Employee feels micromanaged if I give her tasks with deadlines

[calmama]

I manage a person who is generally difficult. She objects to… well everything and undermines me at every chance she gets.

When she first started working for me we sat down together and established a work plan to get our job done and keep us on track to meet deadlines. We agreed I would assign daily tasks and we would meet weekly to discuss progress on projects along with anything new we had to take on, along with any business changes, leave, etc.

Weeks down the line she exploded at me for colour coding priorities, saying the urgent (red) tasks were ‘very unfriendly and freaking her out’. I took the red out.

A few weeks later she exploded at me for ‘micromanaging and bullying her’ by sending her daily priorities, despite this being agreed upon from the very start. I asked for an alternative way of progressing projects. She had none.

Today she exploded at me for setting deadlines because they ‘stress her out’. Again, I asked her for an alternative way of doing things and she had none.

I’m at a loss. She’s doing honestly the bare minimum and can’t seem to cope. I’m having to pick up her slack because otherwise my team looks bad, yet I’m still copping the brunt of her rage and there’s no end in sight.

AIBU to throw my hands in the air and take a long vacation?

At least RTFT. 🙄

I have a friend who sounds a lot like your employee, OP.

Every time his manager even vaguely suggests he needs to improve, he takes offence and goes off 'sick'...for months at a time! He never sees the same doctor twice, always locums...and has managed to convince them he's 'depressed' - and before anyone jumps on me, just yesterday he admitted to me that he's not depressed in the slightest, he just wanted time off work! He's changed jobs 5 times in the last decade, he always finds another job just before he's about to be dismissed.

You sound like someone I used to work with. They too could never understand why they were disliked either. Basic psychological needs in the workplace are autonomy, belonging and competence.... you are micromanaging her and none of her needs are being met. You do realise that you earn respect, you can't demand it.

This. But on the issue of a health condition as a reason for her failings, there is no legal obligation for an employee to disclose a health issue to an employer and it’s actually illegal for an employer to ask. So broaching the subject of any barriers or support needed to completing the tasks absolutely should not ask directly if she has any health issues or disabilities

The Equality Act 2010 makes employers responsible for making reasonable adjustment for someone’s health condition, but if she hasn’t disclosed anything the OP and the company can’t be expected to make any such provision until she does.

If you can’t get her to tell you what she spends her time doing at work then there is a huge problem. As a manager it’s not unreasonable to have sight of this and you need to be clear with her that there are serious consequences if she doesn’t engage with you.
Most employees don’t want to get sacked or be on improvement plans and would welcome help to get back on track. So the fact she is putting up so many barriers suggests she doesn’t care or is just biding her time getting paid to do nothing and see how long she can get away with it for.
If she’s refusing to engage or ‘going nuclear’ then it’s HR time. I am often too nice a manager but if someone shouted at me at work I would say I was going to end the call or ask them to leave the meeting until they have calmed down. And get every instance documented. The employee could easily be breaking your code of conduct if she behaves this way.

I think she should just get rid of her if she isn't doing anything.

This is very much a work culture clash issue I think. You're both kind of right. And you can tell from the responses to your posts that this is very divisive.

It does sound as if her productivity is very low and she behaves in an unprofessional way. The way you manage it would be micro management in a senior and productive employee. She clearly isn't very productive so on the face of it you're right do to this.

What's less clear to me is to what extent your micro-management has exacerbated it or whether she basically pretty lazy anyway.

I have to say your style of management would really wind me up as well. Not to the point of saying I was triggered or shouting at you. But I do think treating employees like children is generally very counterproductive. It might be appropriate for someone on a performance review. If you're doing it as a matter of course it's a disaster: babying people creates a culture of resentment and actually disincentives people from taking responsibility for themselves.

It does sound as she needs quite a lot of hand-holding, to put it mildly. What I don't really know is whether she's a basically poor employee who is kicking off because she doesn't want to work, or whether she's someone who finds working for you profoundly demotivating. I think you might want to get to the bottom of that and adjust your strategy. I honestly don't think this level of management is appropriate for everyone.

God, I assume you don’t manage anyone

She does sweet fuck all every day at work and people are … suggesting sending her on a leadership course?? What fresh hell is this, to quote another poster out of context 😁 do all the people who feel colour coding is a micro aggression simply refuse to use the many widely used tools such as teams planner and other it project related ones I’ve used that flag overdue items RED? Or do they just cry bullying and open a grievance as just because the 1000 other employees at the firm use it doesn’t mean it’s not personally targeted at them?
Dont try and make any further plans here op, bring in hr, tell them she accomplishes nothing with terrible excuses and ask how to proceed.

