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?

I think the way to respond to her anger is to decide confidently what you think is right and fair, then be a very calm broken record on repeat, however angry she gets. But ultimately this needs to be in the context of performance management. Currently you're essentially letting her get away with not doing her job, which will eventually start pissing off the other hardworking members of the team.

I'd assume @LetMeGoogleThat is responsible for getting the best out of a lot of people and therefore applies science and logic...

In the first point she “decided we didn’t need to post this”. On the second, she “couldn’t find the number”, then later “I’ve emailed many times and they won’t reply” (I got a reply myself within an hour). On the third, “I don’t know where to start.”

But...
1 - Did she decide it without discussion? Did she tell you, with her reasoning, that she wasn't posting it after having been asked?
2 - if I couldn't find a number, I'd be asking to check the spelling when I looked it up, or if you had the number on file. I'd also raise it if I wasn't getting any response - is there a contact to escalate to, should we try other people?
3 - did she ask for any hints? The reason we ended up with much better documentation in my last department was because I documented the tasks we had to do, so others didn't spend so much time feeling lost when new to the job as I had.

Does she do anything proactively to improve her situation? Does she ever ask for help or anything? Or does she just sit there, not doing anything and not telling anyone either? Because at least you can do something with melted chocolate, so she's not even as much use as a chocolate teapot, by the sound of it.

Does she have any idea about how crap she is?

That should take an hour.

I would be climbing the walls if I had that little work to do!

So, what does she actually do all day? Ask the whole team to give a breakdown of their workload.

Also OP why are you entertaining this? You can politely explain that outbursts are not acceptable.

Your job is to manage, take the emotion out and cover your own backside.

So how come she gets no work done, and how come nothing improves when OP does what she asks and bins the awful torturing red colour etc?

@madmadaboutmad you are reading one version of the truth here and inexperienced Managers always blame the staff. If you treat people as if they are 5yrs old, they act accordingly. I would be fine, but thanks for your concern 🤣

An hour tops or depending how she’s contacting the venue and how you source caterers at said venue that could take slightly longer, maybe 2 hours at a push.

Thank you, and I even find time to read flim flam on MN af lunchtime 🤪

Surely the first thing HR will ask is what actions you have taken to support her/improve her performance? That's the manager's job. HR are (or should be at least) a last resort. OP seems to have done everything she can within reason. It sounds like the employee has become another task for OP to sort, rather than a team member who's getting things done bitter experience

Reading all your posts about this employee @calmama , to a degree she sounds like someone I occasionally work with. In my case, I'm not the manager, but I've been working at the place longer and have more experience and knowledge. My colleague is young and ND. Literally the only way to get the colleague to get anything done is to micromanage.
And when I say micromanage I mean literally explain each task broken down into separate sections, with very clear and unambiguous details of what needs to be done. If, for example, I were to say, "Can you take these papers to the office and then do xyz?" they would just stay where they were, fiddling with their cuffs.
I have to say, "Please will you take these papers to X in the office right now, and then come back?"
It's not their fault but I find it extremely tiring and occasionally frustrating working with them.

I don't have any suggestions or solutions but I think as many pps have said, working with HR on management of this individual, and how to deal with expectations on both sides seems to be the safest way forward.

Daily tasks in comms? Hell no! (I’m a communications manager).

yes I might have to say to the team “can you pop this urgent message on social asap please” is fine but the quotes etc, nope. Weekly planning meeting where you look at work, event date and work back deadlines and allow team to work with that, managing their work load. Eg.we need quotes for x,y,z in time for planning meeting on 19 December. You have a plan with all the actions, deadlines and the “lead” which is anyone in the team. Make it clear, the lead is responsible for making the request and chain to ensure you have the info in time.

Use a live Action document in teams and all update as and when. For something important like an event you need them to add notes so anyone can pick it up if they were sick.

She sounds difficult and I find her behaviour as recounted unacceptable. Nobody should blow up at their manager like that.

That said, you are micromanaging her. As others have said you may need to let her fail by stepping back, but you need to do so in a way that is fair.

To take your example tasks around booking a venue. Have you had a training session where you go through the whole, big picture on certain tasks or projects. For example, "When we have an event, here are all the steps that need to be followed and the timings they need to be done in, along with any internal contacts or resources (like planning templates etc, examples from previous similar projects) that you might need and find useful. You are responsible for xyz tasks on this kind of project. When we are next organizing an event, we will have a kickoff meeting to align on it and then you can pick up your tasks from there."

In other words, delegate based on project not just daily tasks, which always feels like grunt work and which makes it hard for people to show initiative.

I do not honestly think she will change based on this but you can show you are doing things properly so not leave yourself open to any debate as to who is at fault.

Well you're doing that so...

You haven't read OP's posts, have you? She's explained the the person in question was indeed given the opportunity to do the job and just didn't do it. They met a couple of weeks after OP started.

Have you raised your issues with your manager? Reasonable adjustments does not include impacting the well-being of other employees.

Yes that does not sounds like a good approach

I did and the OP is giving mixed messages in her replies.

The situation isn't comparable, though. You were doing the work and didn't need to be told or checked up on. This person just isn't doing any work.

You're making a rod for your own back by setting her daily priorities. You're doing it as she isn't doing her job but it isn't the best to manage poor performance. Set her annual objectives, give her deadlines for work and projects with a clear explanation of the impact on business KPIs if deadlines weren't met. Leave her to it. Then just record everytime the deadline isn't met along with the impact to you or your team (eg- more expensive as venue not booked in time, someone else staying late etc) - discuss it with her and agree how she plans to manage her workload. Once the missed deadlines stack up to a critical mass, I would have a performance convo with her and HR.

Ok. Well, you can carry on arguing about 2 people that you don't know..... I have a few high performing teams to go and manage.....

It sounds like she isn't up to the job. Some people need micromanaging unfortunately.

@calmama why are there daily tasks? Can there not be weekly tasks? We have Teams meetings every day, and we all talk about what needs prioritising. Can you do the meetings as a whole team and just talk about each task for every individual, then she won't feel singled out?

Then you can follow this up with an email covering what you have discussed (and so that you have written proof as to what has been agreed?)

There’s not enough information of here for some of the outrageous responses. If it’s someone with performance issues or very junior then daily task review may be needed. If you do need to go through daily tasks like this, and other equivalent employees don’t need this, they just get on with their work proactively, you could consider a performance plan if your company does them, and try to then improve her independence or get her out the team.

this!

Seriously? If she isn’t told to contact the venue or make the social post, how will she know it needs to be done?

Everybody gets asked to complete tasks in their job - even the most senior people.