Sending out an SOS - key employee with mental disorder
legaladmin43
19 Posts
My superiors have a paralegal they have been considering promoting to attorney status in our office. This required some committment from our office in allowing her time to study and to pay for various fees associated with the bar examination. All along, I have been questioning the wisdom in this decision as this employee clearly exhibits signs of some kind of mental disorder, including issues with control and anger management. She also has been unable to forge any kind of relationship with any one in the office except with the one other employee in this office with anger management issues... birds of a feather...
Almost from the beginning of her employment, I have fielded complaints from clients and staff regarding her rude and condescending behavior, her irrational tirades in front of others, and her intentional disregard of office protocol. She has been spoken to about these incidents and typically she denies the facts. Unfortunately, because of her skills (and how many times have we heard this.... sigh...) I have not been authorized to fire her.
I have staff who have refused to work with her because of what they perceive to be abusive treatment. I have personally taken this employee to a seminar on Emotional Intelligence; however, she ultimately decided the point of the seminar was not that SHE had to change, but that everyone else was mistreating her and the seminar was giving her tools on how to cope with them... In fact, the seminar speaker made a point of speaking to me personally about this employee and asked what could she do to help...
In a most recent incident, she refused to do the work of an associate, who is above her in the organizational chart, and has in fact accused him of berating her and yelling at her. She ordered him out of her office and when he insisted on continuing to speak to her and resolving the issue, she ran into the bathroom. This associate is now concerned about being alone with her in any office because he feels she seems to be intentionally provoking him and he is worried she is going to accuse him of even worse harassment. This associate has a good history with our firm and no employee has ever complained about his behavior - very respectful and thoughtful with the staff, clients and other attorneys.
My advice to my superiors is this individual is not going to change and furthermore, is not motivated to change. Making her an attorney in this office is not going to solve any of her behavioral problems and in fact, gives her even more incentive to be condescending to the staff. I also believe she will be a poor representative of our firm, which has an excellent standing in our community. I have been asked to find out if there is some special way to deal with these types of individuals to get them to improve their behavior i.e. is there some way to salvage this situation? A class in dealing with difficult people (and I have taken one) does not address this person's inability or refusal to communicate reasonably with others.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated before I become the one with the mental health issue!!!!
Almost from the beginning of her employment, I have fielded complaints from clients and staff regarding her rude and condescending behavior, her irrational tirades in front of others, and her intentional disregard of office protocol. She has been spoken to about these incidents and typically she denies the facts. Unfortunately, because of her skills (and how many times have we heard this.... sigh...) I have not been authorized to fire her.
I have staff who have refused to work with her because of what they perceive to be abusive treatment. I have personally taken this employee to a seminar on Emotional Intelligence; however, she ultimately decided the point of the seminar was not that SHE had to change, but that everyone else was mistreating her and the seminar was giving her tools on how to cope with them... In fact, the seminar speaker made a point of speaking to me personally about this employee and asked what could she do to help...
In a most recent incident, she refused to do the work of an associate, who is above her in the organizational chart, and has in fact accused him of berating her and yelling at her. She ordered him out of her office and when he insisted on continuing to speak to her and resolving the issue, she ran into the bathroom. This associate is now concerned about being alone with her in any office because he feels she seems to be intentionally provoking him and he is worried she is going to accuse him of even worse harassment. This associate has a good history with our firm and no employee has ever complained about his behavior - very respectful and thoughtful with the staff, clients and other attorneys.
My advice to my superiors is this individual is not going to change and furthermore, is not motivated to change. Making her an attorney in this office is not going to solve any of her behavioral problems and in fact, gives her even more incentive to be condescending to the staff. I also believe she will be a poor representative of our firm, which has an excellent standing in our community. I have been asked to find out if there is some special way to deal with these types of individuals to get them to improve their behavior i.e. is there some way to salvage this situation? A class in dealing with difficult people (and I have taken one) does not address this person's inability or refusal to communicate reasonably with others.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated before I become the one with the mental health issue!!!!
Comments
I think you are correct. Her attitude will not improve. It will worsen by A) being affirmed through promotion and
She sounds like a ticking time bomb...
Our office is often a complicated mess of egos so rationale thinking is sometimes not part of the HR equation.... however, as her behavior has escalated more of the partners are realizing my assessment has been correct. I think they are concerned that they must try everything to make this work to stave off a potential lawsuit. Document, document, document, I say...
Paul, thank you for affirming my thoughts on this matter. I always appreciate your insights. The partners have taken advice, opinions, etc. from this forum seriously in the past.
I used to live in your neck of the woods... Ashland and Medford, OR to be exact, and would make trips to the coast every summer.
Just curious, is this employee aware that she is being considered for promotion? Hopefully not...
To make matters worse, I suspect her supervising attorney has revealed to her he believes she will make a better attorney than the attorney she has been targeting with her accusations.
If I knew HR was going to be this much fun today, I would have worn my party hat!
Termination is being considered; however, her supervising attorney is out at the moment and we have to get his input.... I am hoping he has come to his senses. Any suggestions as to how to speak to someone who clearly doesn't want to hear what you have to say? I have terminated employees in the past but they usually know it is coming. A couple, despite numerous warnings, were still stunned. However, this is my first possible termination where I anticipate a completely unreasonable and perhaps frightening response. I intend to have one of the partners present as a witness.
To term now while an actual promotion is being considered without a "big event" to justify the sudden change in direction sounds troublesome to me.
I see your point, Paul... Come up with a plan of action for improvement for this employee, with a review date, saying the promotion is contingent on improvement in these particular areas and then see where we go. I suspect the improvement will only be temporary as I believe she simply cannot help her emotional outbursts, but at least we will have paved the way to a good defense.
Otherwise I agree with your points about making sure the other angry employee is being dealt with in a similar manner and being careful about making any statements about the individuals mental health, especially now that the ADA includes "percieved" disabilities.
As to being too busy to be abusive, my guess is she will still find the time.
The other "angry" employee had been spoken to in the past and has made such great strides in managing his anger management issues to the point it is no longer an issue in our office. I believe he thinks he can counsel this one individual - sort of mentor her through what he perceives to be a problem similar to his own, which is why he has befriended her.
Speculation about this employee's mental health has only been made behind closed doors with partners "with a need to know" and only in an attempt to decide whether or not this situation is salvageable. I have worked extensively with Social Security clients with mental disabilities so while I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, I find her behavior very similar to other clients with personality disorders (who, as she does, often perceive that they are not the ones with the problem, but the world at large is...) Should she be terminated, any speculation regarding her mental health status would not be brought up - only her performance issues.
The only reason her mental health has been raised is because we have so often found her responses irrational to normal situations that there is concern we should be working with her in a different manner so as to be better able to communicate with her - to get her to understand that she is responsible for her behavior and that there will be consequences - something she seems to be failing to understand. From this discussion, I can see the mixed messages we have sent have certainly contributed to an exacerbation of the underlying issue.
I understand the point about perceived disabilities - however, if one of the criteria of your job is to have good interpersonal relationships, would a "perceived" disability have to be accomodated as she is unable to perform one of the essential functions of her job?
Good luck!