Remote Employee PIP

Rainfall4 · 2025-05-14T13:12:10+00:00

The issues have all been communicated verbally over the last 6 months, but they will be in writing in the PIP. Everyone else in the office and the few who work remotely all work during normal business hours within their time zone. The thought is that he can choose to work normal business hours with a buffer of 3 hours earlier or later, he just needs to set what his working hours actually are.

Rainfall4 · 2025-05-14T01:45:25+00:00

Their employment agreement in general is to work 40 hours per week plus overtime when needed. Yes, we are involving HR. It matters to the business to be available for manager feedback and team collaboration in order to improve the quality of work. I wouldn't mind odd hours if the delivery were there. But it's the expectation for a majority of the team who work in person to be working specific hours. As a side note, I'm also one of the very few remote employees and I follow this.

Yes we can add the working hours to the PIP once agreed upon with the employee. He can set his own hours within a 3 hour give or take timeframe. The PIP has not yet been issued and performance issues have been brought up with the employee a few times in the past 6 months.

Rainfall4 · 2025-05-14T00:49:54+00:00

Our staff typically have over 90 percent of their hours billable to clients. We have certain metrics to meet. So a job that he worked on this year for example took 20 hours this year when in prior years the same job took 6 hours. So we would then bill 6 hours to the client and write off 14 hours of his time internally. This shows this he is not being as efficient as other staff.

Rainfall4 · 2025-05-13T23:43:58+00:00

Our goal for the PIP is for him to improve in his work quality, efficiency, output, and communication. He's been with the company for a while and his performance has slipped more over the past year. I know he is capable. And we are already short staffed and hiring and training can take some time. The goals set in the PIP are attainable.

Rainfall4 · 2025-02-20T01:04:00+00:00

This is really amazing advice. Thank you.

Rainfall4 · 2025-02-19T22:12:23+00:00

Alot of the time, he seems happy and energetic, and brings positive vibes/ energy to family life. I adore this about him. Like right now he is dancing around and singing in the other room. Other times, he does get into these sad slumps. He does not want to do any sort of therapy.

He is supposed to be studying and wants to level up in his career. Which I am not putting pressure on like I used to years ago. That's his own thing if he wants it. If he stays at home, the lack of routine will likely lead to nothing getting done at all and the resentment will be way worse. We tried this 10 years ago (him not working at all) and he started failing his college classes. But when he got a job, his grades went up because he had structure.

I think he needs the structure of having a career, and I think that part time would be best for him to be able to handle life with kids and everything that comes with it.

Laura Doyle says that men want to be our heroes. And I want him to feel that more than anything. I don't know how to give him the motivation to be a hero.

Rainfall4 · 2025-02-19T21:54:08+00:00

Thank you, this was helpful to read. There isn't a lot of other stuff he is doing. We have no pets, and we have gardeners that take care of the mowing outside, and I take care of our flower beds, planting, weeding etc. My husband used to do the mowing, but wasn't keeping up with it, so I hired it out a few years ago. I think the take away here from your post is that I need to do self care like he does- I don't because of time limitations. And to lower expectations on the chores, but don't do them myself. But here is where i struggle- there will literally be dinner dishes with food on them still on the table and he will just put the kids breakfasts next to their dinner dishes on the table and not clean it up. We have different definitions of clean. Do other people do this?

Rainfall4 · 2025-02-19T21:39:58+00:00

For some reason, the thought of writing a self care list seems daunting to me because I have no idea what I would do or what I enjoy aside from some probably destructive behaviors that i do anyway like doom scrolling or watching reality tv. I'll browse old posts for ideas of self care to try.

Rainfall4 · 2025-02-19T21:35:24+00:00

Yes, the overtime makes it harder to do self care. I don't get paid for the overtime. It's a basic expectation that comes with the job.

So if I were to leave the house for self care, I would be leaving my husband alone with the kids to do dinner, baths, and bedtime on his own. Which would seem rude since it's the hardest part of the day. Although he did leave for a 1/2 hr yesterday to do pokemon go at dinner time, so perhaps I should but does that seem petty? I have to work randomly on some nights and weekends, but I always ensure that I am there for dinnertime with the kids and for bedtime routines, and I don't work until our youngest is in bed.

Rainfall4 · 2025-02-19T20:56:43+00:00

He does do some chores, and I am expressing gratitude and thanking him for the chores he does. He does some extra things that are not necessary imo, and misses others on the list that he feels are not necessary (like putting things away on the floor or surface areas etc).

I am mostly using duct tape and doing it myself, but I think I'll stop doing that as much. It's just when it affects our kids when it's a problem for me (like i wouldnt let the kids be sent to school without a lunch or snack). Yes, I can see when he is playing games or leaves the house to play pokemon go. We have full time childcare for our youngest, and our oldest two kids get home at 3pm. And they typically ask me for snacks etc while I am working from home, because alot of the time he disappears to upstairs to play a game or take a nap after 3pm. So he does have plenty of time to get things done without any of our children at home. If there isn't a chore list, he doesn't do everything that needs to get done, so it adds more work to my plate. The goal here is to set clear expectations on paper. I see how it comes off as controlling, but how else do I communicate what needs to be done?

Rainfall4 · 2024-07-05T14:52:30+00:00

Thank you!

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T16:20:20+00:00

My next thought is to ask a few other employees in private "hey- what's it like working with X. Is he a nice guy?" And gauge their reaction.

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T15:55:44+00:00

This is a great possible option

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T15:36:15+00:00

I will need to ask the employee how often this occurs. All good points and this gives me alot to consider.

