Should manager fire IT contractor? (employee, job, company, interest)

[benny_blanco07]

Well, in the spirit of the season, I thought I sleep on it and put this to brainstorm, even in a place like this and hear impartial opinions....
IT manager, has employed an IT employee for a few months now (9). At the end of 6 months, manager had to send one one of his tech leads to a different project offsite and thus had a backfill with some of those responsibilities left behind by the lead tech. Therefore, mgr managed to get the contract employee a $1/hr raise (5% raise) and began prepping him for these new duties. There was obviously learning curves but at some point contractor began showing up late, texting during meetings with his manager at which point his manager yelled at him and told him to leave.
Later on mgr apologized for treating him that way and things have gone well since. Recently though, the IT director approached the IT manager letting him know that another dept project mgr had filed a complaint with him, due to an VIP end user complaining that he was condescending, etc. The IT manager did not recall ever talking to that end user, thus began inquiring within his staff if anyone had heard anything. The contract employee said he had, but said that this other dept. project mgr had complained personally to him that 'your boss insulted a vendor and I got in trouble'...
Thus, the IT manager went back to the IT director, explained the findings and that something did not click. A week or so later, the director met with the mgr once more, and explained that the dept project mgr was even more upset after she learned (through the contract employee) that the IT manager had been investigating around. Furthermore, the IT director said that the dept project manager (female) and this contract employee (male) had been frequenting each other and going 'out' to places after work and that's how she found out that the IT manager had inquired from this contractor. Director then advised manager to be careful with which subordinates he passed info to.
Needless to say, the IT manager stood his ground and told his superior (IT director) that a) he reserved the right to question his personnel about complaints related to anyone in his department, and b) that he was considering terminating him on the spot as he had flagrantly breached a conversation/inquiry he had been asked to keep confidential. The IT director sort of agreed but asked to have the termination delayed until he checked further with his superiors as he did not want this to upset even more the female project manager and have this back fire on him as well.
IT manager did tell the director that this had confirmed some suspicions that all this had felt as a plot to begin with; but that he was willing to regain his composure and give it some time. Director said that perhaps we should just 'give him a warning'...
Overall, the IT director has never had any bad feedback about his subordinate IT manager and has in fact delegated twice as much territory and offices to oversee as other managers. Yet, director has not been quite specific and has not given manager all information as to who that 'end user' was and played dumb when told that he had heard it was a vendor not an end user, etc. IT manager feels he is either preventing him to know all the dirty things this project mgr might have said to not upset him or that perhaps he really feels the mgr did something wrong or impolite... interesting thing is, that the dept project mgr said that it was related to something that had happened almost 3 months ago, and even the director found it hard to believe that she would still hold a grudge after such a long time and had even called the director's boss after he did not responded to her complaint promptly...
Any suggestions???

[benny_blanco07]

oh, and the IT mgr had never mentioned anything bad about this female dept proj. mgr until the day he was approached by his director and only after inquiring the contractor, he day say that she was a f*@#$-ng b*ch, etc.... he feels that even if she passed that info to the director, he feels that at this point with the fact that them two (proj. mgr and his own employee) had already plotted this complaint about him, and the fact that they are apparently dating, this takes any credibility from them two...

[beera]

I'm sorry I am having a hard time understanding this.

Someone said something about the IT manager, the IT director told them, and now the IT manager wants more information but the IT director won't tell them? That sounds like a crappy company IMO, how can you fix issues if your boss isn't straightforward with you?

I think the way you wrote things out was a bit confusing.

[benny_blanco07]

indeed a bit confusing, technically the IT manager found out from that contractor he supervises a different version of the complaint, which the contractor heard directly from the complainer, which he happens to be dating!

The IT director confirmed so, as the contractor went running to his lover associate to tell her that his own boss (the IT manager that had recently given him a raise and delegated more responsibilities), thus the reason the complainer manager found out and was even more upset that the IT manager had been investigating her complaint.... crappy indeed but hard to know how much guilt the contractor has in all this... perhaps he is the one piting all these managers ???

[beera]

I'm sorry what is this contract employee's role in this? He's dating the project manager who is the person who complained about the IT manager? What does that have to do with the complaint the project manager filed against the IT manager? I think the IT manager needs to move on since his work has done nothing to him. The complaint obviously didn't warrant any action, so why keep holding onto it? Sounds like the project manager didn't give enough information so nothing was really done. Why doesn't he go talk DIRECTLY to the person who complained and ask what he supposedly did wrong so he can make sure it doesn't happen again.

[benny_blanco07]

good advice. well, technically when the IT mgr asked the contractor for feedback about whether he had heard any complaints, he asked him to keep the conversation confidential and he did not, but rather went back to his gf the project manager and disclosed that his boss had been inquiring about the complaint.... thus the reason why he feels the need to let him go...

[move4ward]

You completely lost me.

[sware2cod]

75% of the issue is related to office politics.

I would not get rid of a decent contractor over that one issue. IF you really need this contractor and IF this contractor is doing the needed technical work.

Realize you can cut a contractor immediately and no reason is needed. It's much easier to cut a contractor vs a perm employee in most cases. If you need another contractor, then you get another one. Is this going to be a big effort to get another contractor and get them up to speed?

The other issue - that someone yelled at the contractor for texting during meetings and then apologized later. That is more politics coming from your company. Folks text during meetings...their smartphones constantly send work emails even during meetings. At my place, folks bring laptops to meetings and send/receive emails and multitask during the meeting.

My opinion - your company politics are getting in the way of doing business. And you and your managers are getting caught up in it.

Bottom line: If you are happy with the actual work that the contractor is doing, then keep the contractor. If the performance is below par and work is getting messed up, then get another contactor.

Realize that everyone at work talks to other people. Anything that is said is likely to be passed on, even if you said "this is confidential, dont tell anyone". You just never know that there was a leak in most cases, because folks know to stay mum on what they know. No matter what you do at work, this is going to be the case - no matter what your job title and no matter what company you work for,. You must realize nothing is confidential, ever. Don't fire someone over this issue. Sounds like a manager got their ego bruised and wants to retaliate by firing a decent employee. (I assume the contractor is performing work as expected.)

[NLVgal]

The IT director needs to sharpen his or her team building skills. This "divide and conquer" management style, while usually inadvertent, is very destructive. I've seen it tear a team to shreds.

[benny_blanco07]

true, but here at the office it feels that it is the contractor employee that it is diving up the team by doing or saying who knows what to this outside of the department manager/lover....