our employee retired … but now she won’t leave
This was originally posted to Ask A Manager
Original Post Aug 22nd, 2023
Our employee, “Fiona,” decided to semi-retire after 20 years of working with us. She asked to reduce her hours and work mostly from home, which was approved. Since the start of her official semi-retirement date, however, she still comes to work almost full-time. Fiona hasn’t asked to go back to her full-time salary and would likely decline even if this was offered. She said she hates being at home and prefers to come into the office. I think she’s working at a slow pace and tending to non-urgent tasks.
The issue is that we’ve hired Sally – with Fiona’s blessing – to replace her. While Sally hasn’t said anything, I would feel weird about taking over a role of someone who’s supposed to go on semi retirement but is still coming to work every day. Is this situation potentially problematic or should we leave Fiona to do what she wants?
Update Apr 17th, 2024 (8 months later)
To summarize what happened after my letter was published:
Boss reminded Fiona to work part-time only.
Fiona complied reluctantly, blaming Sally (her replacement) for this arrangement.
Fiona gradually increased her own working hours back to full-time. When asking other coworkers for their work failed, she made extra tasks like creating unnecessary reports or copying documents by hand writing instead of printing.
Even though Sally officially took over Fiona’s role, Fiona continued to monitor and criticize Sally’s work. She refused to hand over certain jobs to Sally and insisted on doing these herself.
Boss eventually let Fiona go. She received a month’s notice and a large retirement package.
Fiona tried to continue to work after her employment formally ended. She monitored shared files remotely, emailed clients, asked another employee to submit his work for her to “check,” and requested updated passwords on sensitive documents.
When her access was promptly cut off, Fiona contacted me privately to say she was upset at this disrespectful treatment of her, Sally’s supposed incompetence and rudeness, and being let go when she wanted to keep working full-time. I wished her well and otherwise didn’t respond to her long rant.
I directed our team strictly not to engage with her over any work-related issues.
I do wonder if Fiona will reflect on her own behavior after time passes and realize she was the main contributor to the problem. She could have continued to work part-time as initially agreed if not for all these issues.
This was a bizarre experience. Sally, however, is doing great.
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