How to handle a combative DR?

Hey folks!

I’ve been a manager for 5+ years, but all of my direct reports have been in-house (USA). Recently, I was given the opportunity to grow my team, and my manager was only willing to provide me with 2 DRs from our off-shores team (India). It’s cheaper for the business this way and most of our support team comes from our off-shore team.

One of the agents has been great: They constantly hit/exceed their daily goals, take advice well, and have an open line of communication. I’ve had no issues with them and, because of how well they work, they get a bit more flexibility in their schedule. I’m not a micromanager by any means. So long as they get their work done, I don’t care if they take a 2-hour break in the middle of their shift.

The other agent… not so much. I’ve let them know multiple times what the daily expectations are and they’re constantly fighting back against these expectations. Every week, I QA two of their daily projects, leave comments, and give them a score based on a rubric I went over with them (that they have access to whenever they need it). Every single time I send the second agent their QA score, they argue with me about the score and comments.

They’ve consistently started their work 1.5-2.5 hours after their scheduled start time, take sick days without notification, and try to throw their coworkers under the bus. I’ve had multiple conversations with them, the manager of the off-shore team, and my own manager, but their attitude is still combative and defensive.

They’re relatively new to the team (2 months), so the offshore manager doesn’t want to put them on a PIP.

I’m at a loss on how best to communicate with and guide them, especially due to the language barriers.

Any advice?