Both good questions. Especially the second one. It would need investigation ;) In my experience the most common cause of this is that the employee either doesn

Both good questions. Especially the second one. It would need investigation ;) In my experience the most common cause of this is that the employee either doesn't want to do the task, or doesn't feel that they can do the task. If they don't want to, then that can sometimes be tricky to determine. Worth persevering with, though, because again it can be a sign of a deeper underlying issue. If they don't feel they can do it, then it's either a problem with their confidence, which can have many causes (everything from a fear of failure to workplace bullying). Or it's that they're right, and they actually can't do this task. Which might be because the task is specified badly, or that their training is incomplete. Or that the task is actually impossible but that's not apparent until you get into the details of it.