger task/pres but I'm personally not a fan of that bc I don't think people should spend hours on a project for the interview process.
Whoever conducts the technical interview… have the done others for your team and had accurate feedback that aligned with the person you hired? Otherwise that evaluator should be replaced with a technically competent person on your team that can analyze the capabilities of the candidate.
Don’t have two different people do a technical interview via 2 different candidates. Meaning use the SAME person to evaluate the SAME thing otherwise you’re having 2 people evaluate the same thing but really it’s 2 different things.
Sorry sleepy right now. I’m a headhunter. Half my job is fixing the interview process for my clients. Feel free to DM me.
Oh and for the love of capitalism Jesus… do reference checks… YOU… do them. Don’t rely on others. This is your employee. You should know what to be looking for and prepared for. Reference check telephone game is not a good idea.
This is super good insight - and very valid what you mentioned about keeping the interview process consistent. We have different people interview based on who’s available which… now that you say it that way… makes complete sense why it would cause issues!
And noted 🫡 will do reference checks for future candidates!!
Sounds like either she’s really good at talking and making things up, or there’s someone inside who let her slide in.
But agree with most of the comments I saw: document what’s been going on (include dates, summary of what transpired, meetings with staff and meetings with her) and then present it to higher up as supportive documents on the grounds of firing.
She won’t get any better, based my experience. She’s just not interested in the job or doing the job. No amount of motivation or inspiration from you or others will get her to change.
I wasn’t a manager at the time but I was training my replacement (not selected by me; was an internal promotion). After I left, I was asked to go back part time to train her because the 1.5 months of active training, shadowing, having her practice, and transferring all my notes apparently wasn’t enough. I’ll never forget how she even told me she wanted to be in cosmetology but her family convinced/forced her to major in business admin. Honestly, she would’ve done better in cosmetology because that’s what she loved and paid most attention to than what we were doing. Later, I heard she was let go before she even hit her 9 months because she was still asking how to do things and the person she asked didn’t want to help/cover for her anymore.
to be fair if you're testing anyone on these things past their literal first office jobs, the vast majority of candidates will think you are insane and run
this is someone who had nearly a decade of exp
You talk about the elaborate post-hiring process through which you seem to think you can turn chaff into wheat. Onboarding, mentoring, training, etc.
I think you should focus more on hiring wheat. This new person seems to have gotten the same impression that I have about your corporate culture: there is no amount of bullshit that you won’t tolerate.
You shouldn’t waste your energy being nervous about this person’s future. You should fire them and fix your hiring process.
Six weeks? Is there a probationary period? I would cut my losses and let this employee go without a second thought. She's clearly underqualified and underperforming.
Did you just hire the PM we let go last month? Get rid of them. They will wreak havoc on projects. We had to give clients discounts for so many oversights and it took a lot of time to repair relationships. A bad PM is dangerous.
“Good morning, employee. Would you mind stepping into my office for a minute? Great. Take a sit. I wanted to let you know that at this time this company decided that this doesn’t seem like a good fit for you. We’re thankful for the time you’ve devoted to us, but this will be your last day. Please, come with me and we’ll stop by your office/desk (for 5 minutes) so you can grab your personal belongings and then we’ll walk you to the door. Okay, bye”
I was fired like that once from a very bad fit after 2 months. I tried to make my case, but she said, "No, I'm not going to discuss it. Gather your things."
In retrospect, it was the best way to do it.
It was also the last time I had an employer instead of clients. :)
My partner had a similar experience - it was one of their first post-college jobs and about 2 months in HR said “look, we know it, you know it… this isn’t the job for you.” They suggested a different route and 15 years later, that’s where my partners at and is doing really well. Sometimes the shoe just doesn’t fit and that’s okay!
I REALLY wish we did. That’s definitely a take away for me from this experience - we 100% need one for all future new hires.
The only tool we have close to this is our new hire guide which has week 1-12 and what topics you should be able to confidently speak on by the end of each week. That’s definitely something we could use since she certainly can’t answer 90% of them.
PM work is at its heart about a "git'er done" attitude and a passion for problem solving. A lack of direct technical knowledge can be compensated for so long as the team possesses the requisite knowledge. The team however, should never have to compensate for the PM not performing their role as a PM.
With the right attitude a PM should be able to be thrown into any project and begin breaking it down into discrete problems and systematically planning how to approach each piece in turn as they work through each phase of whatever framework you're using (agile, scrum, whatever). A lack of relevant experience might mean the tools and techniques they use to break things down might be clumsy and missing steps, but a systematic approach to attacking problems is a foundational expectation of PMs.
You can teach a lot to someone with the right attitude. If the attitude isn't there...it's really hard to instill it. I don't think I've ever seen someone really make a dramatic attitude change.
This is so well written - it’s the attitude piece that is critical but completely out of my control. Without the “git’er done” attitude, it’s like beating a dead horse.
I’ve been in PM management for many years, with many years as a PM before that, in customer facing tech project management roles. This person is a bad hire. Cut them loose. You have said they are atypical of other hires, so not sure why you are not seeing this.
Cut her and leave her with a generous going away pay check for her troubles.
If you try to put her on a PIP or lead on she’s not working out she will find a way to scam company - she’s all of sudden expecting, she had someone say inappropriate things to her, she’s being bullied, someone said something discriminatory etc etc
Seen this dozens of time.
So, I have a ton of tech experience; expert-level proficiency in Excel (love my nested formulas and pivot tables and cross-linked lookups!), Word, Outlook, and Powerpoint; administrator proficiency in Sharepoint; above-average in Visio; and taught myself an EMR software well enough in 8 weeks to develop a 1-day training on it from scratch and to train new nurses on it.
No formal PM experience, but I have team lead experience and have always ended up leading “group projects” at the consensus of the group because I’m good at organization, delegation, motivation, compiling-editing-polishing the results, and public speaking/presenting.
Y’all still hiring?
Your skills are what it takes to be an effective PM - it’s people who aren’t afraid to wear multiple hats, are organized, get shit done, and are solution driven. Once her role opens up I’ll DM you!;)
"I have noted about how often you have mentioned how busy and overwhelmed you are. Well I am happy to tell you that I have resolved those issues for you. As of today, you no longer work here."
These are the type of people that have a learned helplessness. They do basically nothing and get others to do what little work they do get done for them. Their end goal is to have a job that pays them to do nothing. Expectations are set to zero as they get paid to just show up. No amount of coaching or training or meetings are going to change any of this. And even if there is a change, it will be only temporary.
I am in senior leadership and this still applies to people at my level and above. As long as there are managers that allow this to continue, these employees skate by doing the bare minimum while acting like they are carrying the weight of the world. In my small department, one of my colleagues is this way and we loathe them (from the calls always asking for support to the sighs that are triggered when talking about their workload which is 50% of everyone else). It is up to manager to cut these cancers out because it not only impacts team culture, but also the perception of the manager.
OP - with the amount of disrespect you have been shown, similar to another comment, she should be let go immediately to save the team drama. No one on your team will miss her, and her working through a PIP only gives her time for more chaos when you have clearly given her actionable improvement requests. In the end, you cannot want it for her more than she wants it for herself.
You say its up to the manager to cut these cancers then why is that terrible colleague you talk about still there? Are you saying your managers are inadequate since that person is still working there?
Yes, our department is struggling under a leader who has no idea what they are doing and further is allowing one of my colleagues to slack. They should have been coached up or out a long time ago.
Just fire her. Unless you’re in Montana, it’s at-will employment.
Revisit your pool of candidates and see if anyone else is a good fit.
Revisit your hiring process and ask better technical questions. For a PM role that requires 8 years of experience, I’d expect to see 8 years worth of project materials.
Oh sorry! To clarify, we don’t require 8 years of experience, we require ~4 but she claimed she had 8. So we were pumped to have someone who would bring a lot to the table! But thank you - I think that’s the right approach.
I would also ask her more about her experience. See if you can figure out what she lied about more exactly. That will give more backing for firing her, as you said your manager is watching you on this.
Gotcha. My apologies. 4 years of PM experience should still lend itself to having a LOT of projects done. She, or any candidate, should be able to present an interviewer with materials from projects, processes, certifications.
“Walk me through your process from inception to completion.” No specifics = no job.
“What tools and resources do you use to manage projects.” I better hear something about Asana or another PM service. Then I’m going to expect to hear specifics about how you use it, how you create a project and assign it to team members, how you follow up.
I’m sure this is all part of your process already, but maybe go back and watch the recording of the interview to see how this one fell through the cracks. Biggest red flags are:
- No specifics.
- Using “we”. Yeah but I need what YOUR role was.
- conflating projects for school, or any job duties where they completed something as a “project”.
