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 you have my ex- employee!

I went to HR, put her on an informal performance review, she made allegations that I’d bullied her every time I tried to move it in to a formal review, In the end the company paid her off
I only ever asked her to do her job - but unfortunately she was just a lazy ass but got 3 months money out of it!

As other pp have said you are micromanaging her and if that was me I'd already be looking for another job.
A better approach might be to give her a list of jobs and just verbally check in with her every couple of days to see if she needs any help. Follow this up with a weekly 1 to 1 meeting. Once she's up to speed a fortnightly 1 to 1 should be enough.

Once she's up to speed You're an optimist!

Isn’t she just? You do realise she lies about what she’s done @fetchacloth?

I’m not getting the hostility towards the OP on this thread. This business involves planning/organising/providing a service. All members of the OP’s team are supposed to participate collectively in satisfying the paying customer by delivering the whole event. Individual tasks are allocated to team members by the lead co-ordinator (OP) and presumably all tasks have to be completed on time for the event to work out - the OP will have to check this is happening on an ongoing basis. If every other person has done their bit (booked caterer, entertainment, social media, ordered merchandise, whatever) and the wayward employee hasn’t booked the venue on time/at all because they can’t be arsed/couldn’t find a phone number(!) and lies about it then the whole thing is a shambles and event can’t proceed. If the OP is having to constantly monitor and chase up one team member neither of them are using their time effectively. If the team member can’t reasonably account for her repeated failure to do her allocated work then she is inefficient and the OP should be monitoring her closely to find out why and take appropriate steps to dismiss her according to the company policy ASAP that’s before factoring in the shouting and dramatic behaviour. The only criticism I can have with OP is letting the verbal abuse go more than once. She should be working through disciplinary process now. As for posters going on about possible ND - so what? There’s no evidence of this and she’s made no statement about any ND issue. It’s also pretty insulting to people who get on with being productive and managing life who are ND and don’t use it as an excuse. Even if she was ND does this give the team member a free pass to take a wage and provide nothing in return except a stroppy rant or two? Clearly this person either does not want or is not able to do this job - if micromanaging is what it takes to record her failures and get shot of her then the OP should just carry on with it and get it done.

But she isn't doing what she is supposed to do. Just asking an employee to complete a task is not micromanaging. Have you even read all the OP's updates?

As other posters have said OP - it wouldn’t take an administrator a whole day to do those three tasks. I’d say one hour max for each one and that’s assuming someone is not familiar with local venues and also needs to research average catering costs. If you were an events administrator familiar with these details then the second and third tasks are half an hr each.

saying this, I agree that it’s not appropriate to prioritise someone’s work as a daily ‘to do’ list and if genuinely you are needing to do this, you need to take a step back to allow her to either step up or make her own mistakes which you can then evidence to her and your manager as the basis for managing her performance formally / managing her out if necessary.

How old is she, op? Out of interest.

I'd just replace her if she's been there less than 2 years.

Some people on here have a strange idea of what “managing your own workload” means. It doesn’t mean your manager never assigning any work to you or specifying a deadline.

If I have several tasks to complete and they all have different deadlines, then yes, I expect my manager to trust me to manage my workload to get them all done. I wouldn’t want to be chased on Tuesday for something that wasn’t due until Thursday - that would be micromanaging. But if she needs me to complete a specific task to a tight deadline, she tells me so. And guess what? I do it without whinging that I’m being micromanaged.

Assuming she works on company laptop, etc… I would be asking HR to monitor exactly what she DOES do all day. She’s not working, so what is she up to?
She could be setting up her own company, o league with rivals, watching Netflix - all kinds of things.

but then why agree to the process to begin with ?

why did they apply and choose the role ?

Some people on here have a strange idea of what “managing your own workload” means. It doesn’t mean your manager never assigning any work to you or specifying a deadline.

I agree. During our Teams meetings we discuss what needs to be prioritised. Our line manager just talks in general terms and only occasionally needs to specify a particular individual to complete a task if something urgent has come up. That is just being a manager.

I think all the posters accusing the OP of micromanaging have only read the first post and not the updates.

The team member is lazy and not right for the job and this needs to be escalated.

I am the PM for two work projects so it is my responsibility to manage workflows (both up and down the chain). The nature of our work means we have a combination of longer term, self directed work and very tight, often externally dictated deadlines. It can be challening for younger and less experienced staff to navigate.

For longer term work I use weekly catch ups to check in with progress and sometimes ask less experienced staff to be prepared to update me on individual elements of the task.

We have other tasks that have SLAs or are every urgent so I may have to set an date or even hour deadline when allocating the work. I will however always explain why this is.

The trickiest one to handle in my view is governance papers where reviews have to be scheduled and not meeting deadlines can result in the whole edifice collapsing.

