Difficult or annoying colleagues, do you put up or just go elsewhere?

[crosser62]

I’ve got my dream job.
Love it, in my element, absolutely love going to work.
But my team is a team of 3 including me.
We are a new team, one of which has been in the job for 4 years. myself & other colleague are newly appointed. 3 months in post now.

I got the job as previous colleague left due to serious issues with colleague 1 who has been in post 4 years.
I have previously worked with this person and I have none of those issue as at all with them, they are respectful towards me with no problem.

But, there are other major issues which are being dealt with from a HR perspective.

Other new colleague is a lovely lovely person, we get on really well but between the 2 of them, I can’t get anything done, I have ended up as team leader because they have absolutely no get up and go in them at all.

I just feel alone, like I’m preping, organising, managing, having ideas, pushing us forward and making stuff happen with them both dragging along or turning up to take the glory when all the behind the scenes work is done.

My plan is to delegate work better, which is difficult as we all work different hours, we overlap a lot but due to this difference in hours, they miss out on chunks of essential work.

They both like to sit and chat for 30-45 minutes with other colleagues when they arrive at the start of their shifts and the same at lunch time.
Our work load is huge, I’m itching to get going when my shift starts and can only think of the amount of work that need doing after my 30 minute lunch break... they just sit and chat. I get up and get cracking then they saunter in, it’s driving me mad.

I’m getting really frustrated with it, it’s not sustainable and I’m not sure I can see myself sticking with it 12 months from now.

I think that we will need to meet, communicate and agree job delegation and task allocation on a regular basis, I’m going to need to think around it.
To be fair, even with them dragging on behind me and my bright ideas we have achieved great things so it can be done.
None of it has been any contribution to the background stuff or hard work from either of them.
Going to give it another 3 months and take it from there.
Pfft bloody love this job, gutted it’s not what I envisioned.

Do you have regular one to ones with them? Do they have a clear development plan?

No one to ones.
No development plan.

If you're a team leader, you are paid to lead.
I'm afraid you're going to have to grasp the nettle and ask them to start work when they arrive. If that doesn't work you'll have to tell them to get cracking. Stop treating them like friends, they are your staff

Are you formally recognised as the team leader or is it unofficial?

Are you officially in a line manager role?

If you are officially their manager/ leader as PP said you need to get them moving .
I had the same problem when I joined a existing team a few years ago , the out going manager was sacked due to bad organisation but I did not know that when I took the job on .
The team had been allowed to saunter into work up to half an hr late have hour long lunches and go home early .
I tried been nice , tried been firm but after two months the only way I could get them to work is logging the time they were on line and docking wages when they were late in / early leaving but it did not make me popular !

Not official team lead.
4 years one is the same pay grade as me, other is one below.
All at a senior level.
I have taken lead because absolutely nothing at all was getting done.
I could see what needs doing and started to get it done.

You need to take control. Never forget that one person left because of number 1 team member - she will turn on you too so make sure everything's put in writing.

You must have an overarching manager. Can you not approach them about the issues?

In my experience there are twats in every job I have been in. Different faces, different places but always twats.

If you have appointed yourself as team leader you are not their team leader. You should explain the issue to your line manager so that they can deal with the issue formally.

Where's your boss?

I've have the same problem, slightly larger team and all part time apart from me. They prefer to do as little as possible and would rather spend the morning chatting. Now we're all working from home, lots of catatrophising and drama going on, and I end up managing everything while the staff who have been there years go quiet. We have to do a day each in the office and there's so much moaning.
I had an interview to go elsewhere, it didn't work out and I decided to stay put partly because of the lockdown, possibly going from one crap team to another and party because the rest of the staff I work with are amazing. I too love my job but it's so frustrating, I'm giving it another 12 months and if things don't change then I will start looking properly.

Who do you answer to?
If there's no structure in place to deal with this issue, look for another job and when you leave tell them why.

Can you not just get on with your own job?

Perhaps you're 'taking the lead' is a bit overstepping the mark ?

I mean this kindly, but you just deciding you're above the other two is a key part of the problem here. If their actual manager hasn't a problem with team output then you certainly shouldn't have one. If they haven't noticed because you're doing too much, then stay in your lane and do your own share. They can then sort their staff's productivity when they have an issue with it.

It’s not a case of me doing my job, I can’t do any of it without them unfortunately.

I’m not overstepping either (although it does come across like that I realise). The work is essential, has to be done and there’s just absolutely tonnes of it which is going to take a year, maybe 18 months to get through and get right.
But if it were not led, not managed and not paced, things just wouldn’t get done and that’s not an option.

We all have a large tier of management, we are NHS so there are more managers than shop floor staff. We too are in management positions. (In clinical posts)

I have gone to them, made meetings with us all to discuss objectives and time scales, they nod and agree but then saunter back and carry on doing little.

Because of covid we are all out of the norm, we are thrown extreme spanner’s into our plans and work but we have to adapt and work around it.

We could be a great team and could work wonders if they would just get a spark in their engines.

Do you have a line manager?

Do your colleagues and managers actually agree that the things you see as priorities are actually priorities? Especially at the moment in a healthcare area?

I have a same level colleague who is endlessly frustrated that we aren't all cracking on with her agenda, but several of us strongly disagree that the things on her agenda are even appropriate, and all but one of the others don't think they're intrinsically bad ideas but don't think they are the priority atm. Only one (team of ten) colleague agrees that her priorities are right.

We have a rather absent leader (manager manages geographically dispersed teams) and are most ly expected to work independentally, but a self appointed leader can be a curse when they are, to be frank, wrong...

Allmiss Yes that’s a real possibility and we are finding that what was a priority yesterday is no longer priority today as things keep coming up/changing iyswim.

Nothing is solid or stable at the moment which throws up daily additional challenges.

I’m getting burned out I think, it’s my issue not theirs. I need to give my head a wobble.