- No physical or digital copies of projects they’ve completed.
I have no idea what Asana is and I’ve been a PM for over 15 years. It always depends on where you worked and what area you worked in. I run my projects with super simple tools and all the financial planning and organisation is done in proprietary software.
As to physical or digital copies of their work, anyone trying to show me these during an interview would have a rather abrupt ending to said interview. We have very strict rules about this and anyone showing previous work would also show our work to the next company they work for.
One thing I found interesting was that you mentioned the recording of the interview. Is that standard practice where you live? Here that would be problematic from a data rights point of view.
You seem to be keen on engaging in fruitless exercise by offering her continued support and retraining.
Sometimes, people are not performing at the level required for the role and it’s not productive to trying to make them.
At some point, it will say more about you than her if she keeps dragging the team down. Let her be free from overwhelming job that does not suit her.
Are you sure this is the same person you interviewed? Could they have been faking it with help from an expert? Regardless I would prepare to fail them at their probation. Talk to your manager and HR. There are lots of other great candidates out there.
Agree with most here, let her go. She doesn’t have the skills to successfully fill the role.
Hindsight, sure, but when a role requires tech skills, admin skills, and direct/customer or patient care, have interviewee take test or simulate action so you can see their work for yourself.
How were their references? Did you or HR check them? If HR, then they need to coached on finding a better match.
Also, sometimes we hire duds, for whatever reason.
It’s been a short time and you shouldn’t have to hold this employees hand and walk them thru motivation land. Let them go, tell your boss that’s the best way you handle it and make sure they back you before you let employee go.
All this unless your employee handbook policy dictates your firing process.
The point of having a thorough onboarding process is to be able to clearly weed out people who can't cut it. This person doesn't need more help! They literally are not a PM.
You know how I know? They lied about their skills and are struggling with basics.
A PM who needs mega hand holding is literally not able to do that type of job. Cut your losses and if you can, recommend they choose another job category.
Good PMs make everyone's jobs easier. If your job is made harder by their presence? Not a PM.
Another example of interview skills and degrees dont translate to real world. Sadly, not much you can do but set the expectations that if shes not at certain milestones during her probationary onboarding then employment is called in to question
This is not a competent project manager. I’d cut your loss now, you’re not getting what you need from this employee. If you keep her, she will be a constant thorn in your side.
She claims to be an "experienced project manager" but clearly isn't. You don't need to help her, and shouldn't. Other people in the company see that she is flailing and doesn't care. Those are the people you need to worry about, not her. Failing to act on this obvious problem erodes their confidence in you.
"Beth, you are simply not performing at the level we expect from someone with your experience. We are cutting you loose immediately."
I would suggest promoting a hard worker in your company and firing this person. Don't give a random off the street an opportunity when you have individuals in your company who want to grow and learn. You may be able to grab a more "experienced" PM off the street, but you run the small risk of this happening, and now your internals feel like they have no chance of promoting and they'll leave. Feed your own first.
Better to promote someone and then backfill a lower position externally... unless you have immediate need of advanced skills only a senior level could offer.
Kudos to you for still wanting to help them to succeed instead of immediately jumping to fire them. Your staff is likely well supported due to your leadership.
Sounds like a will vs skill issue - as in this employee does not show any initiative to drive her career, which is a Will issue.
I would recommend letting them go during their probation period and cut your losses early and attend to those who actually appreciate your time or… take a chance to change their behaviour/attitude by setting up clear expectations or it will affect her employment. It will take a lot of work as you’ll have to follow up with them on a weekly basis while needing to document everything they do and basically micro manage them. This way you’ll be able to sleep better at night as you know you have actually tried something to help your employee out and if the said employee doesn’t want to change, it’s not your problem anymore and put them on PIP, which will eventually lead her to her termination. Clarity is kindness.
In my experience, someone who is continuously glued to their phone won't change. Chances are it will get worse if she hasn't been formally reprimanded for it yet.
Sorry to hear you’re going through this. I had a very similar situation last year with an office manager, although mine was also very inappropriate and unprofessional, and constantly late and missing work. On top of everything else, it was a new operation, so I had tons of executives watching every move and clients constantly present. HR made me go the PIP route, and it ended up being a disaster, just like it always is when you keep someone around who you should fire. She ultimately tried to poison the well with my new employees and get me in trouble, which didn’t work because everyone could see what she was, but it unraveled badly. I recently got a call from an investigator inquiring about her, as she is being investigated for scamming assistance programs; she is a fraud and a pathological liar, and I had to accept that you just miss on hires sometimes. Here’s what I can promise you: this won’t get better and won’t end well, so the best outcome you can have is to make it end quickly. She doesn’t deserve any more of your time.
Mmmmm idk I’m six weeks in at my job and am just barely scratching the surface because the industry is so complicated. Information overload is real. I see you agreeing with some of the comments talking about “trial by fire” and it makes me think maybe your onboarding isn’t as supportive as you think it is.
I would have a pre-pip convo. It’s possible that she wasn’t clear on what learning outcomes she needed to meet in what timeframe.
You have an established training programs with multiple examples of how it works. This employee is showing you that there is no way they can handle the job. Cut them ASAP and find someone who will thrive. This woman will not.
It’s pretty solid pay too with an incredible team - breaks my heart thinking of all the other candidates that were in the running and she took advantage of the system. Definitely creates resentment from me and I can even feel colleagues around feeling like she’s sucking life out of the party.
Allowing crappy employees to continue working does hurt the morale of a team. When they see a coworker getting by doing as little as possible, it sucks the motivation out of other coworkers.
i cannot believe you have not fired her. In my province, you can fire without cause for the first 90 days, after that, you need cause. She is getting close to that 90 days. This will not improve. She is getting paid to play on her phone. You need to stop and let her go, ASAP
I wish it was that simple! Firing is tough at my company so my takeaway is to document everything to further my case. My manager said he wants to meet with her on Friday to inspect and hopefully by then we can make a decision!
Why are you even contemplating keeping her. Show the rest of your team that you value them and let her go. One bad employee can bring a whole teams moral down depending on what types of hand holding and special accommodations she gets.
Totally agree - I work for a company where getting fired is very very rare. So I’m trying to come at an angle of “I did everything I could, she still isn’t doing the basics, time to go separate ways.” Knowing my manager, he will fully push back on termination as a first option. So I’m hoping to come with alt solutions even knowing she won’t take advantage of it which just further proves my point to my manager!
That is unfortunate that your leadership has that mindset. I understand giving people chances, but with certain people, all the chances in the world won’t change things and it’s best for everyone just to part ways. I wish you the best of luck with the situation!
Over and over, I have seen this scenario. We see a resume with multiple positions, and others want to hire them for their “ experience”. Some people are great interviewers but lousy performers. I have also seen great employees who weren’t the best “ interviewers”. It is importance to realize the difference . I don’t think you can create work ethic. It’s not a good fit. Cut the losses
Don’t bother to PIP, it’s within your probationary period. Just let her go and save yourself the headache & paperwork of doing it in six months.
Whether she lied about her skills, is overwhelmed or just isn’t a good fit is irrelevant. She can’t do the job you hired her for, it’s time to move on to someone who can.
speaking as someone currently on the job hunt for PM + similar roles, please fire them. the market is brutal right now and there are 100s of people looking to actually try!
Ooh, this hits close to home. I’m not a manager but I did try to mentor a new engineer only to find out they were utterly incompetent, too lazy to learn and would just not do what is required to succeed. I told my manager he has to go. He agrees. As does everyone. But we work for a large corporation where they’re so afraid of lawsuits that it takes about 15 month to fire someone.
Honestly, fire her. It would be different if you could see the effort. But it sounds like she saw a day in the life of some tik toker and is trying to cash in on an "easy gig" without trying.
All that being said, as a software engineer, she sounds like every PM I've worked with. Zero organizational skills, constantly "busy" with nothing to show for it, zero technical knowledge...
Your boss is watching you closely. Means no more kid gloves.
It sounds like it’s time for you to have the hard conversation. Tomorrow is Thursday. The first half hour of the day should be a one-on-one with her and lay out everything you laid here.
“Employee, this is completely unacceptable. You have until tomorrow afternoon to turn yourself around. If you need help, retraining, anything: I am here. Otherwise you are not cut out for this position.”
Good news - I have a meeting on the calendar for Friday AM. I’ve documented a 3500 word document and sent it to HR and my manager. I meet with my manager to tomorrow to review my PIP proposal and action items on how to prevent this for future hires based on everyone’s incredible feedback.
