Q: We have an employee who is struggling with the basic tasks of their job. I have counseled the employee multiple times and they do well for a couple of weeks but then they backslide. I feel like I can’t fire them because they do improve for a while. How do I address this?

A: As an employer, you need to remind the employee that short-term improvement and then going back to bad habits isn’t improvement at all. One way to address this: in any written warning or performance improvement plan it would clearly state that you must see “continuous and sustained improvement” or “long-term improvement” and if sustained improvement is not seen, termination may result.