Sorry to disappoint, but I do and very well. If you can't find the point of reciprocity then you are just poor a manger, not a leader. If you understand people, then you know how to get the best out of them 🤷‍♀️

I’m baffled as to how she got this job in the first place… if I was like this in my job I’d be straight up SACKED. She isn’t doing any work, how does she think she can get away with it 😩

Does sound very micro managed. Can you do it more long term... Daily is ott. Her not pulling her weight is a different thing and needs to be dealt with via the proper channels...do you have a hr department

Tbf I didn’t say ask about health issues directly. It should be a generic question about support the employee needs to do the job or any barriers that are affecting them that the employer may be able to help with e.g flexibility over start times. It’s just giving the opportunity for anything to be disclosed if the employee wants. But if they choose not to, that’s their right but then the employer can’t help.

Shes on tik tok

Really not sure whether this is a performance or micromanaging issue as you seem to have started managing her from the get go with a highly directive style and we don't know the exact details of the job and therefore whether her behaviour is a response to your style or vice versa and whether her role should expect to be more autonomous or not.

Was there a pre-existing performance issue with the employee before you took over managing her?

Is there an ongoing performance issue? I.e. is she missing deadlines, etc.?

You say that daily task setting by you is necessary as she does not have access to information you do. Is there anyway for her to access this information without you needing to relay it on a daily basis?

Is she in a position where it is reasonable for her to be expected to prioritise tasks herself?

I think that clarity on the above is needed before decent advice can be offered as it can range all the way from a performance improvement plan to complete adjusting your management style depending on the answers.

I along with most people could have completed those tasks in a morning. Is she new to the company it would be interesting to know why she left her previous role. It does come across that she has some issues or just very good at getting out of doing any work.

She's not producing any work and throws a tantrum when asked to account for her work

FIRE HER !

I’ve been micromanaged before by someone who’d been told how to do this by their manager and who didn’t know any better (I was a temp). They were also a young manager compared to me who was older and an experienced EA/PA. I thought long and hard before tackling her with the fact that she was micromanaging me on a daily basis and this was impacting on my ability to do the job I was employed to do. My fellow EAs/PAs felt sorry for me when I left, so they said as they didn’t have managers like her.

Deornding on the age of this woman it seems like she’s not capable of doing the job correctly and in inexperienced or is either not doing the work or doesn’t want to do the work. Someone emailing a contact 3 times (not getting a response) and then not looking into another way of contacting them (phone) would drive me up the wall! I also can’t see how red can be triggering on certain tasks, she could then say that about any colour replacing it!

She’ll probably be hard to get rid of or claim a protected health condition (I’d be totally sympathetic if she worked with you if this is the case). Too many employees now use “triggering” or other PC language to accuse others of things they either haven’t done in that way or to excuse their own shortcomings.

I would suggest from the evidence we see in front of us that OP is an unusually sensitive and competent manager!

I assume that you were different to the OP's member of staff in that you actually did the work you were paid to do - in which case being micro-managed would of course be inappropriate - however...

The OP using tried and tested and accepted methodologies for task management is not micro-managing by doing that.

Having tasks with deadlines and chasing to find out if they have been done is not micro-managing.

Categorising and prioritising tasks is not micro-managing.

Having critical tasks in red is not triggering or micro-managing

Expecting a member of staff to do the work they are legally contracted to do is not micro-managing

Finding out what the member of staff is doing with their time (based on not delivering any of the simple tasks they have to do) is not micro-managing

All of that is good management - the simple fact here is that there is a lazy entitled member of staff who is bullying her manager by using aggression and 'woke words' to try to avoid having to work.

The OP has shown patience with some of the answers on here where people either don't read what she has put or where they believe that everyone is entitled to do no work and be paid for it... basic economics means that doesn't work - If I needed to I would hire OP like a shot she would appear to have all the criteria I would want in a manager - sensitivity (tries different options) / good work ethic / checks that she is not the issue / etc. - well done to her - the member of staff would be gone by lunch time!

What was her explanation for that? What did she claim to have been doing with her time?

OP you really need to be firmer. So many of your answers are "I tried that but she exploded... If I did that she'd go nuclear". You can't let your management and the company's productivity be held to ransom by her angry outbursts. Get HR involved, put in place the measures needed, and if she goes nuclear, let her do it in front of people. They'll soon get the measure of her.

Have you read how this person behaves? I'd love to see how you get on. She sounds like a temperamental nightmare, but you go ahead and blame OP who appears to want her to do some work.

Colour coded spreadsheets are used extensively in project management. They show what is important, what is on time, what has been delayed, where there's slippage and so on. Using them is not micromanagement, they're a fairly standard tool.

You need to go to HR and talk to them. What exactly is she doing all day if she can't manage 3 straightforward tasks set by you?

So she does fuck all and then gets shirty when challenged on it? Your organisation has to let her go. Quite apart from the unacceptable behaviour she is not in the right role.