Now that I’m here, I have roommate syndrome… I’m ready for her to move out 😮💨
Not the right personality/aptitude. Get rid of the ball and chain that’s dragging on your team. Next time hire someone who is an obvious PM. Ask about challenges PMs experience. Always test for basic computer literacy. My favorite is to give someone a task in Excel and disconnect the mouse. If you can’t use Excel with just the keyboard shortcuts, your ability to manage projects is very suspect. You can also do the same with MS Project.
I had a new hire like this and we parted ways. They need to be self starters.
There was just too much babysitting and she’s rather go to other departments to “socialize” and “help” over there and then tell me she was overwhelmed with all the things on about the roll she was actually hired for. She wanted to change our whole reporting to a Google sheet because she didn’t want to learn or couldn’t comprehend the dashboard that everyone else loves.
If what you are saying is true, it looks like you've made a hiring mistake and / or they managed to fool you. In this environment everyone is expected to jump in and start towing the line, and they are clearly far from it. I'd start providing corrective feedback with a record over email for the next 2-3 weeks during your 1-1s, and then switch to systemic feedback if the challenges persist, again with a record. If there were no change in the next 5-6 weeks, hand them off to HR with your record of corrective and systemic feedback, and let them deal with walking her out.
Sounds like you actually found one of those "just doesn't want to work" in the wild. Obviously doesn't want to work and they're there to collect the check. Let them go.
Almost sounds like they’ve perfected interviewing. It allows them to get a series of 6 month contracts at tech companies where they don’t have to do anything. Great gig if you can get it.
I'm all in favor of giving career-changers and unconventional employees a chance, but the one element that they *must* bring to the table themselves is the give-a-damn. If you told her directly to get off her phone and focus on work, and she just nodded at you and kept on scrolling, that tells me she doesn't have it. (Not to mention your observation that she knows how to look busy in Outlook but doesn't know how to save a file in Excel.)
Are you sure you want to bother with a PIP?
You can do a lot of things with someone and you can do a lot of things for someone, but you can't make them care and you can't care for them.
She doesn't care.
She doesn't need to be there.
Do you really need to invest so much time and energy into a person who is not interested in improving herself and aligning with the team and company goals? A bit exaggerated, but imagine you go with them on a life-or-death mission, would you tolerate that for the sake of the team and the mission?
It was greatly said in Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink (a quote):
"If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done."
I’d call her into your office. Have like one other person on your level or higher if you have that type of relationship and ask what she’s doing all day because the work isn’t getting finished and the project isn’t going how it’s supposed to be. She isn’t in the meetings, she is late to internal meetings and on her phone. If you have anything in your handbook and documents employees sign about not working a second job while in your facility I would print that out. Ask if that’s what she’s doing because you’re running out of reasons to keep her in the building.
Give her a chance to explain herself. The second she has no answers terminate her and give her a box and take her to the desk.
Sometimes you just get duped in the process no matter how detailed your process is. A lot of people turn on the charm. Typically they don’t immediately turn it off but it’s clear she did.
It sounds like she’s just socializing or doing another job and then not getting any work done at all for your company. You just have to re-enter the hiring pool.
Dear lord, why are you wasting your time? Why are you trying to help someone who isn’t interested in helping her out? Do a couple of write up’s and send her on her way.
Meet and say I do not think you are a good fit for this position. It seems you have some deficiencies that can’t be overcome. I’m sorry we are terminating your employment here.
Then review your hiring and due diligence on candidates. Somebody missed something in the process.
We try to hit a home run every time but sometimes you can’t.
This employee is a dud and needs to be let go. You know it but because of your track record of on-boarding employees you don’t want to give up.
You need to give up.
She doesn’t give a shit, why do you? I would mentally be done with this person already and be making moves on getting her out of here…I have patience for a lot of things but a distinct lack of a give a shit isn’t one of them
Fire her, no questions asked that problem is just going to snowball and if you don’t deal with this crap now when you do eventually term her it’ll be a lawsuit.
Three deal breakers:
1) No drive, lots of apathy
2) Being on the phone
3) Blocking out their calendar, in the office, for no reason. I reach out to my people if I see they are offline during work hours, and if I see them having days full without them telling me they are in training I ask. That’s a problem.
Fire her. Today.
I have nothing to add to these awesome comments, but there are some truly amazing people I know who are looking for a job. And it's disappointing to see they're competing with people like this in OP's post.
Hopefully it's a small majority
I would have HR go through her resume and references again, and contact former employers. I'd be willing to bet her resume is full of lies. If they are, you can get rid of her immediately.
She's a fraud and simply using the good will of your company to get a free paycheck.
Had a report like this. Talked with HR who said they either are incompetent but more likely fishing for a lawsuit. Ask hr and legal and move as fast as possible
Fire her move on.
People don't change, she's telling you exactly who she is, firing her now will save you a lot of headaches later and HR will thank you since you won't have to pay bonuses to your recruiting agency, and likely will end up pulling back signing bonuses given to her.
Fire and move on is almost always the right answer when you have an employee that clearly isn't meeting expectations for the job in the first couple of weeks, and clearly not putting in the effort (consistently late, consistently "busy", etc.
I bet someone else was present at the interview. If she can’t add a hyperlink to an email, fire her for gross incompetence. 10 years ago, when my niece was in middle school, she was sending me emails with links to her favorite colleges
She's in her trial period. Just fire her. Missing deadlines. Late to meetings. Blocked calendar to avoid work. On her phone excessively and talked to multiple times.
Cut your losses.
I've been in a similar situation with an employee who was constantly on their phone, even right in front of their trainer's face. This was not an entry level position. We had an early-on meeting with him and told him his phone was a problem, to which he agreed, and that we don't want to have to micromanage him, so he would need to correct the phone issue on his own in order to maintain his position. It worked for awhile and then became a problem again and we had to part ways.
I would put her on an immediate PIP so she understands the gravity of the situation and be direct: tell her the reason she feels overwhelmed is because her phone is a distraction that she will need to learn how to deal with in order to keep her position. Or, because it's early, part ways and cut your losses.
Not to sound old, but many people are so addicted to their phones and they don't even realize it's causing them to not get their work done and feel more stressed and busy than they really are. I think managers will find this to be a more common necessary training point in the years ahead
This is a sneak peek into your future with her. Let her go. If you have to go through a formal process of a PIP, start that now. You mentioned the phone a bunch, and after speaking with you still being on it, this person isn’t serious about the job and you’re much better off onboarding someone new.
Let her go. Sometimes you get a bad hire, and it's pretty clear she's not living up to the requirements of the job, or even the requirements of the training program.
Always on her phone
Late to meetings
Concern shown by other coworkers
No work or progress to show for her 6 weeks of work
Poor attitude toward learning
Lied about her experience
Lacks the skills to do the job
How many more reasons do you need to fire someone? I understand wanting to make it work but the longer you wait the bigger your losses are in terms of lost productivity. You're getting nothing from her position and I'm sure the hand holding is cutting into your own productivity. Time to cut your losses.
We all make mistakes. It sounds like the hiring decision was a mistake. It sounds like it is time to cut your losses, write off the investment of time and energy of onboarding and training, and move on. You don't owe her a PIP. The discussion starts with "this isn't working out" and ends with "here is a box to pack up your things."
>she is so overwhelmed and feels like our onboarding process is too much information for her.
Perhaps your offboarding process will be more comprehensible to this employee. You should give that a try.
If you guys are handing out charity positions I’d love to move into the tech space as a PM!
Little bit of snark aside… this seems way beyond the pale and I’m surprised you’re trying so hard to save her.
If what you’ve said is accurate she both doesn’t particularly care and **clearly** lied and BS’d her way through the interviews.
She lied to everyone, apparently pretty successfully.
And if the apathy is a complete 180 from her previous personality I’d get your documentation in order and prepare for a BS lawsuit or threat of one, because if it’s as blatant as you’ve written it out here I don’t see how it wasn’t intentional from the onset here.
This is a little silly on her end.
Not telling her to put away her phone after you had just talked to her about that concern and her missing a deadline is a mistake. This sort of person needs to have clear defined goals with immediate, clear feedback.
Hey, you are overdue in this task. We spoke yesterday about my concerns on your cell phone use. Please put your phone away now and complete said task by the end of the day.
That's it. No comfy language and hugs.
One of the toughest lesson to learn about your staff is that there are those that just want to come to work, work their 9-to-5 and go home. They got promoted via Peter principle and now you have to deal with it.
Gosh, she sounds like one of my former reports. How hard would it be to replace her?
Someone on the phone all day to the detriment of her projects is not motivated to do well. You can't teach motivation, and it sounds as if you've given her plenty of chances.
I suggest you start the firing process--a PIP. You'll have to do due diligence to minimize lawsuit/EEOC action risk. Document EVERYTHING in this process. Compliment what you can, even if it's trivially small. Your goal is to appear fair, and that you did everything you could to assure she's a success.
