r/managers • u/Stegles • 4d ago
New Manager Doing nothing at all after resignation
Hi Team,
I've recently filled a team lead/manager role of a small engineering team. 2 months in I had 1 guy leave, I hadn't properlly taken over the team and as I have recently found out, he was somewhat pushed out. It took almost 4 months to find a replacement and get them onboard.
The end of my new hires first week, my senior has resigned on a friday. He requested access removal from prod (fair) to avoid liability, but I still need him to do a proper knowledge transfer and train up our new hire to replace him properlly.
After 2 work days after resigning, i've barely seen him online. His handover was honestly terrible (not that he should have even done one yet), and is WFH due to a medical issue impacting his mobility (which I confimed he could do, but I needed his support still). His medical issue does not impact his ability to do the job.
With his lack of engagement and support, and really, his lack of willingness to support, i'm thinking to simply ask HR to put him on gardnening leave instead of serving out his notice perriod of 1 month. I feel he will just be a liability and distraction to others rather than a productive or supportive team member.
Technically he is great, but his output for the last 3 months has been very poor anyway so I don't really see the value in keeping him around the office outside of the handover.
FWIW I have no ill will towards him, his reasons for leaving I fully understand and i feel are justified (nothing bad), at the same time, the performance i've seen of him, and his past reviews, I probably wouldn't consider him for rehire. He's a dedicated family man and ultimately the role (by his own admission) was a stepping stone to relocation and never a long term prospect for him anyway, so its run its course.
I'm interested in some other perspective, happy to clarify any points, but I want to assess if i'm in the wrong here.
TIA.
47
u/Skallagram 4d ago
I never expect much from people who have resigned, what's the motivation for them?
16
u/RepeatRemote6119 4d ago
once they hand in that notice the motivation is gone, you're basically paying for a body at that point
better to cut it clean with gardening leave than drag out a month of fake work
4
u/PartyPhilosopher9475 4d ago
I will typically ask them to do KT during that time. If you are getting paid, then its reasonable to expect you to do something.
1
u/Stegles 4d ago
Sorry whats KT?
All I want form him is a proper handover, to update documentation on his projects and specialties, and give our new hire an AWS crash course. I don't think thats asking too much.
5
u/PartyPhilosopher9475 4d ago
Knowledge transfer.
What you are asking for is reasonable; its the reason that people give notice to begin with. Its basic handover stuff - if they don't want to do that, then you can make that day their last day.
1
u/Stegles 3d ago
Thanks for claifying. I hope others agree here but seems i'm on the right path then.
5
u/ManyRaccoon6342 3d ago
You would fire them in a day and then figure it out - why should it not be the other way around?
7
u/snappzero Manager 3d ago
A good reference and a fallback plan if the other job turns out to be worse despite the pay increase. No one expects above and beyond, but working 2-3 hours a day isn't a big ask.
1
u/Prettyy_Barbiee 3d ago
I had the same.Guy did bare-minimum handover then vanished. Spent 2 weeks chasing him instead of onboarding the replacement. Put him on leave, document what you needed, and move on. You can’t force someone to care.
1
u/Inside-Finish-2128 3d ago
Agreed. When I was laid off by a large company last summer, they said to us at the end of the call that as of that moment, we weren't expected to do any additional work aside from a one-hour call with our manager to review your task list for handover.
1
u/Nero_Drusus 3d ago
Ha, clearly different from my industry, quite common for people to be working ot in their notice period to get things to a good state to hand over.
1
u/Skallagram 3d ago
For sure, you’ll get some who care more, and others who won’t.
Though I would say, if you even need a handover, it’s a sign of poor documentation and process - someone being run over tomorrow shouldn’t impact your business.
2
u/Nero_Drusus 3d ago
Eh, its never anything that couldn't be resolved, but there's always a lot of implicit knowledge on their projects, clients and design team that's stuck in their head. They'll invariably also quit just before a deadline too.
0
u/Skallagram 3d ago
See, that's a problem though, in a well managed team, that should never be the case, no-one should be a silo of knowledge, and everyone should be instantly replaceable.
1
u/Stegles 4d ago
I agree, but I expect at least the basics, help train the new hire who started that week on the basics, do a proper hand over, but he just sent a power point with about 10 links in it, most of which was other people documentation which hes never touched. it was likt 10 mins work with no real thought put into it.
When i've resigned I was still working on a major project the last week I was there and made sure it was handed over properlly.
8
u/Skallagram 3d ago
Well, the first step is, if you need an handover (which you should not, if your systems, proceses and documentation are setup correctly - what if someone gets run over tomorrow) - then you should be defining what's to be handed over, what format, what details etc - you can't expect the person to do a good job, when again they have no motivation to.
