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?

@Fairylightgirl

How on earth are the hypo senistive easily triggered and offended by allmost anything ect,
cope with the realities of life not being perfect all the time?

Oh didims..

My gut feeling is that she is bone idle and has got away with until you became her manager. I would speak to HR and come up with a way to find her another position as she is clearly unhappy with you. Let her become someone else’s problem. Every company has a person that behaves in this way and they usually know how to manipulate the system to avoid getting sacked.

Does she drive? If so, I doubt that red triggers her unless she has a record of that happening with every red light... Red as a warning of danger / issue is an international standard - if she is genuinely triggered by it then she needs to get medical advice on how to deal with that.

Or alternatively she is being 'triggered' (does she even know what that means?!) by the insistence that she does the work she is being paid to do...

Or she is playing you by using words selected to imply that it is your fault that she has decided to accept a contract, take the money and not deliver her side of the contract...

The UK workforce has become more lazy in recent years - forgetting that work has a legal contract which has obligations on both sides - one to pay for work done / the other, to do that work... If she were working in my business she would be given one opportunity to sort herself out or she would be out - I have always had an approach of going the extra mile to support and look after those who work for me - but anyone taking the proverbial like this doesn't belong... you are doing the right thing and you should expect the support of the business to make it work, or she needs to go...

That is NOT micromanaging. That is managing. Micromanaging is when you tell someone what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Also in a support role your boss is entitled to tell you how they want something done. This is an employee who doesn't do ANYTHING so has literally failed the entire time. The employ is also using bullying tactics (rage) to deflect from their failings.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. apologies.

But I didn't decide that red was aggressive. Sorry! It was just in my workplace training. Don't shoot the messenger 😊

She sounds quite junior and actually that she needs daily tasks and she's not managing her workload to stay on track. You need to start making note where she's not doing her job and start managing her out.

To many you sound micromanaging, but if that's how her job is, diddums. And the red stuff, seriously!

60% of my work is down to me and I need no micromanaging (and would be annoyed if I was) and I’m responsible for my own deadlines etc.

But 40% is deadlines etc and new things that I need to get done.
My manager will tell me what I need to do and remind me closer to the time etc.

Same when I was a teacher.
There are certain things that have deadlines which you need to be told about.

This is just part of the job and I’ve never exploded at my boss.

I would be really unhappy about this and I would have a sit down meeting with her and have a chat about how you can give her the tasks to do without overwhelming her and explain that ultimately if she doesn’t like being told what to do then this probably isn’t the job for her.

I think she sounds like an absolute nightmare and I think you’ve been very kind so far.
I would not be happy with someone exploding.

Why can't she have the same information as you? If she can see where her role fits into the organisation and how her tasks contribute to the overall objectives, it might be easier for her to focus. That's assuming you are not working for MI5 obviously.

This level of micro management is generally used only when you know someone is hopelessly awful at their job and you are actually managing them out, i.e. encouraging them to leave. There is only a small chance that she will take you on with this and come through looking good - only the very fittest would survive that I think. Unless you have been specifically asked by your management to manage her out (and I doubt it), then you need to work with her.

I KNEW this would be someone in marketing.

I've worked with so many people like this. As a junior exec its absolutely expected that you get given daily job lists - else how else do they learn what needs to be done? Especially in event planning.

But if she's not responding to normal task delegation, then she needs to either pull her weight or be shipped out.

she sounds hopeless. Honestly reading these replies confirms the world has truly gone mad. You’ve stated she’s not doing her job so you’ve trued ways to make sure she dies and yet still people are slating you 🤯

If I were you I’d take all this to HR.

You’ve stated she’s not doing her job so you’ve trued ways to make sure she dies

Lol thats extreme even for Mumsnet! haha

Have you posted about her before? This sounds very familiar.

You are only having to micromanage her because she is clearly not up to the job ... she sounds totally incompetent and useless. I've worked with people like that, in most organisations you get a broad outline of the tasks involved and use your initiative to get things done ... if she's clearly not up to the job and you need to spell out every task (whilst she accuses you of micromanaging) then you need to end the contract.

What exactly is she doing all day?

You do not sound unreasonable Op - she sounds incompetent/lazy/both.

I had one of these once, bloody nightmare. Does she have a neuro diversity/executive function problem? Sounds like she is in the wrong job. Get HR involved and look at performance management.

You said she had done nothing. So what HAD she spent time on? Had she dossed all week?

I don't think you are micro managing op. Some work environments are like this. I work in design and it can be very fast paced and I used to come in to emails from my managers with tasks to do. My first job of the day was to go through all my emails and prioritise my tasks for the day.

Yes lots of them were relatively casual emails rather then a formal list, but part of my job was following up on information I don't have in order to complete that task. They might say 'please contact x' about a design detail and I would have to do the leg work to find out who x was and which project it referred to.

you are delegating tasks to her and she is failing to take any responsibility on by chasing or asking follow up questions. Find the phone number she needs it a logical part of the task that you shouldnt have to spoon feed her.

Get thyself to HR the sooner you go the sooner you can do something as they may ask you to record performance for a period or similar.

I'd get that done in 10 minutes.

Why are you allowing her to 'explode' at you? You should have called HR in the first time she did that, that I'd not acceptable behaviour.

As for the rest of it, get HR to put her on a performance plan.

Why on earth are you setting her daily tasks like that? Surely she should be allowed to manage her own workload and time?

"I’d expect that work to be done in less that half a day!!"

It can take venues a few days to get back to you. I'd argue more than the 72 hours someone said above, but I would need the quotes by email. The initial tasks, yes, can be done quite quickly.

Someone has to make her privy to the information and that person is OP as her manager. That's how it works!

She sounds dreadful to be honest. Is crap at her job but is offended and "explodes" about being asked to do it effectively! I had a secretary once who was like that. She was bone idle, that was the first issue. But also repeatedly took offence at how I gave her instructions I.e. I would send her details of tasks by (polite) email. This made sense and was what the other lawyers did because the secretaries were located on a different floor and it also meant we both had a record/reference of what was required. But no, that offended her apparently- she wanted me to tell her in person. She never answered her phone so I had to go down to the next floor and speak to her in person. But she'd take an age to do anything, even urgent stuff and forget things because there was no written instructions to refer to! I spoke to her about this and she "exploded" saying she was so busy and it was stressing her out.

I do think part of the issue was that she didn't like taking instructions from a younger woman. She was OK with the older male lawyers (though they also found her slow and unproductive).

I did refer to HR in the end because it was really hampering my own productivity. Thanks to digital typing records the HR manager was able to see her output was lowest out of all the typists. So much for busy and stressed! HR manager addressed it with her and she got in a massive huff and handed in her notice. Problem solved! I do wonder how she got on in her next job.

If she is not performing her job role you need to do a performance evaluation and start the process of dismissal. However I would cover your back with this I assume you minute all meetings go and get support from HR

She is telling her what and when to do. If you add the how to it, then by your own definition it's micromanaging.

This is definitely micro-managing. I mean, 'marking tasks in red'? What fresh hell is that!? You either trust people to get on with the job or you don't. And this is literally screaming that 'you dont'! That's what needs addressing.

OK, so the daily task lists are to attempt damage limitation because she's not delivering on weekly/monthly targets.

You need to start the performance improvement process. It's not OK for her to 'explode' and then request a clean slate each time. It's a pattern of unacceptable behaviour. Meanwhile she's not delivering.

What have you done so far to identify the root cause of her underperformance?

Does she do work for other people? If not, how is she spending her time? She’s not wfh is she?