[Gregoriy]

I had a team of 10, two of them are remote, we recruted a third person, we work 40 hours a week, usually more or less flexible. We have recruted another person, after 6 month of work with him i have noticed some strange delays, like take too much time to respond etc, we work in pretty much relaxed environement so it was not visible very much. After a quick search i have found his freelance account and proposed him to do some job, he agreed and did so during his active working hours, double pay, how do i suppose counter that ?

[GuB-42]

Fire him, obviously.

But that's an interesting example. The guy is doing a poor job, so if you want to be impartial, you should fire him for not meeting your expectations.

But it is natural to understand why he is doing a poor job. I mean, maybe it is just a temporary personal issue (ex: sick kids), or maybe just not his fault (ex: task more complex than expected, broken IT, etc...). Or maybe he needs training. It is fair to fire him without trying to understand?

Unfortunately, one possibility is dishonesty, as it is the case for your employee. And that's when surveillance comes in. You can flip the argument of "accept monitoring or get fired" around in favor of the employee as in "you are doing a poor job, normally we would fire you for that, but it may not be your fault, so if you allow us to make sure of that (by monitoring), we will try to find another solution".

Of course, it can and is often abused, but it is not black and white.

[TeMPOraL]

> You can flip the argument of "accept monitoring or get fired" around in favor of the employee as in "you are doing a poor job, normally we would fire you for that, but it may not be your fault, so if you allow us to make sure of that (by monitoring), we will try to find another solution".

An interesting parallel to ankle bracelets (also mentioned in the article). As a form of punishment, it's the justice system's way of saying, "you're doing a very poor job as a citizen, but we don't think it would be fair to put you in prison for it, so if you allow us, we'll impose some lesser restrictions and monitor your adherence, to make it easier for you to improve your behavior".

No country on the planet forces everyone to wear ankle bracelets by default.

[krisdol]

He’s not performing well at work and you found out without any extra surveillance. I mean you didn’t even need to find his freelance gig, it seems irrelevant to what you should do.

[nabla9]

Does he still get his work done? Not far behind others?

Maybe you pay him too little.

Maybe you should offer him additional contract pay. More he does, more he gets paid.

[Gregoriy]

We do not underpay anyone and have really transparent salary policy, at the end i talked to him and he just wanted to have double pay, but not able to fit two job into the schedule. I can find a solution which satisfy everyone in most cases, but i need to know in advance all the information, i have discovered in the worst possible way here.

[rambambram]

Exactly how you already did that. IANAL (although I studied law), but my take is you have proof for a case here.

[cyberlurker]

Does he get his work done? Is he providing value? If yes, don’t worry about it.

[wdb]

Or the employee does this work in its own time. Assuming he is employed full time.

[loloquwowndueo]

Fire him? :P

[Gregoriy]

I see it as a fail at both sides, i mean we could find a solution before that last measure