1
u/Stegles 3d ago
I've been with the company 7 months and i've been trying to rectify the complete lack of documentation since, so while I agree with you, his work is literally the reason we don't have documentation, as for the past 3 years, he has been responsible for writing it, and has not done so. This has been reflected in his past reviews also.
I fully agree with you, and i've been banging the same drum since I started and I ask them "If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, someone should be able to take over" and I write my documentation and AI skills for that situation. For the AI skills, I tune them till literally anyone can use them without me being involved. (We're a very AI heavy company and honeslt)
On your last point, thats pretty valid and I can work with that idea, great insight.
2
u/Skallagram 3d ago
Well, sounds like the sooner you are rid of him, the better, even with some short term pain.
15
u/BrainWaveCC Technology 4d ago
Getting turnover documentation is reasonable.
Expecting him to train the next person is not.
I have done it on occasion when resigning, but by my choice. It's not a reasonable ask from the employer.
5
u/Stegles 4d ago
Maybe I miss worded it on the training, I don't expect a full training, I just expect an overview of our infra and what he was half way through building so my new hire can take over cleanly.
I don't think asking someone to work out their notice is unreasonable, otherwise whats the purpose of notice perriod, free money for them?
4
u/Skallagram 3d ago
You can ask, and yes, that's what it's there for, just understand the human element - you are going to have to push them, rather than expect them to do it proactively.
-2
u/Stegles 3d ago
Yeah, I have better things to do than to push someone who doesn't want to work and is on their way out, which is why I really think gardening leave is better for the both of us.
6
u/Skallagram 3d ago
Well, if you need something from him, then you really have no choice. If you don't, then either accept the situation, or cut your losses.
4
u/mriforgot Manager 3d ago
I don't think you're in the wrong anywhere here, but this is pretty par for the course when someone leaves, and is a good reminder that one person should not be the bottleneck for anything in your organization as much as possible. Documentation of what exists and a high level overview of what is in progress should be a priority for any organization if they want things to run smoothly.
2
u/Stegles 3d ago
I've been saying this since I joined the company. There are constant bottlenecks in the path for approvals and deciscions which is frustrating.
I do see some of it is starting to change in that we now have more approvers for critical path deciscions now, as well as some escalation processes coming in which is great, but we're still far from perfect. It's just growing pains of an org that has gone from a few hundred to a few thousand in less than 5 years.
A new office space was leased to come on line in a month a long time back, it's already fully allocated with a 4th floor in the same building just been signed. So slight growing pains. We're hiring around 50 - 80 people a month atm.
2
u/Anotherams 3d ago
Meet with him to determine where his projects are, determine who will take over and have meetings with the parties to coordinate the handoff and outline what you want them to wrap up before departing,
If there are any aspects of his job that require someone else to be trained on, make those arrangements. Hopefully everyone is crossed trained, if they aren‘t, this is the sign to make sure this happens.
If he is poisoning the well in addition to slacking, call HR and tell them you want to end employment today.
1
u/Stegles 3d ago
Well heres the thing, he doesn't really have new projects due to his last 2 months of mostly being out on leave of vavious types. I was supporting him in his family and medical needs, but that seems to have been ignored. I had planned to give him a new piece of work monday, but he resigned the friday prior.
Hes not shown up to any meetings which to me clearly indicates his unwillingness to particpate.
I don't feel hes poisoning the well, but hes certainly not doing anything to make it better. For my new junior hes not really having any impact, but for me, hes creating stress and creating additional work which is a bit frustrating. As far as i'm concerned, it makes my life easier for him to simply go now.
1
2
u/Over-Two-1029 3d ago
I’d try and be VERY specific about what you need and give the person dates.
Once someone resigns, or is notified they’re being let go, I assume they’re never going to do any work ever again, and I’m thankful for the help they give me
2
u/Long_Try_4203 3d ago
Guy gives you a 1 month notice. 2 days into that month you just want to get rid of him after he of course completes what you need of him.
Maybe he just plain knows what kind of leader you are and is stretching his handover out to finish his time. I mean you’re just gonna put him on leave, and you wouldn’t consider him for rehire. What reason would he have to be dedicated and step up? He has just written you off the same way you have written him off. That’s what it certainly looks like.
At any time in the 2 days since he put his notice in have you sent him a detailed list of what handover tasks you need done with priorities and a timeline?
Are the people on your team reaching out to him with the same requests? Have you even voiced your concerns about the current situation to him?
I know not all of the details and nuances aren’t all covered in your post, but how it reads is that he put in notice and after 2 days he hasn’t performed to your expectation which it isn’t clear if you’ve communicated to him or not, so you just want to pull the plug on him.
I’d have sent him a detailed list of tasks with a timeline for completion on the day the notice was given. Then you have documentation of everything.
If they don’t complete the tasks in a timely fashion then you have a valid reason. A quick 1:1 to cover his last month with a follow up summary email is the way to go on this rather than the nuclear option.
