Combative employee
I’ve been a manager in my current role for close to 4 years with the same team. One of my direct reports was inherited. He started off as a strong employee and in the last two years he’s been cynical, lazy, defensive and combative.
We are a remote organization and he shows away on teams for hour+ multiple times throughout the day. You send him a message he’ll respond and go back to say. He’ll have tasks that should be relatively quick and those end up taking days. I’ve had to add multiple meetings daily with him to touch base and make sure critical tasks are being completed. He ultimately does get his work done and done decently well however it’s like pulling teeth and at a snails pace.
Beyond that where I think the real issue lies is his attitude. He’s been combative with vendors, partners, team members and even myself. I even had one vendor tell me they stopped emailing him and only go through me due to the way he responds to them.
You ask him a simple question or follow up and he’ll respond condescendingly and in a defensive tone without answering the question at hand. I even spoke with him about his tone and how he speaks to people and he responded that he doesn’t get why people can be combative with him and he has to bite his tongue and not be combative back. It’s a completely warped reality where he thinks people are coming for him constantly where it’s the exact opposite.
He even told me that people come after him to prove his data wrong but he always proves them wrong (it’s simply people asking questions).
I’m at wits end with him, he makes the job miserable for myself and others. My boss wants me to apply the pressure on him and meet more for performance but honestly his character is a cancer and even if he performed better I wouldn’t want him around. My boss says it’s tough as an organization to get approval to let someone go so he isn’t letting me pursue that avenue.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated to improve this situation.