my employee lied about meeting with a client

A reader asks:

I caught my employee skipping work to nap at home when she said she was meeting with a potential client. It was total happenstance; I happened to meet the potential client at a social event that night. When I asked my employee the next day why the client had no idea who I was or what our company did, the truth came out: she hadn’t met with anyone, she’d gone home to take a break and a nap. She apologized for lying, but said she’d been feeling burned out and was struggling with seasonal depression. She is my top performer and best employee all around, and we are coming off of our busy season, so a little burn-out is understandable. She volunteered that she had done something similar twice before in her six-year career with us, but I don’t know if I can trust her accounting of it — we were in a meeting about her lying, after all.

I can’t quite determine how big of an issue this is. She lied about the meeting and who it was with, and she was likely prepared to lie about how it went, if I hadn’t caught her before we had a chance to debrief. We meet with a lot of potential clients, many of whom never pan out, so I don’t know how I can trust her going forward when she says she has one of these meetings. But, on the other hand, she is consistently our best performer and doesn’t just meet her goals — she exceeds them. If she’s able to do that while occasionally taking siestas, is it really my business? But if she’s lying about where she is … Ugh, this is the loop I’ve been in for two days. Help!

(Perhaps helpful: we have good, but not exceptional, PTO. It’s not a culture where people take much time off, though I frequently encourage my team to take as much time as they need. This employee takes time off for doctors’ appointments and vacations, so I know she’s aware of the policy.)

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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