I’m inheriting an employee who causes chaos wherever they go

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

What do I do about a staffer who has a history of personal drama and blurring professional boundaries who’s about to be added to the department I manage? According to a number of people I know who have worked with “Lee” over the past couple of years, while Lee is okay at their basic day-to-day job responsibilities, they are a bringer of discord on a personal level wherever they go.

A year and a half ago, they were let go from a supervisory position within another organization for sexual harassment. Lee is late 30s and their former workplace had a lot of young 20-somethings just learning professional norms. Apparently, Lee often invited these coworkers out to pub trivia and other social gatherings outside of work. As their supervisor, Lee gave many of these staffers weekends off (not the norm for these positions in our industry), made some positions full-time that were traditionally part-time, and ignored or even encouraged some general bratty behavior among their workers. According to multiple colleagues I know from this organization, Lee truly mismanaged their staffers, creating long-lasting institutional problems. Eventually one of the young employees met with management, said that Lee had made some comments that made them uncomfortable, which led to realizations that the problems extended well beyond one or two ill-chosen remarks. Before Lee could be formally fired for sexual harassment (it was going to happen), they landed themselves a position within my organization, which didn’t bother to call references or check in with their former employer.

I have now been informed that Lee is being moved to my department. Apparently there have been “issues” within their current one. It seems Lee invited coworkers out to socialize after hours and one of their partners (they’re in a polyamorous relationship) ended up hooking up with the partner of a coworker. The coworker and their partner initially broke up, then got back together. That staffer is understandably less than comfortable around Lee, but apparently most of the other people in that department have thrown their hands up about having Lee and their personal drama in the building. It seems Lee just keeps blurring those boundaries between work and personal life wherever they go and has a knack for stirring up drama. Rather than deal with any of these issues head-on, upper admin has decided it’s best for everyone if they simply move Lee.

My department has a really good group of staffers, we work well together, and I don’t want to see things thrown into dysfunction. What should I do? Speak to upper admin and tell them Lee is chaos we don’t want? Pretty sure they don’t care and will park Lee here no matter what. Warn all my staff ahead of time, saying, “I can’t tell you what to do with your free time, but if you socialize with Lee and their friends after hours, you’ll be sorry”? Lee technically wouldn’t be supervising anyone in my department, but they would be mid-level rather than entry-level, which means that they would be senior to our younger workers. How do I handle this situation?

Well, you can try pushing back on the placement of Lee in your department. Who knows, if you lay out your concerns (Lee created long-lasting institutional problems at another organization, was on the verge of being fired for harassment when they quit, and apparently caused problems in your organization as well), it’s possible that you’ll get some traction.

But if that doesn’t work … then congratulations, you get to be the one who manages Lee! For now, at least. And I think it can be done if you keep an eye out for problems and are assertive about addressing them quickly and directly. If anything, you’re ahead of the game compared to their last manager, because you already know the history and you know what to watch for, and so you’re likely to spot problems faster and be able to act more swiftly. That’s a big advantage. (Speaking of which, talk to the person who’s been managing Lee and find out if there were problems beyond the dating drama so that you know exactly what you need to be watching out for.)

As for the risk of your team being thrown into dysfunction, it sounds like there were two big problems with Lee at their last organization: they were a terrible and unfair manager, and they were harassing people. They’re not going to be managing people on your team, so that cuts out a huge chunk of what went wrong previously. On their history of harassment, this is a good time to review with your team what harassment is and how to report it, to make sure people feel safe doing that, and to make a point of watching things closely and checking in with people about how everything is going.

I would stay away from warning your current staff not to socialize with Lee after-hours. It’s undoubtedly good advice, but it’s overstepping for a manager to do that, and it’s also not fair to Lee to come onto a new team where their manager has already warned people to avoid them.

But what you can and should do is to talk to Lee when they first arrive about the culture on your team and your expectations for how everyone will conduct themselves. And then you should keep a very close eye on how they operate. If you see anything that seems off to you, address it immediately — naming what you saw, why it’s a problem, and what Lee needs to do instead.

Again, you have an advantage because you know the history; with a new employee who was an unknown quantity, you’d be more likely to extend more grace over seemingly small things and potentially second-guess yourself about whether something was truly a problem or not. With Lee, you already know what you’re watching for, and you’ll know to address it right away rather than waiting and observing the way you might do otherwise. You can keep them on a short leash from the beginning, which might short-circuit problems before they grow — and will let you act decisively if it turns out you need to.

Basically, embrace and use your authority to say, “Not on my watch.”

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