Made a mistake at work, meeting has been put in with my manager

[Anxioussss]

An error in a document was found during an external review where two number values were written the wrong way around. I have responsibility for doing the internal review before it goes out externally and I missed this error. I was comparing it to the source document and somehow missed that the writer had changed the order that the numbers were written, so that the labels were now the wrong way around.

The senior manager has put in a meeting with me and my manager for Monday to discuss it. I'm feeling really anxious and upset, and worried that I'm going to get fired or a written warning or something. I have a good eye for detail and do my best and I feel awful about this.

Does anyone have any advice? I've never had a meeting like this, and have only been in the job a few months. I had a similar job before but mistakes/errors weren't treated like this.

I think I'd own my mistake. Nothing is more irksome than someone trying to blame other people/external factors! Mistakes happen, so try not to worry.

Just own up and apologise

Transposing numbers is a really easy mistake to make. Rely on your performance record and remind them how often you do this without making mistakes.

You’re not AI, you’re not infallible.

Before the meeting can you come up with a way to ensure similar things don’t happen in future? That way you can provide reassurance that you will be doing something pro-active, having obviously agreed that this was not the kind of standard of work that you should be producing.

Own up to the mistake, firstly. Then what's the impact of the mistake? Has someone lost money? Trust in the business? That sort of thing?

Can you think of any sort of system that can be put in place to catch out any sort of future error like this, is there a further check or review that's able to help reduce the chance of this recurring? If you go in a step ahead having clearly thought about how to change to improve going forward that's a positive point your way.

Mistakes happen. At my work mistakes often have huge safety implications and it important to us we have a "just culture" where we recognise humans are human, genuine mistakes happen and we learn from them without being unfair on individuals. It fosters an atmosphere where people voluntarily own up to errors and near misses are are treated well. What isn't tolerated is recklessness, deliberately cutting corners or not following procedures for personal gain etc. Your error sounds like it was a genuine human error that can be learned from and hopefully that is what this meeting is about.

Were you the only person reviewing the document? Surely there was more than one of you reviewing?

Own your mistake. Do not deny it was made or attempt to blame others.

I am an auditor. I think as a business you’d need to consider the controls in place to identify/prevent errors like this. The errors themselves are the symptom/result of the issue, rather than the issue itself.

A single, manual human quality check is a really poor control. There should be other protections and automatic validations in place. Presumably the way the document/spreadsheet is designed is not your responsibility?

Who has lost out because of this?
How can things be fixed?

Own up
Apologise
Thank them for spotting
Suggest what could be changed in future.

Mistakes happen and if they expect perfection they'll never fill your role successfully. Work with them to implement changes and use it in future interviews

Do you have a sibling you have wronged, who has access to an all-night photocopying centre?

What are the actual consequences of the error? If serious, the checking numbers shouldn't have been done by eye - the processes need reviewing.

If the consequences are just embarrassment or a misunderstanding that can be resolved, then I wouldn't worry.

You are human and people make mistakes. As others have said, apologise but of they try to make you feel shit remind them that humans make mistakes and suggest that a new protocol of 2 person checks be put in place moving forward.

Own it. You're human and we all get number blind.

As others have said, own your mistake.

Explain that you know how it happened and state what you will do to try to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

You own it. You take full responsibility and go to the meeting with a solution to prevent it happening again. Your manager will want to know the how and why, what you're going to do to fix it and how you'll make sure it doesn't happen again and that you've learned from it.

Agree with PP

Do you have a trade union rep? If it’s a formal meeting you will have right to be accompanied

i can say this with conviction because I also beat myself up over small technical errors and feel so bad and disproportionately worried about comeback. You are human, not a machine. Humans make errors. Often. If this is just an information type report and no actual reputational , human or financial damage then it should just be a really quick, ah ok, got that wrong, I apologize, here is how we should avoid it in future. Even with the best checks, errors will still occur. Many are probably never picked up even with error checking.

one of my colleagues made a huge clanger in his first year of the job. He is excellent and was quickly promoted actually.

owning up and not minimizing is important but also we don’t do ourselves any favours catastrophizing and blaming ourselves.

Own the mistake.

There should never be a single point of failure.

You are a human being and people make mistakes. You are not a machine.

If there was a backstory of you regularly making mistakes at work then that would be different but everyone has an off day at some point.

Just be honest and say you indeed made a mistake and explain how it happened.

Quick one: Own up, apologise and have a clear idea what 'quality checks' you will employ to ensure this never happens again. Or have suggestions about quality checks if it is for your employer to add or maybe a tool the need to pay for.

Without quality control idea, this could get v bad.

Don’t go in all “mea culpa”

You go in and do an after-action review:

1. this was the error (human error by the person who wrote the report, then a second human error by the person who reviewed the report),
2. this is how the error was finally identified
3. this was the impact of the error (financial or reputation all or legal or whatever)
4. this is what we did to report/mitigate the error once it was identified
5. this was the ROOT cause of the error,
6. this is how we prevent it in future.

Root cause might be:

• inappropriate reliance on human controls to prevent and detect manual error
• insufficient experience and training of staff
• time pressure (eg checking last minute changes to hit a tight deadline)
• inability to identify what changes had been made to the report (was there a “track changes” function to show and actively accept changes)
• if you had already reviewed the report once you’d have a confirmation bias - thinking “I’ve checked this and it was fine”. A second review maybe should have a different/fresh pair of eyes on it?

Ultimately you should be thinking about how to STOP the errors occurring - what caused the person who prepared the report to make the error - was it careless?

In any human process mistakes will happen.

If the errror is critically important (eg someone’s life depends on it, like a pharmaceutical prescription) there will be a bucket load of processes and controls. The fact there isn’t says this company is either exposing itself and its employees to too much risk, or the risk is tolerable.

I would be confident. I would own up and say yes, unfortunately, on this occasion I got two numbers round the wrong way, I’m human and I’m sorry. But I would not be showing fear or let them make me feel awful for such a small error.
I would be considering ideas to prevent it happening again and preface my suggestion with ‘As small errors like this are easy to make but can have larger consequences, I suggest X, Y, Z moving forward, what would your suggestions be?’

Did you follow the process correctly and in line with the training?
What failsafes are in place to pick up errors?

Remember it’s only a job if you don’t work there you will work somewhere else