I have bought a business (my third), and I have an employee that I hired. She worked 2 days and then day 3 she texted to say she was going to be late to work because her sister needed her help. Then she called in sick at the last minute. She had a bunch of clients that I had to reschedule. She was “sick” the next day too.

Then the next day, we went into a Covid lockdown for 3 weeks.  She was meant to work from home but did none of the tasks I asked her to do.  She had excuses such as I have had a migraine, I will get on to that this week etc. but appears to have done nothing.

Then I asked her to come and help get the business ready to open a few days before opening again after Covid.  Two hours before she was due to turn up, she texted to say she wasn’t coming in because her mother was having a Covid test.

I have two thoughts. One is that this employee is just throwing the “sick” card whenever she can’t be bothered working. The other is that this employee is going to be totally unreliable. The feeling I am having is pissed off/annoyed.

If my thoughts are going to create my results, then my results are going to be that the employee is going to throw the sick card and be unreliable.

But I also have a thought/belief that no matter what action I take, it will make no difference. She will still be unreliable and throw the sick card any time she does not want to work.

How do I think differently so that I can get a better result? Or is that me trying to control this employee and she will do whatever she does and that’s ok, I will just end up firing her (which is difficult because you can’t fire someone for being “sick” especially in this Covid era).