The Problem 问题
I have a problem with my HR director, who I inherited from my predecessor. She is lazy and incompetent, has alienated her team, and her (talented) number two has just quit. She takes a huge amount of sick leave, claiming the job is "stressful". I need to get rid of her but she knows all the rules and has a litigious frame of mind. She is from an ethnic minority and, although born to middle-class Indian parents, seems to believe life has discriminated against her. She views me, a white male, as a personal affront. What do I do?
我与前任留给我的人力资源主管之间存在着一些问题。她既懒惰又无能，还使自己的团队彼此疏远，她那位（有才华的）副手刚刚辞职。她请了大量病假，声称自己的工作"压力很大"。我得把她炒掉，但她了解所有相关规则，并且颇有打官司的雅兴。她是一位少数族裔，尽管出生在印度裔中产阶级家庭，但似乎认为自己在生活中受到了歧视。她将我的白种男性身份视为对她个人的一种冒犯。我该怎么办？
LUCY (Manager, male, 42) 露西（经理，男，51岁）
You must decide if you want to spend management time sorting this out or whether to lavish money on it instead.
你必须决定：是想花些工作时间来解决此事呢，还是想出钱做个了断。
In the first case, you need to manage her downfall actively, setting clear performance targets and monitoring her failure to meet them. Then, when you finally fire her, she won't be able to claim unfair dismissal.
在前一种情况下，你需要积极管理她的问题，为她制定明确的绩效目标，跟踪她未能达到这些目标的情况。这样，当你最终辞退她的时候，她就无法声称自己被解雇是不公平的。
There are three problems with this approach: you will have to put up with her laziness and incompetence for quite a while longer; it will eat up a lot of your time; and - worst - she might well end up suing you anyway on discrimination grounds.
采取这种方式会带来三个问题：你将不得不在相当长的一段时间内忍受她的懒惰和无能；这会耗费你不少时间；而最糟糕的是，很可能不管怎样，她最终还会以歧视为由起诉你。
If you are in the UK, the law makes the employer guilty until proven innocent: the onus is on you to prove that you did not discriminate against her. This can be quite tricky, especially if most of your senior people are white males and if you have not insisted on everyone attending diversity awareness courses.
如果你是在英国，那么法律会在雇主证明自己无辜之前认定其有罪：你有责任证明自己并没有歧视她。这可能相当困难，尤其是在你手下多数高级雇员都是白种男性以及你没有坚持让每个人都去参加多元化培训教程的情况下。
You can risk it, but you need to think not just of the cost but of how bad the newspaper headlines might look.
你可以冒险试试，但你要考虑的不仅仅是如此解决此事的成本，还有媒体对此的相关报道会有多么糟糕。
If I were you I would deal with the problem quietly by throwing money at it now. It does not sound as if she is enjoying the job much at present. It is either making her ill or making her skive, neither of which are good. Her new boss is unsympathetic and possibly sexist and racist and seems to have it in for her. Her team is awful and her number two has just quit.
如果我是你，我会立刻花钱来悄悄地搞定这个问题。听上去她目前似乎不太喜欢这份工作。无论她因此患病，还是因此受到折磨，这两种情况都不太好。她的新老板缺乏同情心，可能带有性别歧视和种族歧视，还总跟她过不去。她的团队糟透了，而副手又刚刚辞职。
Call a meeting with her and offer her a fortune to go.If for some bizarre reason she turns this down there is always the special projects option. Pay her to do a hugely grand-sounding yet utterly peripheral job where she has no one reporting to her. And then tempt the brilliant number two back into the number one slot.
打个电话约她面谈，给她一大笔钱让她走人。即使她出于某种异乎寻常的原因拒绝辞职，你也总能够利用一些特殊安排让她走人。出钱让她去做一个名头响亮但完全外围的工作，不给她配备任何下属。然后，把她那位才华横溢的副手召回公司，填补她的位置。
