Colleague who won’t retire but also won’t train

[Putthepanback]

WWYD?

She’s got markedly slower over the last few years (think taking 3 seconds to press each button on the phone when dialling a number kind of thing). We spoken in very casual conversation about retirement and she is very much of the “oooo I’d have nothing to do with my time” school of thought.

We are having a big problem now though as our software is all being changed and we are retraining on the new stuff over the next few weeks.

She got very flustered in the training this morning and left after an hour as she said the trainer was going too fast. We’ve made arrangements for her to have 1 on 1 training instead. She is completely adverse to any kind of change at all. Very negative and “oh it won’t work it works fine now”.

I have to admit I snapped at her today because she’d spent all morning complaining how busy she was but wouldn’t accept any help. I really needed some figures by 3pm which I asked her for this morning. It was easily a 10 minute job for any other member of staff. At 2.30 I walked past and she had only just started. At 2.50 I realised she was counting them up (the columns) with her finger on the spreadsheet and then doing the sums on paper. I very gently said “oh x did you know if you just grab that little cross and drag it across you can add them like this”

She snapped back at me that she knows what she’s doing and she still had 10 minutes.

I had to leave the room before I snapped back at her. She’s been on excel training at least 3 times but just doesn’t retain the info.

What the hell do you do in this situation?! I’m not her manager, just one step above her and they are loathe to do anything and just whisper that she’ll have to retire soon surely! But from what she says she has no intention of going anywhere

[Fuma]

If you're snapping at her then you're not exactly performing at peak yourself so I'd nip that in the bud before doing anything else.

As for the rest, yes of course you can raise a concern and hope that she is performance managed but I would literally do just that, keep it specific to the impact on you and then leave it. No monitoring, no ongoing observation, nothing, because it isn't your business and could be perceived as victimisation.

Whether you do that or not is entirely up to you. She's obviously struggling, she's obviously working below par. I'm sure she knows this. However she continues to work beyond retirement age and you have no idea why. Seriously, you have no clue as to what financial pressures she may be under. Especially given events that have happened in her lifetime, it's very likely that eg she's lost at least one pension somewhere down the line - this was very common around 20 years ago. Or she may have other pressing reasons to still need to earn a wage.

For that reason, I'd ask myself if the direct actual inconvenience of her poor performance - not the emotional response of understandable frustration at seeing her farting on but the actual impact on me - was worth putting in motion a chain of events that saw someone lose an income they may well desperately need. I realise that thinking like this goes outside of corporate necessity but she is a person too.

[zwellers]

Fuma seriously? You think that any company should put up with someone unable to do the job they are paid to do and cause extra work and stress for their colleagues just because they may lose there job. If they can't do the job they shouldn't get paid for it. Managing poor performance all the way.

[Fuma]

@Cohle completely agree with you (x posted so hadn't read). It's definitely a benefit for everyone to work in an organisation where employees are supported. You never know when you're going to need that leeway yourself and even if you don't right now it's nice to know it's there. What's the big inconvenience anyway? If someone's work needs a bit of tidying and you can do it no harm done no impact to service delivery and little hassle, isn't that the right thing to do , especially when you know that if you ever needed that someone would do the same for you?

[Fuma]

@zwellers I guess it depends on company culture. If you're in a place where everyone gets shat on from above if things don't happen as they should then yes it's stressful for other staff. If the impact on you personally is minimal in terms of workload/repercussions then honestly I don't think it's a big deal. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, everyone has times in their lives when they're not performing as well as they might. Does that mean they should lose their income especially at a time when replacing it is, for whatever reason, problematic?

[verytiredandstressed]

It sounds to me more of won't than can't . Surly she's capable after 3 times excel training ? , she's set in her ways and has gone back to what she's used to . Her line manager response is she will retire soon but it depends on how old she is you say she's past retirement but how much past she could work well into her 70s .
If she's not prepared to except changes she needs to be sat down and explained this is how you want things done . The thing is excel makes your job so much easier so it's silly of her to just refuse to do it .
I know a lady in my organisation who's in her 70s and believe me her excel skills put mine to shame .

[OooErMissus]

Agree with others that you need to be making this your manager's problem - not yours, and not going to her manger.

[ControversialFerret]

Fuma - one of the best people in our department is nearly 70. I am dreading the day she decides to retire as she's absolutely brilliant, and one of the first to embrace new processes, systems and whatnot. She sometimes needs a bit more time to go through stuff but her quality of work is fantastic so I don't mind that, because her attitude and approach is great. I've got people literally 40 years younger than her who are also not that quick!

Reasonable adjustments are more than fair, but if someone is refusing to co-operate and walking out of training sessions then that's a capability issue regardless of age.

[Teateaandmoretea]

Reasonable adjustments are more than fair, but if someone is refusing to co-operate and walking out of training sessions then that's a capability issue regardless of age.

^^I was going to post exactly that. There are lots of younger people who are incompetent in their jobs also. I think the issue is the expectation that older people have competence issues tbh

[BarbaraofSeville]

We have one of these. It's infuriating. Any task you ask her to do (she's part of an 'admin support' team that I swear works on the definition of 'support' being 'hold up' not 'assist') leads to an argument that invariably lasts longer than the amount of time a competent person would take to complete the task.