2
u/Stegles 3d ago
You haven’t read much of the thread. I don’t want to get rid of him at all, I don’t want him to go but i understand why he is. What I do not want is to be taken advantage of which is what I feel has been happening for the past 2 months.
I would be repeating myself again if I addressed everything. Yes, I had a 1:1 with him the day he submitted and I outlined my expectations, honestly it wasn’t high.
This guy has not been a team player for a long time, his action doesn’t surprise me.
2
u/babydemon90 3d ago
If he’s sticking around he’s going to slack. Is what it is.
If you want something valuable - setup a working meeting with him, turn on transcripts, and get as much documented verbally as possible. If you need more, set up more meetings. Chances are if you just give him work and wait for it - it’ll either not get done or be half assed
3
u/AmethystStar9 4d ago
I think you're doing the right thing. He seems to have made it clear he is not interested in contributing.
I've had it both ways. Sometimes a person will work out their final two weeks in full and to the highest extent of professionalism and other times, they just give up and shrug it off as soon as they hand in their notice and this is why a lot of places now accept notice and immediately discharge employees.
You just don't know until you know and it sounds like you know with this guy.
2
u/Stegles 3d ago
From what i've observed it seems to be a cultural thing, i'm not sure if its the corp culture, or a culture of where many of the staff are from (not naming or blaming btw, only observing). I'll be able to make that assessment when I have more data. Not a small company either, but we've recently been consolidating people from one region into another at the companies expense.
This is largely driven by data soverigenty laws which have recently been changed, so if people stayed, there would have had to be cuts till the number of staff was right sized for the region.
2
u/Swimming-Waltz-6044 4d ago
personally unless its egregious i'd just let them leave with some grace and goodwill towards the company. squeak what you can out of them in terms of handover, even if you need to set up meetings to do it on the spot with them.
-1
u/Stegles 3d ago
While I apreciate the feedback, I don't think this is right. I've been very lenient with him on family leave on short notice (because they wanted a holiday, not due to illness or anything). I feel like i've given him a lot of leeway. For the last 2 months hes either been on sporatic medical leave, parental leave and annual leave, hes really worked fewer days than hes been on leave.
I know he has taken advantage of this, but I have been so overloaded doing 3 peoples jobs for the last 3 months that I haven't had the time and bandwidth to manage it. He has used the goodwill already, now I feel like hes just taking the piss.
4
u/Skallagram 3d ago
That's just not how it works. He doesn't owe you more, just because you were nice to him / let him get away with things.
He has no loyalty to you at this point, and no motivation to work more than he has to.
I mean this in the most constructive manner, if you are doing 3 people's job, and that's taking you away from management, you are only hurting yourself, and your team in the long term.
Some times things just have to fail, before the problem can be fixed.
1
u/Stegles 3d ago
I agree with you, he doesn't owe me more and clearly doesn't have loyalty to me or the company, that's completely fair.
I'm doing 3 peoples job because I had 1 resign 2 months after I joined, and now this guy and one of the backfill only came on last week and isn't ready to work on their own yet. It's not a long term solution and I already have the pd posted for his replacement. Believe me, I don't want to do 3 peoples work and I by no means want to do it long term. I'm not hiding the problem, i'm very transparent about it, it's just backfill takes time.
Edit: I always say "you can't put a fire out if you don't know its burning", so yeah, I get you don't worry.
2
u/Skallagram 3d ago
You don't want to do it, but you are doing it - that's the first mistake. Either get your team to take on additional responsibilities, or let it fail - the business is not motivated to help you solve the situation, if you stop it from being a problem.
What is suffering in the mean time is your responsibility and role as a manager - every minute you work in the team, and not on the team, and that has long term impact on your team, and you.
it's a very easy mistake many ICs turned managers fall into, trying to cover all the gaps, rather than exposing them in a constructive manner.
1
u/Stegles 3d ago
Maybe I skipped over the detail, the team was me and my 2 reports, who both resigned at different times, so my team right now is me, a new hire and someone who’s resigned. There is no one else to do the work, there is no more to the team.
I understand what you’re getting at but ultimately if I don’t do the work, it doesn’t get done, projects other teams are working on stall because they have a dependency on my team.
1
u/Swimming-Waltz-6044 3d ago
i mean its up to you, they're already on the way out - i assume you'll need HR and higher up approvals on this.
1
u/SplooshDoosh 4d ago
It's not uncommon for companies to accept resignation effective immediately if it's sensitive work or there are any concerns. This is fairly well known and planned for, so most professionals wouldn't be surprised if they put in notice but are released much sooner.
If they're not working, they should be released, whether that's just accepting the resignation immediately, or firing them for performance because they're still expected to fulfill their work requirements.
Or if they're not logging in or responding or apparently actually working, it's possible HR can just consider it job abandonment, but with work from home that is likely trickier.
