To not push an employee to do more?

[itsallbowlsbaby]

I started a new role six weeks ago and have inherited a small team based all over the world. Three of them are young, ambitious, eager to progress. One of them works at a very large site and does all the admin for it, and therefore is quite insular and self sufficient. She also speaks a different language. She's been there 20 years and is considered part of the furniture. I've just done her mid year performance review and it's very clear she doesn't want to do any more, take on any more, broaden her role or do any additional training. She's quite happy doing her job and going home. Says she has no capacity to take on any more. Thing is, MY boss wants her to take on more but by the sounds of it, she will push back. I'd be quite happy to leave her to it and focus on the younger members who do want to further their careers. WIBU to just let her get on with it?? She's late 50s if that's relevant.

If she's meeting her job requirements and not just floating, then leave her be. If she's not pulling her weight then she needs a kick up there bum.

I'd say that it's best to have a mixture of people in a team - some who are happy to stay doing the role as it is and others who are eager to progress. Do you have that balance?

In my experience, people management is all about tailoring your leadership style and flexing to the needs of the people you manage. As long as she is engaged in what she’s currently doing and is happy I don’t think there’s any need to put extra responsibility on her that she doesn’t want. It’s likely that, due to her tenure, she is just the best fit for the responsibility but it will take no time at all to get the younger, more eager ones to where she is and then they will be ready to take on more. She should be your number one priority please advocate for her to your boss!

What does her job description say?

Does your boss want her to "do more" as in be more productive in her current role, or does the boss want her to have more responsibility?

Absolutely. Things is, I think she probably could do a bit more but at the same time, she gets on with things, gets things done and is generally a good employee. Punctual, very rarely ill, respectful and gets good feedback.

Boss wants her to be more visible across the whole company and not just focus on the needs of her site. So meet regularly with site leads across all other locations and share what they're doing, what she's doing, share best practice especially around things like sustainability. That's all met with a very noncommittal shrug and an explanation that's she's just too busy.

Your post could be about me. I am 55, been at the Company over 20 years, I am always horrendously busy but I am good at my job.
I have told my new LM that I am not interested in promotion or doing training for additional skills. I work in IT so when I switch projects it's "new" work.
Honestly if I was to take on extra responsibility or additional training I would have to do even more work in my own time which I don't want to do.

If it is genuinely just that she feels she’s too busy, could you suggest delegating some of her tasks to a more junior member of the team so that it’s a development piece for them and allows her more time to do the things that the boss would like her to do? Even if she just tries them and then decides x or y isn’t for her. In this case I’d definitely encourage her to give it a go

Oh and factor in the menopause, at that age she is likely to be going through it and learning new tasks on top of doing your day job honestly feels like hell.
If you have a valuable colleague value her, if you push it she may walk away with 20 years of company experience

@JackGrealishsCalves - and if I were your manager and met with you each week to check you were ok and had what you needed and check there were no blockers or barriers or challenges and then let you carry on your job, would you feel relieved or let down?

It doesn’t sound like the boss is being unreasonable .

That sounds very reasonable. I would be fully on her side if she was being pushed to progress or turn her role into something else, but refusing to share information isn't okay.

I'd be telling her that knowledge sharing is a priority so to make time for it you're reassigning tasks A and B to someone else.

I think we work for the same company or else all large organisations come up with this corporate bullshit 🙄.
Basically the big bosses don't want to do this to get ideas of how to improve so they get the overworked minnows to do it then ask them to deploy improvements in their area.
I bet you have working groups who have to come up with improvements to put tick a box to say they have delivered something even if no one bothers using said improvements.
This isn't a pop at you OP, I've been involved in this corporate crap for over 20 years and it's tedious. Some people love doing it, others hate it, you shouldn't be forced to do it, leave it to the people who have bugger all else to do (they know who they are).

Last one from me, maybe she is too busy and if she is you'll need to come up with a solution to free her up if the bosses insist she does it, so get your delegation hat on

Yeah it’s a load of corporate bullshit.

Tell Big Boss the employee in question will be meeting with the other staff regularly to <<insert your particular brand of corporate 💩 here>> share best practice.

Then arrange a TEAMS meeting once every two months.

Everyone’s a winner.

Sack her, bring in someone fresh & exciting.

I feel like you might be talking about me.... My manager is now pushing me more and more because that's what leadership wants , setting pointless objectives and tasks that have no job impact at all, but you have to have them.
I just want to do my job and do it well. I don't want more and more responsibility and tasks. I'm doing my job properly.
I'm handing my notice in Monday.

What is your corporate culture? It may be that, if you are not constantly working to move up in the organisation then they want you out. It’s a pity because there should be a place for those who are happy to just do their jobs well.

Is there any chance that some of her role will be moved elsewhere or disappear (for whatever reason)? If there is then it would be sensible for her to do the stuff suggested.

Yeah set up some monthly zoom meetings. You attend. You carry for six months then hand over to her.

don’t fuck up a good employee- she is probably going shit loads of stuff that no one else will

I'm at that stage of life where I've been there, done that, read (or even written) the book, got the T-shirts and had the major breakdowns to the point of suicidal. I am very happily doing a moderately basic admin job nowadays and really don't want to "progress". If my boss's boss told her to try to push me into progressing, I'd be looking elsewhere; luckily very good admins happy to do the work at the shite local government pay rates don't come along every day!

Maybe you could approach it from a different angle with her though? She's obviously a good worker and seems to know the job well, so maybe pitch it to her that she's needed at these meet ups as she has such valuable knowledge to share? Also that when there's a policy change she can piggy back off the efforts others have made to work out how to deal with them, as there's no point in reinventing the wheel from both her or the other's point of view.

Sack her, bring in someone fresh & exciting.

Apart from the obvious reason that you can't just sack someone after 20 odd years for doing her job perfectly well, in every organisation there's a place for those happy to do the "boring", aka routine day to day, tasks. Who will do the "drudge" work that the exciting, fresh and new people are far too exciting and go-ahead to do? If everyone in an organisation "progresses", you end up having to bring in new administrators etc to replace them. And as the average organisation will have a pyramid structure, at least at the higher levels, loads of these "fresh and exciting" people will leave and go elsewhere leaving you with nobody who knows all the inner workings inside and out.

Plus that comment is just so very insulting to anyone who isn't ambitious!

I think I’m a bit like your employee - I can do my job well, work hard, work my hours, but have no desire to do any more than this. And I watch a succession of bright young things working at my grade get promoted to more senior roles.

The analogy I’ve used when talking to my boss is that I feel like in work terms I have the equivalent of two children. Which is the amount I want to have. And that taking on these additional tasks and responsibilities would be like having a third child I have no desire to have.

Other people will want that ‘third work child’ and that’s fine for them and the right choice for them. It doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for me. But it doesn’t help that by their very nature most organisations are run by senior management which will comprise of people who have chosen to have five children in work terms!

I am this person in my team. The other people are are being fast tacked for eadership. I am 54 and as I often say, if I wanted a career, I wold have had one by now. I just have a job. I enjoy my job. I do it well but I'm happy where I am.

I had someone on my team who was really good at her job, she wasn't interested in career progression, for personal reasons, my boss wanted to expand her role, I fought against it, explaining to my boss that not everyone wants career progression, some people, who are very competent at what they do are happy with that level of responsibility and would become demoralised if we tried to push them out of their comfort zone. It was never mentioned again.

Everybody is talking about progression but the employee isn't being pushed to progress or go for promotion or become a leader. All they want her to do is share some information about how things work in her department to help other departments.