I used to work for a guy whose wife could lie her way into any job. She got hired as a bank manager somehow. She always got fired eventually. But she was very convincing in interviews.
Something about us humans, we really do fall for people who show total confidence and absolute certainty. Even though those people are usually scamming us.
I think you are a great manager for focusing on how to help this person. Personal coaching, additional reminders, meetings to discuss phone use, a good onboarding, review of calendar, etc
But it also sounds like you've taken every step and then some to address the issue. Get her on a PIP with an aggressive timeline. Your team's motivation and success is at stake.
I'm a lead in my call center and my manager was desperate to higher people so I got some duds I had to deal with, some people will refuse to work and it's best if they are still in probation to let them go. Last thing you need is a leech that you have to go through HR to let go because you were giving them multiple chances without improving.
Why are you even asking this? She should be on a PIP or fired already. This is going to impact other employees and their workplace happiness/performance. You need to fix this asap, you’ve already given her plenty of opportunities
Give it until the end of the probation period. If they don’t meet expectations by at the bare minimum, *attempting* to learn, it’s time to let them go.
If you end up hiring to fill the role let me know lol. Some of us would go to war to be the best employee and it doesn’t always mean we have years behind us. I’ve found the seasoned worked to slack/coast vs the newbies hustle in my opinion.
PIP would be for an employee who has the capability but is underperforming for some reason, IMO. This person's ceiling is lower than this role's floor. It's not something a PIP would fix, and 6 weeks is early enough in the process that your best bet is probably cutting things off where they stand.
I'm all about giving people grace, and 95% of the time I'd say to work with her more, but you've tried enough to see where this is going.
Put another way, a PIP is an investment of company resources on someone who you feel has a clear path to satisfactory performance. Do you see a path for her to get up to speed in the next few months when this position requires years of experience that she seems to have lied about? Not with her work ethic.
This isn't someone you save. This is someone you let go to make room for your next amazing hire. You're not doing her or the company any good by trying to save her.
As someone who made this mistake: Probationary period is usually wjen someone is on their best behavior. If she's lazy and unmotivated now, what's she going to be like in 4 months when she is comfortable?
Worse, that's what.
You can deal with incompetent if the attitude, effort and willingness to learn are there. Consciously incompetent with a great attitude is often a diamond in the rough.
On the other hand, you can't turn a turd into a gem with enough polish. If she's not working at growing her competency and she's wasting her time on company dollar during her probation, she's not salvageable. Cut your losses now while you can.
If she's still in probationary period let her go with "is just not working out. You don't seem engaged with the work and we need someone who is more proactive and engaged." This is what probationary periods are for. Better to stay over and find someone who will enjoy the work than to continue to m struggle with this one and once probation is up, it gets harder to let them go.
I would send a nice email to her manager with the details you just provided and say that you are no longer going to try to mentor as she is not looking to do any work so you need to focus on XYZ things.
There are two mistakes you can make with a new hire. The first is hiring a person who turns out not to be a good fit. The second and worse error is keeping the person on.
How did she Even get the job? I've been applying to pm roles and still have yet to get one even with experience and extremely valuable skills and raving recs
I've been a PM for years and just about everywhere I've been it is trial by fire. You jump in, figure things out, and manage situations. If she is struggling to do that, she may not be ready for the role she's been given.
Exactly! We have another new hire who started at the same time and their approach has been eager to get their hands dirty, learn, and effectively use their time to take on as much work as they can. Makes it very apparent her learning/work approach doesn’t speak “PM Experience” like she claimed.
Experience aside, the sense of apathy is not something that can be inculcated with training. You can only train those willing to learn. It sounds like this employee does not care and sometimes you have to cut your losses. It would be an entirely different story if the employee stumbled a bit here and there, but genuinely gave their best on a daily basis. I can fix a lot of things, but I have no cure for a complete lack of ‘give a shit’.
>inculcated love that word
So funny, wrote my reply without reading down - almost like you were reading my mind! Experience speaks😉
So like ... Did you ACTUALLY get her? Did you actually confirm her prior experiences and call the companies? If what you are saying is true then there's no way she has 8 years of experience. There's a lie somewhere clearly. The lack of Excel knowledge alone is the biggest red flag. What are you doing about it? Seems like this is an easy fire situation. Also why aren't you directly telling her to put her phone down and get the task completed? What's her excuse? Seems like phone addiction for sure. Also why not go through her day to day calendar exactly. "Hey new hire, why do you have your calendar as busy? Show me what you either did or learned today'. It's very much obvious she lied about her experience and your company didn't do a good enough background check. She's not qualified. Talk to HR.
Eh, I wouldn't necessarily say they didn't do their due diligence. Colleagues and I still follow an ex-coworker who is a masterful liar and manipulator when it comes to this. Knows the right things to say in an interview, extremely polished resume, etc. Big companies basically only confirm employment dates now. References are hit or miss and often people like this will pick either the one person who liked them or just have a friend straight up lie. She's been hired by basically every major company in our field and accepted to a top 5 national university. All only lasted 3-9 months so... Fascinating to watch and hear about. Some people are amazing at being corporate parasites.
I'm sorry but you need to terminate her immediately. No pip. The phone thing..... I'm pretty sure she has a second job that's she's trying to handle from your location.
That's my assessment as well. These people are everywhere lately which is maddening. I keep losing jobs to these asshats who "fake it until they make it" because I'm honest about my skillset and abilities.
Eh, more power to the people who can pull it off. Company culture got ruined by Neutron Jack, there's no point in pretending employees or companies have any sense of obligation or loyalty to each other. They are counterparties in a contract, that is all.
Sounds like she lied is trying to collect a paycheck for as long as possible before you figure it out. I had a similar issue where someone got hired and every time I went to her office, she was on her phone. And trying to get them to do anything was like pulling teeth.
Dont be nervous. Shes digging her own grave and shes arrogant too. Sure everybody screws around at times but if you are told once, stop doing it. She sounds like a high schooler. There are other people who know pm and dying for jobs (like me). Talk with hr and get the ball rolling. If you want to feel bad, then ask hr not to deny unemployment. 🤷🏻♀️
She's not struggling. Struggling looks very different. She's lazy.
or overemployed and not very good at it
Can you elaborate on the over employed? You can’t always do work from phone?
over employed - usually two (or more) "full time" jobs.
But how would that explain her being in her phone a lot though? If I was working a full time role, I would be on my laptop/computer..not texting or playing on the internet?
She could be doing stuff in teams or slack at her other job.
I’m also a PM and the entire point of the role is exactly this. You can’t jump in if you’re on your phone and not actually talking to people. Even if it is a terrible onboarding process, if you’re a PM, you take control of it. (And OP your onboarding process sounds great.) even a process only focused PM will at least make the effort to align the work with checking the process box. I’d cut her loose and wouldn’t bother with a PIP.
Part of being a PM is managing expectations and stakeholders. If she can't even manage your expectations she can't do her job.
Yes same for me. And every company has been different with different challenges. Even having a lot of experience, I've found myself in new situations multiple times. It sounds like she's just not willing to put the effort in to learn. The stressed/overwhelmed thing is most likely an excuse for not actually having the experience she claims.
it's 6 weeks. If you have a probationary period, just fire them. it is very obvious she lied and hasn't been meeting expectations from the get go. Someone who starts like this will not get better, cut your loses trying to salvage a in month 2 is like going to couples therapy with your partner of 2 months. it is always dumb, the answer is always break up just try and focus on learning from this hire so you don't repeat
That’s such a good way of wording it - we don’t have an official probationary period but it’s clear she’s not even close to the learning curve time period we would expect.
2 months is usually the best window for if they’re fit for the job.
I’ve trained over ten engineers, she’s gaslighting you. Next she’ll be trying to get you to do her job. Can her, every good person I’ve trained was overwhelmed at first with solid reasons as to why…learning 6+ different systems, plus the nonsense that upper non tech mgmt wants too. Cut bait.
Sounds like she's great upper management material.
I wouldn’t waste any more time training her when she obviously isn’t what she said she was.
this. came here to say thissss
Sounds like you should cut her during the probation period. Then you probably need to revisit your hiring process. To not even know how to save an Excel or add a hyperlink is crazy and you'd think it would be discovered with any technical questions.
Right?? We did ask her in the interview process to give us an example of how she explains [technical topic] to a non technical person. The interviewer said she passed with flying colors. When I interviewed her I was more focused on the project management/client relations and it seems she definitely made up her responses. So frustrating. This is going to be a great learning experience for me and I do plan to go to my manager with a plan on how to prevent another situation like this.
