Nightmare co-workers - should hands be washed and the person left alone? (work, how to)

[samston]

There is a trainee in our team who joined in November 2009, and well.....his performance thus far has been less than stellar.

Granted, people pick up on things differently. That is to be expected. But the problem is that he does not respond to advice or counsel, and shows the same negative patterns continually. It basically boils down to this:

- He makes excuses as to why he doesn't complete work on time. And frankly nonsensical excuses too. One time he said he couldn't finish a task in the afternoon since he had a heavy lunch and felt tired.

- He had a picture of a half-naked woman on his work laptop screensaver, and he caused a stir when one of our female co-workers saw it (it was even placed

I don't manage the team, but it is becoming tiresome to bear now. And all of us have even set him a task, and showed him the skills to achieve it, but apparently he failed miserably in it. Our plan was that after the task, we evaluate his performance and suggest improvements.

It sounds as if we are being harsh on him, but in honesty I reckon he has some kind of psychological problem causing this. It sounds harsh to say, but he doesn't act rationally most of the time.

I am in two minds now whether to aid him, since he has taken none of our advice on board. What would you do?

[kodaka]

You aren't communicating your expectations or the consequences of failing them well enough or consistently, so you need a PIP.

You may also need to talk to HR. If he has a learning disability or other medical (physical or mental) condition, that would be confidential and you aren't entitled to know the details or even general information, but HR may be able to help you figure out how to work around the problem.

[zitsky]

I suggest the OP proceed carefully. You mention that you are not this person's supervisor. Have you spoken with the supervisor (is it your boss) and what did they say? If you have concerns, you should be bringing them up confidentially with your/his manager. I hope you are not getting together with your coworkers to discuss his performance. That doesn't seem appropriate.