How did you handle this situation?

There is a person in my team, who is currently on the last leg of a special performance assessment. The special performance assessment was necessitated because the annual performance evaluation cycle, found him to be in the bottom of the pile.

He is, unfortunately, not a good performer and has trouble completing some of his basic tasks. His previous managers have experienced some issues in his attitude as well – he apparently feels that he should not be working with “ordinary” science graduates when he has a PG degree.

The main issue I face with him is his attitude of a different kind – lethargy. Here is someone who has been informed that his performance is not of a satisfactory level; that he needs to improve drastically; that he is being put on a separate path where his work would be evaluated more closely.

Yet, his approach hasn’t really changed. He is still working the same way as before. In normal circumstance, I had an easy way out – simply release the guy from my team and hope that some other manager, who is in a dire need of heads more than skills, would take this individual. At least that’s how this guy ended up in my team in the first place.

But now, I do not have that luxury. If I have to fill out his assessment report now, I may not have very kind things to say. I would have to admit the lethargy that he brings to work. I would have to note down the fact that he is still approaching work in a reactive mode and not in a pro-active mode. I would have to mention that his quality of work still needs to improve. All this is only going to make the senior management decide to let this guy go. And by letting this guy go, I mean out of the company.

Here comes my dilemma. If I fill in an objective report, he is going to be asked to leave. The only way I can avoid this is by saying that he is good. But when he gets back to the annual evaluation exercise, the truth would come out. And at that point in time, my assessment is going to be questioned and probably, I might even be asked to leave.

So the obvious thing for me to do is to do the former – file an objective report. But it is the aftermath that worries me. I can’t really recollect providing feedback that has lead to the severance of the relationship between an employee and his/her employer. And in this case, the employee is actually an old guy who is at least some 3-4 years behind schedule on his career track and I believe this also has impacted his personal life. And how is someone going to fare in this current market situation when there barely any new job vacancies in the Software sector?

You can give me all the clichéd advices – that I should steel myself; that I should eliminate the “personal” angle; that I should remember that I am only doing my job; that I should remember that my job is itself at stake if I don't do this; that this is a perform or perish time; that this guy was given a chance but he didn’t take it up etc. etc..

But I want to know if you have actually been in that situation ever in your life? Did you face a similar predicament? If so, how did you handle the events after the decision was made? Or were you one of those gifted people who see everything as black and white and hence able to arrive at clear and bold decisions? Or have you been on the other side of the coin and if so, how did you handle things?