You have taken the empathy from the answer. What if such a person was a consistent and top-performing employee in the past, and plays a very integral role in your business? Do you just fire or suspend and start looking for a new person? I have thought about firing the employee, but i do think this approach will make a leader end up in more problems than he started with. Because now, you don't only have an underperforming employee, you don't have an employee at all. lol...