A large part of her job is photocopying certain resourses and if she's on that task, which can take a while, you can not talk or interupt her as she 'has' to stand next to the photocopier and watch it.

Half the team are beyond their pensionable age (public sector, have been around for decades, all have had their lump sum, getting their pension and are mortgage free so don't need the money) and freely admit that they come to work because they don't let actual work get in the way it's a fun sociable office.

Granted they've seen a lot of changes - they can all do fabulous shorthand and work the still plugged in fax machine but in today's world of emailing a document from a smartphone, they really need to do some catching up.

[Fuma]

And yes age does contribute to performance. @controversialferret you say yourself that your older staff member needs more time to get used to new ways of doing things. Good on your organisation for allowing her to do that. This is the case with lots of older employees. Cognitive function in terms of recall, processing and assimilation does go down post 50, especially for women. It's not ageist to acknowledge that: rather, it's ageist to expect people to keep on continuing with previous output when their physical makeup has changed.

[HavelockVetinari]

Most people I know in their sixties have been using computers at work for many years and are the ones that younger colleagues go to for training and guidance.

^ this! I'm 34 and still ask my 67-year-old Dad to help with complicated stuff (although I'm fine with stuff like Excel etc.). If she was 40 would you recommend a capability review? If so you should go ahead and complain, age shouldn't be relevant.

Work isn't there to be this person's hobby, it's not fair on colleagues who are picking up the slack.

[0blio]

Cognitive function in terms of recall, processing and assimilation does go down post 50, especially for women

Do you have any evidence for this claim?
or are you just being ageist AND sexist?

[TemporaryPermanent]

Can you stop asking her to do stuff?

Tbh if she ends up filing the same piece of paper over and over and managing the tea kitty, that's not your problem. Workplaces used to be like this - the people who had gone past very much useful work would find themselves little niches, chat to the apprentices. Ask for another member of staff with specific skills if you need one. Leave her alone.

[Fuma]

@0blio it's well documented throughout medical literature. Some functions such as vocabulary actually increase - you've probably noticed yourself that older people use more accurate words and phrases and can, given time and space, make themselves understood better and in a more concise way than younger people. That's because they've been using language for a longer time and can pick and discard more easily. It's a definite benefit. But the functions I've outlined do generally deteriorate, and actually I think it's not only okay but necessary to say that - it's not a character flaw but a physical processing consideration and taking that into account when managing older employees demonstrates care and understanding of viable limits.

[ginginchinchin]

I'd still love to know how old she is. Is it a secret?

[ControversialFerret]

It's not ageist to acknowledge that: rather, it's ageist to expect people to keep on continuing with previous output when their physical makeup has changed.

I agree, but attitude and approach should not be affected. The lady that works in my department receives reasonable adjustments in the same way that someone with caring responsibilities, and another with dyslexia, and another who is prone to migraines, all do. But the thing that they have in common is that they don't do things like refuse to go to training sessions.

It's completely unrealistic to expect an organisation to be set in amber and for procedures not to change. That's not fair to any of the individual's colleagues, who are all having to carry that person but not being paid for it.

[StealthPolarBear]

"different way from competency issues in younger staff arising from eg hangovers and other lifestyle choices."

[misspiggy19]

if she were 20 years younger you wouldn’t tolerate it and you don’t have to from her.

^Thie

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

I have to admit I snapped at her today because she’d spent all morning complaining how busy she was but wouldn’t accept any help. I really needed some figures by 3pm which I asked her for this morning. It was easily a 10 minute job for any other member of staff.

This all sounds incredibly frustrating and I completely understand why it's bothering you. But it's not so clear whether it's actually necessary for you to ask her to do things, or whether it just seems unfair not to? In this scenario she'd already said she had too much to do, and if you offered help then there was spare capacity elsewhere - so why ask her to do a 10 minute task? I don't think there's much you can do about this, since you're not her manager, so just try and avoid - it would have been quicker to do it yourself, so just grit your teeth and do that.

[Fuma]

I do agree that walking out of a training session would be a cause for concern. However if this woman is in her sixties then presumably she has been working for forty years and is well aware of workplace expectations re behaviour so for her to suddenly contravene everything she has learned in the previous four decades my first instinct would be to find out why eg pressure, overwhelm etc.

I know this makes me sound like a tree hugger but experience has taught me that mostly people do things for their own reasons and you need to figure out what those are before solving the problem. If those reasons are pure cba-ness then obviously crap on them but that doesn't sound like what's going on here.

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

I think it's pretty obvious that she's feeling overwhelmed and struggling to cope and is trying to cover that up (not very effectively). The question is what, if anything, can be done about that.

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

But again, that isn't actually a question for the OP.

[Fuma]

But it should inform how she approaches the issue. This is demonstrably different from, say, someone neglecting their spreadsheet duties because they're sat in the disabled toilet with the fear after a heavy night out. For example.

[LisaSimpsonsbff]

You seem obsessed with the idea that competency issues in younger staff are just hangovers which a) is pretty insulting to younger staff and b) seems to contradict your own rules about trying to understand someone. After all, someone with a hangover could be someone with addiction issues, or a mental health problem that they're (unsuccessfully) self medicating - so surely we should also show them understanding?