Q: I have an employee who is suffering from prescription drug addiction underneath my management. Their work becomes slow and it’s hard to motivate this particular employee to do better work. Do you have any suggestions?

-Mary, NY

A: It’s a tough position for any manager to be in, but you must sit down and communicate your frustration with this employee. However, you must visit your human resources department first. You will probably want them present in a meeting with this employee.

Go through the work history of the employee and let him know what you are proud of from the past. Then demonstrate how his work is not meeting your expectations and then ask him how to proceed.

There may be many reasons why this employee is being hampered by these prescription drugs and if it’s not work related, you want to make sure your human resources department is there so they can work out a treatment program or some other service to help your employee.

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