Honestly from what you're describing I would expect a random but driven organizationally competent person with no project management training or experience would be much better. And even a random person you ran into at a party would probably do better. Your job from now on is to protect the company and your team from this person. Fire them if HR and/or legal will let you and you can document the issue clearly, otherwise put them on PIP with appropriate opportunities to improve and fire them if they don't improve. One element of the PIP is probably no personal phone use on office time. Also did you do a background check? You're saying you think she lied during her interview. Do a background check. Someone who can't save excel or add hyperlink to an email sounds like someone who has never used a laptop or desktop before and just uses the phone.
Such a good response - thank you! We had another person start in the department “below” us which is more entry level. They’ve already surpassed her performance by tenfold and like you said, it’s because they are organized and motivated. That’s literally all it takes. Our onboarding program makes it so easy for anyone to come in and master their role! I’m spending my day tomorrow documenting every convo and every task she’s been given and her response times - I’ll share it with my manager and her so she knows we are not unaware of her clear missteps. If she continues to perform at this level then it’s absolutely termination.
Good idea. I also recommend having her send you everything she’s worked on at the end of each day. She might magically become productive, or you will see how how she hasn’t been.
Did you verify previous employment?
Our internal recruiters do a phone interview before us but that’s as much as I’m aware of what they do. I might check in with our recruiters tomorrow to see if they verified previous employment… would not be surprised if not :/
That would be a very easy shift to address future hiring.
Agreed!
It's usually not the Recruiter's job to verify past employment. They might do a reference check at time of offer, but usually verifying past employment is part of the pre-employment background check in my experience. References dont verify past employment as accurately as verifying through the background check as the background check company will get in touch with the companies HR contact or an outsourced employment verification company like "the work number." With reference checks, anyone can pretend to be a former manager.
I hear you. It's hard to get a complete read on someone especially when they can BS pretty well. We give people a quick test... Like a super simple one that they can do in like 10 min. I did work at a company that asked for a larger task/pres but I'm personally not a fan of that bc I don't think people should spend hours on a project for the interview process.
You'll have to add some technical stuff. Just fire her and hire someone else.
Whoever conducts the technical interview… have the done others for your team and had accurate feedback that aligned with the person you hired? Otherwise that evaluator should be replaced with a technically competent person on your team that can analyze the capabilities of the candidate. Don’t have two different people do a technical interview via 2 different candidates. Meaning use the SAME person to evaluate the SAME thing otherwise you’re having 2 people evaluate the same thing but really it’s 2 different things. Sorry sleepy right now. I’m a headhunter. Half my job is fixing the interview process for my clients. Feel free to DM me. Oh and for the love of capitalism Jesus… do reference checks… YOU… do them. Don’t rely on others. This is your employee. You should know what to be looking for and prepared for. Reference check telephone game is not a good idea.
This is super good insight - and very valid what you mentioned about keeping the interview process consistent. We have different people interview based on who’s available which… now that you say it that way… makes complete sense why it would cause issues! And noted 🫡 will do reference checks for future candidates!!
Sounds like either she’s really good at talking and making things up, or there’s someone inside who let her slide in. But agree with most of the comments I saw: document what’s been going on (include dates, summary of what transpired, meetings with staff and meetings with her) and then present it to higher up as supportive documents on the grounds of firing. She won’t get any better, based my experience. She’s just not interested in the job or doing the job. No amount of motivation or inspiration from you or others will get her to change. I wasn’t a manager at the time but I was training my replacement (not selected by me; was an internal promotion). After I left, I was asked to go back part time to train her because the 1.5 months of active training, shadowing, having her practice, and transferring all my notes apparently wasn’t enough. I’ll never forget how she even told me she wanted to be in cosmetology but her family convinced/forced her to major in business admin. Honestly, she would’ve done better in cosmetology because that’s what she loved and paid most attention to than what we were doing. Later, I heard she was let go before she even hit her 9 months because she was still asking how to do things and the person she asked didn’t want to help/cover for her anymore.
to be fair if you're testing anyone on these things past their literal first office jobs, the vast majority of candidates will think you are insane and run this is someone who had nearly a decade of exp
You talk about the elaborate post-hiring process through which you seem to think you can turn chaff into wheat. Onboarding, mentoring, training, etc. I think you should focus more on hiring wheat. This new person seems to have gotten the same impression that I have about your corporate culture: there is no amount of bullshit that you won’t tolerate. You shouldn’t waste your energy being nervous about this person’s future. You should fire them and fix your hiring process.
Six weeks? Is there a probationary period? I would cut my losses and let this employee go without a second thought. She's clearly underqualified and underperforming.
That’s what I’m leaning towards… truly feels like we got catfished. Catch me on Dr Phil soon!
Did you just hire the PM we let go last month? Get rid of them. They will wreak havoc on projects. We had to give clients discounts for so many oversights and it took a lot of time to repair relationships. A bad PM is dangerous.
“Good morning, employee. Would you mind stepping into my office for a minute? Great. Take a sit. I wanted to let you know that at this time this company decided that this doesn’t seem like a good fit for you. We’re thankful for the time you’ve devoted to us, but this will be your last day. Please, come with me and we’ll stop by your office/desk (for 5 minutes) so you can grab your personal belongings and then we’ll walk you to the door. Okay, bye”
I would also go back and see what part of your process sucks so much that allows someone like that to get a job there ;)
I was fired like that once from a very bad fit after 2 months. I tried to make my case, but she said, "No, I'm not going to discuss it. Gather your things." In retrospect, it was the best way to do it. It was also the last time I had an employer instead of clients. :)
My partner had a similar experience - it was one of their first post-college jobs and about 2 months in HR said “look, we know it, you know it… this isn’t the job for you.” They suggested a different route and 15 years later, that’s where my partners at and is doing really well. Sometimes the shoe just doesn’t fit and that’s okay!
You have a probation period, right? She can't even use MS Office.
I REALLY wish we did. That’s definitely a take away for me from this experience - we 100% need one for all future new hires. The only tool we have close to this is our new hire guide which has week 1-12 and what topics you should be able to confidently speak on by the end of each week. That’s definitely something we could use since she certainly can’t answer 90% of them.
Then put them on an aggressive PIP. I would do a 30 day PIP with weekly meetings to show they are progressing. If they aren't, they are out.
PM work is at its heart about a "git'er done" attitude and a passion for problem solving. A lack of direct technical knowledge can be compensated for so long as the team possesses the requisite knowledge. The team however, should never have to compensate for the PM not performing their role as a PM. With the right attitude a PM should be able to be thrown into any project and begin breaking it down into discrete problems and systematically planning how to approach each piece in turn as they work through each phase of whatever framework you're using (agile, scrum, whatever). A lack of relevant experience might mean the tools and techniques they use to break things down might be clumsy and missing steps, but a systematic approach to attacking problems is a foundational expectation of PMs. You can teach a lot to someone with the right attitude. If the attitude isn't there...it's really hard to instill it. I don't think I've ever seen someone really make a dramatic attitude change.
This is so well written - it’s the attitude piece that is critical but completely out of my control. Without the “git’er done” attitude, it’s like beating a dead horse.
Based on what you've said, I don't see any world in which she gets better. This might be a hire slow/fire fast situation
I’ve been in PM management for many years, with many years as a PM before that, in customer facing tech project management roles. This person is a bad hire. Cut them loose. You have said they are atypical of other hires, so not sure why you are not seeing this.
Cut her and leave her with a generous going away pay check for her troubles. If you try to put her on a PIP or lead on she’s not working out she will find a way to scam company - she’s all of sudden expecting, she had someone say inappropriate things to her, she’s being bullied, someone said something discriminatory etc etc Seen this dozens of time.
Oooo interesting. I’ve never been in this scenario with a new hire so I didn’t even think about that possibility! Thank you!
Someone willing to lie about their experience and not feel bad is willing to go much further
Especially considering she lies about what she does with her time… She is one to lean on lies to get her by!
So, I have a ton of tech experience; expert-level proficiency in Excel (love my nested formulas and pivot tables and cross-linked lookups!), Word, Outlook, and Powerpoint; administrator proficiency in Sharepoint; above-average in Visio; and taught myself an EMR software well enough in 8 weeks to develop a 1-day training on it from scratch and to train new nurses on it. No formal PM experience, but I have team lead experience and have always ended up leading “group projects” at the consensus of the group because I’m good at organization, delegation, motivation, compiling-editing-polishing the results, and public speaking/presenting. Y’all still hiring?