I think staff need structure as well as autonomy, but if you set a deadline explain why that is. Pointless deadlines is micro managing.

OP tried that, she didn’t do anything but lied that she had. And then when OP found out she’d lied, she shouted at OP, then called in sick for the rest of the week.

This person needs to be fired.

You need a discussion with HR with a view to talking about what a reasonable PIP would be. Then make sure that someone from HR is there when you give this woman the news. If she goes nuclear, you will then have a witness with direct power to do something about it.

Does this person WFH because I don't understand if they're in the office how they can basically spend so much time doing nothing. It's hard to 'look busy' if you're not. Have you ever sat next to her some days just to observe her?

Is your manager aware and inside about what you need to do to get this situation resolved? Make sure you have back up.

Is your organisation large enough to have policies on performance management etc, and HR support? If so, familiarise yourself with them and ask for some support guidance on how to handle it from here.

Then you have a meeting with her and set out that you have two concerns:

1. that her aggressive behaviour towards you is unacceptable and stops now. You will no longer be wiping the slate clean and future explosions will be treated as insubordination or whatever your HR wording is for refusing a reasonable management instruction. That alone is usually a disciplinary offence.

2. underperformance in the role as measured against the job description. For this you intend to provide eg 90 days support during which time the pair of you will review her job description, clarify how tasks assigned to her are required by the role, how to manage workload to meet deadlines and any other support she may need, especially if she chooses to declare anything materially relevant (like a diagnosis of any form of neurodivergence, but don't "lead the witness" here).

Your intention is to get her up to speed so that she feels empowered to engage with and perform well in her role. However, falling short will bring consequences as detailed in the company's HR policies.

Clarify that she understands and follow up in writing. Keep your boss and HR informed.

Politely and with a good heart what I'm saying is she'll take the piss as much as you allow her to, you have to put a stop to it somehow. Good luck.

I think you need another meeting
clarifying colour coding for the team

you allocate tasks

completion date on tasks is a necessity

and most importantly you will not tolerate her exploding at you

if there is any issues deal she needs to with them professionally

So basically you allocate tasks tell her when they need doing and in what order that isn’t micro managing

I think this is a very sensible approach and is how I've managed staff in the past with good results.
Not having any autonomy is when employees begin pushing back and causing other problems.
Employees that are unwilling to listen and have no respect for deadlines need to be referred to HR before they unsettle the team.

This is micromanaging at the very worst. Why on earth did you start off, demanding daily priorities. Surely she knows the main parts of her job and hers on with them. She doesn't need to be told by you. Your managerial style would hack most people off.

Depending on your sector, daily priorities may change on a literal daily basis. Maybe if you work in a small firm that doesn’t have high-tech IT systems, how would staff know what to concentrate on if not for their manager feeding them tasks?

The problem is she doesn't know her tasks and can't just get on with them , left alone or being told daily what to do.
Doesn't sound like she is fit for the workplace, get rid.

I have read the OP’s posts and some (but not all) of the comments.

The thing is, it sounds as though the OP (or the business) do actually need this person to do these things. It isn’t okay to let her fail because that hurts someone else (probably the OP).

The OP has given this person quite a few chances and is now managing her in the best way she knows how.

People talk about workplace stress but it’s usually in the context of too high a workload or an unreasonable boss. The worst workplace stress was when I had people working for me who were not great - one would call in with a headache then tell me she’d played sport later that day because she “felt better”, one would stare blankly at me and tell me that he “didn’t know what XYZ involved” so couldn’t do it (it was writing a letter), one would sulk. It got to the point where I pretty much fell apart because I was doing everything all the time.

I agree with the PP who said it’s time to stop wiping the slate clean. When she explodes, you need to talk to both your boss and HR. You need to do this every time.

I’ve been pondering this thread. I think my next question is how this person ended up working for the OP. I wonder if it was because someone else found her terrible and couldn’t face managing her or managing her out.

Too often, competent women are made to manage lower performing team members because the equivalent level men “just can’t work with someone like that”. This gives the men’s careers a real boost - they get to work with the sensible, trustable people and look really good - and the women are left with hard graft.

I remember sending someone (a blank starer) to find something out from a senior, scary boss. It was not a particularly difficult task (blank starer had a master’s degree) but afterwards senior, scary boss gave me a hard time for “sending someone like that to speak with him”. I’d really had enough (of both of them) and said “Why do we have people who can’t be sent to ask a question of a senior colleague? I can’t do everything”.

Only the OP can know whether it’s possible but, should her boss need one of her team to work on something, I’d be tempted to send this woman. I’d say something like “It would be good for X to experience a different managerial style so she can feed back to me how you approach XYZ”. Obviously, if the boss has pushed her onto the OP then they’ll see right through that.