@Steve: "doing the work badly" <- this is actually quite hard. Because the employee has been there for two years, the question which is asked is "why didn't you deal with it before?". You have to show their performance has significantly declined, at the that point it's generally just easier to pay them some money.
@PhilipKendall, I think the reality is that after 2 years, the standard of work has been set, and people's performance rarely declines significantly unless management upset the applecart somehow. Most of those who complain about the difficulty of getting rid of employees are simply determined to do what the law says they cannot, such as pursuing a management strategy that depends on endless turnover of staff, rather than stable and orderly industrial relations.
This case is a prime example where we obviously have a public interest in people being able to join academia, and yet an employer would wish to retaliate against that intention and sack a competent worker before it is necessary to do so. There is no real reason why this amounts to good management on the whole, and that is why the law disallows it.
@PhilipKendall, certainly I agree on that, but then we probably have a considerably more jaundiced view of management than the OP. It's a shame that management behave in way that people just end up not telling them anything, instead of acting sensibly and using the information to plan a transition without penalising the honesty of those who are not yet jaundiced.
@Steve Case of "know your management" I think - I've left one job in vaguely similar circumstances, and it ended in an amicable exit all round. Wouldn't necessarily do it everywhere I've worked, though.
Summary: I have a manager "Alan". "Bob" is not my manager but during meetings he often gives me tasks and talks about his participation in my work. I feel uncomfortable but my manager doesn't know what to do.
I have a weekly meeting during which I've been asked to just listen in for situational ...
The Water Cooler
The Water Cooler