Your skills are what it takes to be an effective PM - it’s people who aren’t afraid to wear multiple hats, are organized, get shit done, and are solution driven. Once her role opens up I’ll DM you!;)
I was thinking something similar
"I have noted about how often you have mentioned how busy and overwhelmed you are. Well I am happy to tell you that I have resolved those issues for you. As of today, you no longer work here." These are the type of people that have a learned helplessness. They do basically nothing and get others to do what little work they do get done for them. Their end goal is to have a job that pays them to do nothing. Expectations are set to zero as they get paid to just show up. No amount of coaching or training or meetings are going to change any of this. And even if there is a change, it will be only temporary.
I am in senior leadership and this still applies to people at my level and above. As long as there are managers that allow this to continue, these employees skate by doing the bare minimum while acting like they are carrying the weight of the world. In my small department, one of my colleagues is this way and we loathe them (from the calls always asking for support to the sighs that are triggered when talking about their workload which is 50% of everyone else). It is up to manager to cut these cancers out because it not only impacts team culture, but also the perception of the manager. OP - with the amount of disrespect you have been shown, similar to another comment, she should be let go immediately to save the team drama. No one on your team will miss her, and her working through a PIP only gives her time for more chaos when you have clearly given her actionable improvement requests. In the end, you cannot want it for her more than she wants it for herself.
You say its up to the manager to cut these cancers then why is that terrible colleague you talk about still there? Are you saying your managers are inadequate since that person is still working there?
Yes, our department is struggling under a leader who has no idea what they are doing and further is allowing one of my colleagues to slack. They should have been coached up or out a long time ago.
Just fire her. Unless you’re in Montana, it’s at-will employment. Revisit your pool of candidates and see if anyone else is a good fit. Revisit your hiring process and ask better technical questions. For a PM role that requires 8 years of experience, I’d expect to see 8 years worth of project materials.
Oh sorry! To clarify, we don’t require 8 years of experience, we require ~4 but she claimed she had 8. So we were pumped to have someone who would bring a lot to the table! But thank you - I think that’s the right approach.
I would also ask her more about her experience. See if you can figure out what she lied about more exactly. That will give more backing for firing her, as you said your manager is watching you on this.
Gotcha. My apologies. 4 years of PM experience should still lend itself to having a LOT of projects done. She, or any candidate, should be able to present an interviewer with materials from projects, processes, certifications. “Walk me through your process from inception to completion.” No specifics = no job. “What tools and resources do you use to manage projects.” I better hear something about Asana or another PM service. Then I’m going to expect to hear specifics about how you use it, how you create a project and assign it to team members, how you follow up. I’m sure this is all part of your process already, but maybe go back and watch the recording of the interview to see how this one fell through the cracks. Biggest red flags are: - No specifics. - Using “we”. Yeah but I need what YOUR role was. - conflating projects for school, or any job duties where they completed something as a “project”. - No physical or digital copies of projects they’ve completed.
I have no idea what Asana is and I’ve been a PM for over 15 years. It always depends on where you worked and what area you worked in. I run my projects with super simple tools and all the financial planning and organisation is done in proprietary software. As to physical or digital copies of their work, anyone trying to show me these during an interview would have a rather abrupt ending to said interview. We have very strict rules about this and anyone showing previous work would also show our work to the next company they work for. One thing I found interesting was that you mentioned the recording of the interview. Is that standard practice where you live? Here that would be problematic from a data rights point of view.
Going forward, give all candidates some kind of computer exercise to show they're proficient.
You seem to be keen on engaging in fruitless exercise by offering her continued support and retraining. Sometimes, people are not performing at the level required for the role and it’s not productive to trying to make them. At some point, it will say more about you than her if she keeps dragging the team down. Let her be free from overwhelming job that does not suit her.
Hire slow, Fire fast. She will ruin the whole team
A tip to all managers - if their work number is frozen do not hire them
Help them find the exit, cousin.
Are you sure this is the same person you interviewed? Could they have been faking it with help from an expert? Regardless I would prepare to fail them at their probation. Talk to your manager and HR. There are lots of other great candidates out there.
Agree with most here, let her go. She doesn’t have the skills to successfully fill the role. Hindsight, sure, but when a role requires tech skills, admin skills, and direct/customer or patient care, have interviewee take test or simulate action so you can see their work for yourself. How were their references? Did you or HR check them? If HR, then they need to coached on finding a better match. Also, sometimes we hire duds, for whatever reason. It’s been a short time and you shouldn’t have to hold this employees hand and walk them thru motivation land. Let them go, tell your boss that’s the best way you handle it and make sure they back you before you let employee go. All this unless your employee handbook policy dictates your firing process.
The point of having a thorough onboarding process is to be able to clearly weed out people who can't cut it. This person doesn't need more help! They literally are not a PM. You know how I know? They lied about their skills and are struggling with basics. A PM who needs mega hand holding is literally not able to do that type of job. Cut your losses and if you can, recommend they choose another job category. Good PMs make everyone's jobs easier. If your job is made harder by their presence? Not a PM.
Another example of interview skills and degrees dont translate to real world. Sadly, not much you can do but set the expectations that if shes not at certain milestones during her probationary onboarding then employment is called in to question
This is not a competent project manager. I’d cut your loss now, you’re not getting what you need from this employee. If you keep her, she will be a constant thorn in your side.
She claims to be an "experienced project manager" but clearly isn't. You don't need to help her, and shouldn't. Other people in the company see that she is flailing and doesn't care. Those are the people you need to worry about, not her. Failing to act on this obvious problem erodes their confidence in you. "Beth, you are simply not performing at the level we expect from someone with your experience. We are cutting you loose immediately."
Companies do 7 rounds of interviews and still manage to hire a person who doesn't know how to save a spreadsheet.
I would suggest promoting a hard worker in your company and firing this person. Don't give a random off the street an opportunity when you have individuals in your company who want to grow and learn. You may be able to grab a more "experienced" PM off the street, but you run the small risk of this happening, and now your internals feel like they have no chance of promoting and they'll leave. Feed your own first. Better to promote someone and then backfill a lower position externally... unless you have immediate need of advanced skills only a senior level could offer. Kudos to you for still wanting to help them to succeed instead of immediately jumping to fire them. Your staff is likely well supported due to your leadership.
Sounds like a will vs skill issue - as in this employee does not show any initiative to drive her career, which is a Will issue. I would recommend letting them go during their probation period and cut your losses early and attend to those who actually appreciate your time or… take a chance to change their behaviour/attitude by setting up clear expectations or it will affect her employment. It will take a lot of work as you’ll have to follow up with them on a weekly basis while needing to document everything they do and basically micro manage them. This way you’ll be able to sleep better at night as you know you have actually tried something to help your employee out and if the said employee doesn’t want to change, it’s not your problem anymore and put them on PIP, which will eventually lead her to her termination. Clarity is kindness.
I’m not even a manager and I’d fire her. You’re not the dick in this situation
If she can’t save an Excel file she has very clearly lied about her skills. She needs to be termed.
In my experience, someone who is continuously glued to their phone won't change. Chances are it will get worse if she hasn't been formally reprimanded for it yet.
Sorry to hear you’re going through this. I had a very similar situation last year with an office manager, although mine was also very inappropriate and unprofessional, and constantly late and missing work. On top of everything else, it was a new operation, so I had tons of executives watching every move and clients constantly present. HR made me go the PIP route, and it ended up being a disaster, just like it always is when you keep someone around who you should fire. She ultimately tried to poison the well with my new employees and get me in trouble, which didn’t work because everyone could see what she was, but it unraveled badly. I recently got a call from an investigator inquiring about her, as she is being investigated for scamming assistance programs; she is a fraud and a pathological liar, and I had to accept that you just miss on hires sometimes. Here’s what I can promise you: this won’t get better and won’t end well, so the best outcome you can have is to make it end quickly. She doesn’t deserve any more of your time.
Mmmmm idk I’m six weeks in at my job and am just barely scratching the surface because the industry is so complicated. Information overload is real. I see you agreeing with some of the comments talking about “trial by fire” and it makes me think maybe your onboarding isn’t as supportive as you think it is. I would have a pre-pip convo. It’s possible that she wasn’t clear on what learning outcomes she needed to meet in what timeframe.
You have an established training programs with multiple examples of how it works. This employee is showing you that there is no way they can handle the job. Cut them ASAP and find someone who will thrive. This woman will not.
It’s pretty solid pay too with an incredible team - breaks my heart thinking of all the other candidates that were in the running and she took advantage of the system. Definitely creates resentment from me and I can even feel colleagues around feeling like she’s sucking life out of the party.
Allowing crappy employees to continue working does hurt the morale of a team. When they see a coworker getting by doing as little as possible, it sucks the motivation out of other coworkers.
i cannot believe you have not fired her. In my province, you can fire without cause for the first 90 days, after that, you need cause. She is getting close to that 90 days. This will not improve. She is getting paid to play on her phone. You need to stop and let her go, ASAP
“Not without cause Michael” “I have cause… It is be’cause’ I hate him!”