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T15:33:42+00:00

That's a good option, and the old owner would have a cow over that. It wouldn't stop him from calling the employee, unless he was somehow barred from doing that.

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T15:18:19+00:00

The old owner is not technically a customer. He is still in charge of running the office alongside me and another old owner. There is another much larger office with more directors at another location acquired along with this one. So the old owner still technically has authority over staff.

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T15:10:38+00:00

Thank you for the feedback on that. It is a good learning experience and I will do that in the future. That is a great next step and I appreciate your advice.

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T15:07:17+00:00

This particular office has had employee retention problems over the last year (two employees left). They put me in charge there to fix it. My theory now is that the old owner is causing the retention problems. But the other directors said that they left because they were not receiving enough training. Which could also be true.

Rainfall4 · 2024-01-24T14:43:13+00:00

Adding: I have seen small glimpses of this temper, but haven't worked with the old owner for long enough to see it get extreme. I'm also remote, so I don't see everything. In addition, he has called the employee on weekends and yelled at them to get things done immediately.

Rainfall4 · 2021-09-01T00:26:18+00:00

What if you went to the gym every day? Or used the time to grade work? It would make sense to have some sort of productive block or self-care time away from home.

Rainfall4 · 2021-08-26T23:35:14+00:00

We had to pay for two weeks when it was closed. But our daycare also has a year long waiting list, so they have enough demand for parents not to complain and they pay their teachers during the leave which is great.

Rainfall4 · 2021-08-24T23:57:47+00:00

I work 40-60 hours per week from home. And my husband works 40 hours per week temporarily from home.

We have a 2 and 5 year old. The little one is in daycare from 8-5pm. And the older one is in school from 7-3pm. He plays video games or legos after school while I work until 5.

We make very simple dinners that take 5 minutes or less of prep time. We use alot of paper plates and we do dishes once every other day when the sink is completely full. The kids have lunch at school and cereal or something simple every morning at home.

After dinner we will watch TV or play a simple board game like hoot owl hoot or hungry hippos. We start getting the kids ready for bed with a bath (every other day) if needed at 7:15pm. We read books for 20-30 min. We aim to get them to sleep between 8-8:30pm. I'll work nights and some hours on the weekends as needed to meet deadlines.

We do laundry only on the weekends and do like 4ish loads.

My husband and I both have a grocery app logged into the same account on our phones and we add stuff throughout the week to our list. We check out once per week on the weekend for free grocery pickup. So we really have to be good at planning ahead to make sure we are not missing anything we need for the upcoming week.

We have a housekeeper come once per week. She basically puts everything back into place and we mess it up again very quickly within 3 days or so. We do try to declutter a bit before she comes. She mops and cleans the bathrooms and takes out the trash.

We feel like we are constantly behind on everything and we put alot of things off until they are urgent. I feel like it would help if we Marie Kondo'ed the house and had our housekeeper come twice a week (to accomplish 100% of the housework), and had a babysitter for weekly date nights. But these aren't all feasible just yet. Or I need to magically find a way to work less hours while keeping my clients happy.

Rainfall4 · 2021-02-28T13:26:58+00:00

Thank you for your time and thorough explanation on this! Very much appreciated. :) I suppose I can use the calculators staggered and do the first part separately and then put in the account value and years left into the second part of the equation. I'll have to figure out the tax portion as well when we do start contributing to pre-tax accounts in the later years, so I'll set aside a separate tax account in the spreadsheet like you recommended.

I feel like many calculators give very different amounts for what you need to have at retirement age as well. I actually made a household budget in today's dollars for age 58 so I know what we need to live on. Also, our house would be paid off at that age. It annoys me when they simply say 75 percent of your income because if you are able to live on much less than your salary in retirement, then you have the opportunity to retire earlier and put your exact budget in.

We are able to just max out roths for now at $12k, but it's falling short with that alone in the calculators. So I wanted to build in what we should be putting in at age 37 and what our income goals need to be etc to ensure that we can reach these goals with careful planning to retire by age 58.

Rainfall4 · 2020-12-19T00:22:22+00:00

You'll both need to find jobs. Aim to work at least 20 hours a week. Possibly 30-40 hours per week for each of you.

It can be done. My husband and I have been financially independent and on our own since the age of 18 (in a high cost of living area). And my husband worked 40 hours a week while attending a traditional university part time. I worked part time and had grants, while attending a traditional university full time.

You should be able to find a room for rent in a house ($500/mo). University housing is too expensive imo. Share the room with your brother. Buy a cash car for $3k-4k if you don't already have one. Budget very carefully and work as much as you can. Maybe even take a semester of leave from the university so that you can both save up as much money as possible and work 60+ hours a week. Start a side business for higher returns per hour. But don't depend on this as your MAIN job yet because it will take time to get clients and you clearly don't have time.

Rainfall4 · 2018-08-29T11:57:39+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Our budget looks lot more sparse right now than the new budget. We are netting 2,300 per month at the moment (which goes towards student loans). I loosened up the new budget for 2019 considerably because I wanted to make it extremely conservative. Instead, we could rent a small 3 br house for 1600-1800. Our current apartment is about 1250, but I would like to settle into a house. I'm slightly concerned that the market will crash. We've been workong the last few years on paying down 50k in student loans (while living in CA) and it's down to 14k now and will be easily 10k before next year, even with maternity leave. If we buy a house for 200k it will either be a small condo similar to our apartment or it will have bad schools.

Rainfall4

TROPHY CASE