Junior colleague taking credit for work

[Workdilemma6789]

I have been tasked with working with / helping a junior colleague for about half of my workload. I am not their line mgr but they are supporting on several of my work streams and have been for a few months.

they are competent, smart and enthusiastic; however I have about 6 more years experience in the workplace than them and this is their first proper job. I am also a qualified lawyer and they are not.

i really try to go above and beyond explaining things to them, helping, correcting mistakes and reviewing etc. They recently Asked if they could be copied onto all internal emails (sometimes only me and my senior are in these for efficiency) as they wanted to understand what was going on - I immediately agreed and felt a bit bad they hadn’t been. I also invite them to work socials etc.

I felt a bit betrayed when I saw them in a call with our boss. They would have the call, call me to update me and then ask me for help on the task. I immediately asked if I could be looped into the next call for efficiency - saves me repeating myself and ensures I know what we are being asked to do. Lo and behold, happens again. By this point I’m annoyed - seems like they are asking me for help then presenting the work as their own while cutting me out of the process. I politely called our boss directly and explained we couldn’t do said task and managed the situation. But I’m annoyed it had to get that stage.

any ideas on how I can handle this? It makes me want to step back a bit and stop teaching / mentoring them. They may be good but they do need support and lack experience. I feel taken advantage of and definitely do not trust them now.

for context I’m one of the only women in a male workplace and this isn’t the first time this has happened, although disappointingly it’s the first time it has happened with this guy.

I feel like he is leveraging my experience and knowledge to shine whilst I’m seen as the one who gets things done in the corner.

I think you need to have a formal meeting about this where he is reprimanded. It was no surprise to find you were female and he was male.

I think you need to explicitly call him out and lay down the law, and put it in writing too.

I’d stop going above and beyond - it just makes you resentful. Maybe try shifting your focus to what you get out of things I.e. train or mentor them because of the experience and skills it brings you, not because you want them to look out for you in return. Or if you do want them to look out for you in return, make that a conscious communication/agreement with them rather than just hoping they know what you want.

Are there ways you could self-promote your work better? There’s a book called F*ck Being Humble about this. Tell your boss about your work and achievements regularly. I think they’ll soon figure out who’s exaggerating or lying to them.

As soon as I saw your post title I was sure you were female and your junior colleague was male. This behaviour is so so common OP. The junior colleague doesn’t respect you and sees you as an obstacle to his direct line of communication to your boss. He expects you to disappear in a few years to have kids and he sees himself as a future partner. He absolutely will take credit for your work wherever possible.

If you are a qualified lawyer and he’s a trainee / paralegal then you need to assert your authority and give him a bollocking. Call him into your office if you have one / book a meeting room for an interim feedback session if you don’t, and be extremely blunt about your assessment of his behaviour, good and bad.

Don’t talk about taking credit, that sounds whiny. Don’t ask, tell. Instead for example say “Your written work is good but your sense of team structure isn’t. I specifically told you on two occasions to loop me into all calls with [John]. That you aren’t doing this makes work less efficient for all of us and I’m concerned that you can’t follow such a simple instruction. What’s going on?”

If you want to see all of his work before it’s presented to your boss, that’s your right as the supervising solicitor. But he will trample all over you if you don’t assert your authority.

You’ve been a trainee, how come you don’t know this already?! If you can’t spot and manage a power grab by a colleague then you need to learn how to take control asap or you will get stuck at mid-level. You work for the boss, trainee works for you. You give instructions, if trainee does not follow them to the letter, trainee gets bollocked by you. Part of your job is to protect your boss’s time from this low level nonsense.

Thanks @Neverreturntoathread And all, good advice.

@Neverreturntoathread you’re bang on, those are the dynamics at play. I work at a very small firm now however where it isn’t uncommon for partners and juniors to chat. The expectation then being that in a couple of years the junior will take on small projects with the partner to develop them / whilst they qualify. I can definitely sense a power grab and my tactic is firm but fair - now I will double down as I can see what’s going on and have a firm chat with him, and possibly give him fewer opportunities to present our work in calls etc. I do tend to allow emails to come from him re work he has done / I help him with them - but I think I will give him less responsibility now and be more strategic so that I can shine. It is very frustrating but that’s how it works.

@legoouch im not going above and beyond to get any kind of leg up, I’m doing it because I want to be the manager I never had... but if I get fucked over then yes I’ll be strategic about it and won’t reward someone’s bad behaviour.