We have an employee who is 68 years young and beginning to have memory lapses and making too many maintenance errors on customer's accounts. She has been with our bank for 13 years in our bookkeeping dept. We have taken every precaution to keep her from having direct contact with customers or maintenance authority. It is really becoming a problem. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to handle this situation other than firing her? She wants to work another year or so and we will accomodate her under the right circumstances.

68 years of age is young to have memory losses. There may be more going on than you think.

You may want to post this on the "Human Resources" Forum to get a different viewpoint.

Why not spin it this way...

Take away her input/maintenance capabilities on your computer system. Tell her you realize she is overworked and that now someone else will be responsible for the maintenance input. She can still take the information from the customer, write it down on a "maintenance to be done" form... but your bank gives the input duties to someone more capable.

In the end, she may be relieved! I bet she is still there because she loves the interaction with "her customers". This way, you don't take that away from her.

(We have a similar situation at my bank and our customers absolutely LOVE our lady. We would not dream of firing her!)