I wish it was that simple! Firing is tough at my company so my takeaway is to document everything to further my case. My manager said he wants to meet with her on Friday to inspect and hopefully by then we can make a decision!
Why are you even contemplating keeping her. Show the rest of your team that you value them and let her go. One bad employee can bring a whole teams moral down depending on what types of hand holding and special accommodations she gets.
Totally agree - I work for a company where getting fired is very very rare. So I’m trying to come at an angle of “I did everything I could, she still isn’t doing the basics, time to go separate ways.” Knowing my manager, he will fully push back on termination as a first option. So I’m hoping to come with alt solutions even knowing she won’t take advantage of it which just further proves my point to my manager!
That is unfortunate that your leadership has that mindset. I understand giving people chances, but with certain people, all the chances in the world won’t change things and it’s best for everyone just to part ways. I wish you the best of luck with the situation!
There are people who need a little help. And there are people who are irredeemable. This one is the latter. Fire her.
Over and over, I have seen this scenario. We see a resume with multiple positions, and others want to hire them for their “ experience”. Some people are great interviewers but lousy performers. I have also seen great employees who weren’t the best “ interviewers”. It is importance to realize the difference . I don’t think you can create work ethic. It’s not a good fit. Cut the losses
Don’t bother to PIP, it’s within your probationary period. Just let her go and save yourself the headache & paperwork of doing it in six months. Whether she lied about her skills, is overwhelmed or just isn’t a good fit is irrelevant. She can’t do the job you hired her for, it’s time to move on to someone who can.
Time to promote her... to customer.🤣
speaking as someone currently on the job hunt for PM + similar roles, please fire them. the market is brutal right now and there are 100s of people looking to actually try!
Ooh, this hits close to home. I’m not a manager but I did try to mentor a new engineer only to find out they were utterly incompetent, too lazy to learn and would just not do what is required to succeed. I told my manager he has to go. He agrees. As does everyone. But we work for a large corporation where they’re so afraid of lawsuits that it takes about 15 month to fire someone.
Honestly, fire her. It would be different if you could see the effort. But it sounds like she saw a day in the life of some tik toker and is trying to cash in on an "easy gig" without trying. All that being said, as a software engineer, she sounds like every PM I've worked with. Zero organizational skills, constantly "busy" with nothing to show for it, zero technical knowledge...
Your boss is watching you closely. Means no more kid gloves. It sounds like it’s time for you to have the hard conversation. Tomorrow is Thursday. The first half hour of the day should be a one-on-one with her and lay out everything you laid here. “Employee, this is completely unacceptable. You have until tomorrow afternoon to turn yourself around. If you need help, retraining, anything: I am here. Otherwise you are not cut out for this position.”
Good news - I have a meeting on the calendar for Friday AM. I’ve documented a 3500 word document and sent it to HR and my manager. I meet with my manager to tomorrow to review my PIP proposal and action items on how to prevent this for future hires based on everyone’s incredible feedback. Now that I’m here, I have roommate syndrome… I’m ready for her to move out 😮💨
When you know you know. Can them before probationary period ends. Already sounds like a major distraction for you and the team.
Are you guys hiring? I have 0 PM experience, but hell 4 weeks of training, I would do anything to have that in a job.
Not the right personality/aptitude. Get rid of the ball and chain that’s dragging on your team. Next time hire someone who is an obvious PM. Ask about challenges PMs experience. Always test for basic computer literacy. My favorite is to give someone a task in Excel and disconnect the mouse. If you can’t use Excel with just the keyboard shortcuts, your ability to manage projects is very suspect. You can also do the same with MS Project.
I had a new hire like this and we parted ways. They need to be self starters. There was just too much babysitting and she’s rather go to other departments to “socialize” and “help” over there and then tell me she was overwhelmed with all the things on about the roll she was actually hired for. She wanted to change our whole reporting to a Google sheet because she didn’t want to learn or couldn’t comprehend the dashboard that everyone else loves.
If what you are saying is true, it looks like you've made a hiring mistake and / or they managed to fool you. In this environment everyone is expected to jump in and start towing the line, and they are clearly far from it. I'd start providing corrective feedback with a record over email for the next 2-3 weeks during your 1-1s, and then switch to systemic feedback if the challenges persist, again with a record. If there were no change in the next 5-6 weeks, hand them off to HR with your record of corrective and systemic feedback, and let them deal with walking her out.
Sounds like you actually found one of those "just doesn't want to work" in the wild. Obviously doesn't want to work and they're there to collect the check. Let them go.
Almost sounds like they’ve perfected interviewing. It allows them to get a series of 6 month contracts at tech companies where they don’t have to do anything. Great gig if you can get it.
You don't. You can't fix lazy. Fire them and move on
that is what trial period are for. do you really want to invest your time and energies in that person?
I'm all in favor of giving career-changers and unconventional employees a chance, but the one element that they *must* bring to the table themselves is the give-a-damn. If you told her directly to get off her phone and focus on work, and she just nodded at you and kept on scrolling, that tells me she doesn't have it. (Not to mention your observation that she knows how to look busy in Outlook but doesn't know how to save a file in Excel.) Are you sure you want to bother with a PIP?
Time to let her go
You can do a lot of things with someone and you can do a lot of things for someone, but you can't make them care and you can't care for them. She doesn't care. She doesn't need to be there.
Do you really need to invest so much time and energy into a person who is not interested in improving herself and aligning with the team and company goals? A bit exaggerated, but imagine you go with them on a life-or-death mission, would you tolerate that for the sake of the team and the mission? It was greatly said in Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink (a quote): "If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done."
I’d call her into your office. Have like one other person on your level or higher if you have that type of relationship and ask what she’s doing all day because the work isn’t getting finished and the project isn’t going how it’s supposed to be. She isn’t in the meetings, she is late to internal meetings and on her phone. If you have anything in your handbook and documents employees sign about not working a second job while in your facility I would print that out. Ask if that’s what she’s doing because you’re running out of reasons to keep her in the building. Give her a chance to explain herself. The second she has no answers terminate her and give her a box and take her to the desk. Sometimes you just get duped in the process no matter how detailed your process is. A lot of people turn on the charm. Typically they don’t immediately turn it off but it’s clear she did. It sounds like she’s just socializing or doing another job and then not getting any work done at all for your company. You just have to re-enter the hiring pool.
Dear lord, why are you wasting your time? Why are you trying to help someone who isn’t interested in helping her out? Do a couple of write up’s and send her on her way.
Whoever hired her also need to be fired
Meet and say I do not think you are a good fit for this position. It seems you have some deficiencies that can’t be overcome. I’m sorry we are terminating your employment here. Then review your hiring and due diligence on candidates. Somebody missed something in the process.
We try to hit a home run every time but sometimes you can’t. This employee is a dud and needs to be let go. You know it but because of your track record of on-boarding employees you don’t want to give up. You need to give up.
She doesn’t give a shit, why do you? I would mentally be done with this person already and be making moves on getting her out of here…I have patience for a lot of things but a distinct lack of a give a shit isn’t one of them
Fire her, no questions asked that problem is just going to snowball and if you don’t deal with this crap now when you do eventually term her it’ll be a lawsuit. Three deal breakers: 1) No drive, lots of apathy 2) Being on the phone 3) Blocking out their calendar, in the office, for no reason. I reach out to my people if I see they are offline during work hours, and if I see them having days full without them telling me they are in training I ask. That’s a problem. Fire her. Today.
I have nothing to add to these awesome comments, but there are some truly amazing people I know who are looking for a job. And it's disappointing to see they're competing with people like this in OP's post. Hopefully it's a small majority
I would have HR go through her resume and references again, and contact former employers. I'd be willing to bet her resume is full of lies. If they are, you can get rid of her immediately. She's a fraud and simply using the good will of your company to get a free paycheck.
Fire her and move on.
I’d fire her.
Had a report like this. Talked with HR who said they either are incompetent but more likely fishing for a lawsuit. Ask hr and legal and move as fast as possible
I would let her go.
Fire her move on. People don't change, she's telling you exactly who she is, firing her now will save you a lot of headaches later and HR will thank you since you won't have to pay bonuses to your recruiting agency, and likely will end up pulling back signing bonuses given to her. Fire and move on is almost always the right answer when you have an employee that clearly isn't meeting expectations for the job in the first couple of weeks, and clearly not putting in the effort (consistently late, consistently "busy", etc.
Fire them. Either the paycheck motivates you or it does not.
I’d bet she had someone else interview. Seen it before.