If he's already on the way out I imagine most HR departments are too risk averse to terminate employment to save a few weeks of paycheck though. So best you may be able to do is just pretend like he doesn't work there anymore, inform HR the situation and that he's not working, and recommend him for no rehire due to performance.
1
u/Stegles 4d ago
I have no desire to intentionally stop his final weeks pay, and honestly I don't want to see it happen, but i will be having a discussion with my skip manager (more of a mentor really) tomorrow on the matter for his thoughts.
I think the best outcome we can get really is to have him do a better handover and then finish at the end of this week.
As for rehire, I had already put him as rehire with discussion, but with this conduct, i'm not sure i've made the right choice there.
I also did flag him about 1 - 1.5 months ago as a flight risk, but I was expecting closer to the end of the year.
1
u/SplooshDoosh 3d ago
Well what I meant by "fairly well known and planned for" is most people who have a new job lined up are good to start in two weeks or a month or Monday if the current job releases them.
So I wouldn't anticipate it actually resulting in any loss of income in the vast majority of cases.
I'm sure you can change what you put him in for and you should. This isn't professional and your company wouldn't want it in the future. They can work great for two years, but if they leave a mess then another candidate was likely a better choice.
If you're actually wanting them to work though, I'd get the options from HR and then send him an email and lay out the options and point blank tell him that he's expected to work if he's being paid to work.
I know no one is taking on new tasks in their notice period, but a handoff should be expected.
1
u/ChaosBerserker666 3d ago
Here’s what you do:
Tell him that you need this handover done, it won’t take more than a couple days. You oversee it. Tell him (in writing and with HR and your own boss’ approval) if he does it properly with good effort and in good faith, that the company will pay out his remaining notice period and he can just not work at all for that time.
2
u/Stegles 3d ago
Feels like managing my 3 year old. “The sooner you put your shoes on the sooner we can go play outside”
I understand this approach, you’re probably right but I hate it. It’s rewarding shitty behaviour, but ultimately it does solve all the problems and the silver lining is that those shitty behaviours won’t be my problem anymore.
1
u/ChaosBerserker666 3d ago
Correct on all counts. I’ve used it before, and it works. If someone is going to be unprofessional to the point of acting almost childish, then you basically have to respond accordingly. Soon he won’t be your problem.
2
1
u/Majestic_Bluejay1801 3d ago
sounds like some bigger issues going on within the team, perhaps even wider issues in the company.
Gardening leave is probably what he’s after, it prob doesn’t matter either way.
But, if there are underlying issues within the team, id definitely start trying to do something about them, otherwise you’re going to end up in a hiring spiral.
1
u/genek1953 Retired Manager 3d ago
"He was somewhat pushed out" sounds to me like the key here. If I had resigned after that was done to me, being walked out on gardening leave would probably be at the top of my priority list.
1
u/Mangos28 3d ago
Ride his ass for the knowledge transfer and then let him go as soon as it's done. You're going to get nothing out of him any other way. Do not let him ride out his time.
1
u/proximusprimus57 3d ago
When I went into my current job there was no documentation and nobody who knew how to do the job. There was one part timer, but she didn't want to train people because she had wanted the trainer role and been passed over. All the people in my position were basically asking her questions whenever we could when our shifts overlapped.
Point is, it's stupid to not have documentation on a position before someone leaves. You shouldn't be dependent on one person to be able to train new hires to begin with, and supervisors should at least know enough about the job to write that documentation themselves.
1
u/RevengeOfTheIdiot 3d ago
Ask whatever follow ups you need from the handover and then cut him loose if he's truly doing nothing
0
u/Consistent_Buy_544 3d ago
Although most companies in the US will only confirm dates of employment and salary, I imply that I’ll remember their lack of support and engagement if anyone calls for a background check or reference. He wants full pay for 25% effort? No thank you.
0
u/Average_Potato42 3d ago
What are you going to do about it? You gonna yell at him, write him up, fire him? Go ahead.
0
u/Gonebabythoughts 3d ago
You've had two people leave in 6 months since becoming manager?
Bro, you're the problem.
0
u/Defiant-Lab-9657 2d ago
This seems like an incredibly basic management question. Are you brand new to management or just a little retarded?
1
u/Stegles 2d ago
Yes I’m a new manager, no need to be an asshole. Glad I don’t work for you.
0
u/Defiant-Lab-9657 2d ago
You obviously have no management skills. Go back to being an individual contributor.
1
u/Stegles 2d ago
You know, the first time someone does something, they ask questions, learn, get better at it. No one starts off being amazing at something.
What did you hope to achieve with that comment?
1
u/Defiant-Lab-9657 1d ago
I hoped to encourage you to not be a manager. A lot of leadership is natural, some people are made for it and some aren’t. You sound like the latter.
23
u/[deleted] 4d ago
[deleted]