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I would be totally separating out the two issues.

1) Performance - put in place a robust performance management process. Manage them to it. WFH doesn't in any way means performance shouldn't be visible

2) Return to office - I think you are probably right to get an Occ health report and see if they are covered by the EA and what if any reasonable adjustments you can make.

In reply to Keith:

Agree, Keith... and welcome Jade! Thank you for such a well-crafted first post. Helps those who may wish to give advice.

Two thoughts arise:

The first is to ask, if you entirely put to one side this employee's mental health and performance and assumed they were in all other respects a model employee, but was *still* saying they didn't want to work two days a week in the office but continue to work remotely, how would you feel about that?

In other words, *can* the job actually be done remotely but the business has arbitrarily decided that "two days a week sounds about right", or are there actual in-office tasks that physically cannot be performed remotely?

If the answer is that a hypothetical model employee could do the job remotely and, in order to retain their services as a model employee, you would make adjustments to allow that to continue, then you should do the same for this employee. Office working shouldn't be used as a crutch for inadequate management.

If the answer is that the job definitely requires attendance in the office two days a week because it involves, for example, maintenance work on the office's servers or regular hands-on product training that can't be done remotely, then you'll need OH advice before deciding whether it's practical for this employee to continue in your employment.

Second, though, and speaking directly to the issue of performance management, if an employee is given clear tasks to perform within a well-supervised framework, it shouldn't matter whether they are in the office pretending to look busy or at home, making their third cup of tea of the morning. The only question is *are they doing their job*? If your management framework is such that you can't tell with confidence whether they are or aren't without being able to physically look over their shoulder, then it is the framework that is at fault, not the employee.

You say with confidence that their performance is "not particularly good", which suggests that their line manager has sight of their work and is appraising its quality against their expectations and finding it lacking. And there don't seem to be any obstacles to communicating with this employee. So as the line manager has a quality benchmark, the employee isn't meeting it and communication is open, how, exactly, will the situation be improved by the employee being present in an office compared to how things are now?

Thank you all for the replies - your thoughts are very helpful!