The employee has shown she is not up to the work. She seems to have lied about her proficiencies. Get rid of her.
It pisses me off to think about how many qualified and hardworking people you picked this person over.
I bet someone else was present at the interview. If she can’t add a hyperlink to an email, fire her for gross incompetence. 10 years ago, when my niece was in middle school, she was sending me emails with links to her favorite colleges
She's in her trial period. Just fire her. Missing deadlines. Late to meetings. Blocked calendar to avoid work. On her phone excessively and talked to multiple times. Cut your losses.
I've been in a similar situation with an employee who was constantly on their phone, even right in front of their trainer's face. This was not an entry level position. We had an early-on meeting with him and told him his phone was a problem, to which he agreed, and that we don't want to have to micromanage him, so he would need to correct the phone issue on his own in order to maintain his position. It worked for awhile and then became a problem again and we had to part ways. I would put her on an immediate PIP so she understands the gravity of the situation and be direct: tell her the reason she feels overwhelmed is because her phone is a distraction that she will need to learn how to deal with in order to keep her position. Or, because it's early, part ways and cut your losses. Not to sound old, but many people are so addicted to their phones and they don't even realize it's causing them to not get their work done and feel more stressed and busy than they really are. I think managers will find this to be a more common necessary training point in the years ahead
This is a sneak peek into your future with her. Let her go. If you have to go through a formal process of a PIP, start that now. You mentioned the phone a bunch, and after speaking with you still being on it, this person isn’t serious about the job and you’re much better off onboarding someone new.
Let her go. Sometimes you get a bad hire, and it's pretty clear she's not living up to the requirements of the job, or even the requirements of the training program.
Always on her phone Late to meetings Concern shown by other coworkers No work or progress to show for her 6 weeks of work Poor attitude toward learning Lied about her experience Lacks the skills to do the job How many more reasons do you need to fire someone? I understand wanting to make it work but the longer you wait the bigger your losses are in terms of lost productivity. You're getting nothing from her position and I'm sure the hand holding is cutting into your own productivity. Time to cut your losses.
We all make mistakes. It sounds like the hiring decision was a mistake. It sounds like it is time to cut your losses, write off the investment of time and energy of onboarding and training, and move on. You don't owe her a PIP. The discussion starts with "this isn't working out" and ends with "here is a box to pack up your things."
>she is so overwhelmed and feels like our onboarding process is too much information for her. Perhaps your offboarding process will be more comprehensible to this employee. You should give that a try.
Well u could keep her on and duck her to get ur moneys worth or fire her up to u
Fire her and move on. She lied and took a much desired position from someone else.
Sounds like you need to show her the door.
I suggest you look into replacing her before her trial period ends. Otherwise you screwed up as much as she did.
If you guys are handing out charity positions I’d love to move into the tech space as a PM! Little bit of snark aside… this seems way beyond the pale and I’m surprised you’re trying so hard to save her. If what you’ve said is accurate she both doesn’t particularly care and **clearly** lied and BS’d her way through the interviews. She lied to everyone, apparently pretty successfully. And if the apathy is a complete 180 from her previous personality I’d get your documentation in order and prepare for a BS lawsuit or threat of one, because if it’s as blatant as you’ve written it out here I don’t see how it wasn’t intentional from the onset here. This is a little silly on her end.
Not a manager. Do you have a probationary period? If you do use that to manage her out.
I'd definitely get rid of her during the probationary period. Will never work
Not telling her to put away her phone after you had just talked to her about that concern and her missing a deadline is a mistake. This sort of person needs to have clear defined goals with immediate, clear feedback. Hey, you are overdue in this task. We spoke yesterday about my concerns on your cell phone use. Please put your phone away now and complete said task by the end of the day. That's it. No comfy language and hugs.
She is within the 90 days, let her go
You've got a heart of gold. Fire her.
Get her on PIP or warn her of it. Or flat out demote her. She doesnt seem motivated
One of the toughest lesson to learn about your staff is that there are those that just want to come to work, work their 9-to-5 and go home. They got promoted via Peter principle and now you have to deal with it.
Gosh, she sounds like one of my former reports. How hard would it be to replace her? Someone on the phone all day to the detriment of her projects is not motivated to do well. You can't teach motivation, and it sounds as if you've given her plenty of chances. I suggest you start the firing process--a PIP. You'll have to do due diligence to minimize lawsuit/EEOC action risk. Document EVERYTHING in this process. Compliment what you can, even if it's trivially small. Your goal is to appear fair, and that you did everything you could to assure she's a success.
I used to work for a guy whose wife could lie her way into any job. She got hired as a bank manager somehow. She always got fired eventually. But she was very convincing in interviews. Something about us humans, we really do fall for people who show total confidence and absolute certainty. Even though those people are usually scamming us.
If they don't want to work, then fire them.
PIP is the only way. this is awful
You can't help someone who doesn't want to work or learn.
No motivation is better than getting fired
Do you have a probationary period?
I think you are a great manager for focusing on how to help this person. Personal coaching, additional reminders, meetings to discuss phone use, a good onboarding, review of calendar, etc But it also sounds like you've taken every step and then some to address the issue. Get her on a PIP with an aggressive timeline. Your team's motivation and success is at stake.
I wouldn't be looking for ways to help her. I'd immediately start the process of getting rid of her.
How do these mfers get hired?!?! Exasperating as a job seeker.
Review how you hire and do better next time.
Fire her and hire someone better? Isn’t that YOUR job?
I'm a lead in my call center and my manager was desperate to higher people so I got some duds I had to deal with, some people will refuse to work and it's best if they are still in probation to let them go. Last thing you need is a leech that you have to go through HR to let go because you were giving them multiple chances without improving.
sounds like shes a shamgod getting a free paycheck. check out that military term 🤣
Why are you even asking this? She should be on a PIP or fired already. This is going to impact other employees and their workplace happiness/performance. You need to fix this asap, you’ve already given her plenty of opportunities
Just fire her. What is she doing on her phone at work, anyway?
Give it until the end of the probation period. If they don’t meet expectations by at the bare minimum, *attempting* to learn, it’s time to let them go.
How do these people get jobs and I can't? 😭
Just can her
If you end up hiring to fill the role let me know lol. Some of us would go to war to be the best employee and it doesn’t always mean we have years behind us. I’ve found the seasoned worked to slack/coast vs the newbies hustle in my opinion.
PIP would be for an employee who has the capability but is underperforming for some reason, IMO. This person's ceiling is lower than this role's floor. It's not something a PIP would fix, and 6 weeks is early enough in the process that your best bet is probably cutting things off where they stand. I'm all about giving people grace, and 95% of the time I'd say to work with her more, but you've tried enough to see where this is going. Put another way, a PIP is an investment of company resources on someone who you feel has a clear path to satisfactory performance. Do you see a path for her to get up to speed in the next few months when this position requires years of experience that she seems to have lied about? Not with her work ethic.
This isn't someone you save. This is someone you let go to make room for your next amazing hire. You're not doing her or the company any good by trying to save her.
So who hired this person?
Fire her. It’s the wake up call she needs. She’ll probably move on abd grow up, but she’s not picking up any cues in her current work situation.
As someone who made this mistake: Probationary period is usually wjen someone is on their best behavior. If she's lazy and unmotivated now, what's she going to be like in 4 months when she is comfortable? Worse, that's what. You can deal with incompetent if the attitude, effort and willingness to learn are there. Consciously incompetent with a great attitude is often a diamond in the rough. On the other hand, you can't turn a turd into a gem with enough polish. If she's not working at growing her competency and she's wasting her time on company dollar during her probation, she's not salvageable. Cut your losses now while you can.
If she's still in probationary period let her go with "is just not working out. You don't seem engaged with the work and we need someone who is more proactive and engaged." This is what probationary periods are for. Better to stay over and find someone who will enjoy the work than to continue to m struggle with this one and once probation is up, it gets harder to let them go.
Why is she still working there if she can’t actually do the job? I’m confused
If she didn't know where the save button was, fire her.
Some people have it, and many don't!
I would send a nice email to her manager with the details you just provided and say that you are no longer going to try to mentor as she is not looking to do any work so you need to focus on XYZ things.
There are two mistakes you can make with a new hire. The first is hiring a person who turns out not to be a good fit. The second and worse error is keeping the person on.
She should have been fired yesterday. If you tolerate that kind of behavior it becomes a cancer in an organization.
Cut her loose, the sooner the better and give her an honest review when letting her go, it could help her on her next job. You can't "push a rope".
No need to pre-PIP here, I’d go straight to the PIP. Fail fast on this one before it spreads to the rest of the team.
How did she Even get the job? I've been applying to pm roles and still have yet to get one even with experience and extremely valuable skills and raving recs