Help with new colleague

[Diamondjoan]

Hi all, at my wits end with a new colleague - professional financial services role, reports to me, woman of about 30 - not British (Eastern European) if relevant. She is openly hostile and unfriendly, rude, arrogant and quite frankly unpleasant a lot of the time - although does have periods of being very sweet and is great at her job. When she started here I was aware she was new in the country and knew no-one, I invited her to my house, to go for lunch or some events at weekends to help her settle into the country - she absolutely nailed that shut and said it was totally inappropriate to have offered that and she had no interest whatsoever in meeting up outside work and that I was being weird even going there! So I dropped that offer and continued to try to be friendly and kind to her in work to make her feel welcome. Sometimes she responds positively and will chat normally, other times she will roll her eyes, sneer or tell me to mind my own business. She is the most difficult person I have come across - I want to make it work out for her as she is a great worker and came to Britain from a difficult situation. But it’s reaching a point where the only way that we will get along is by not speaking, ever. Which as her boss is not going to work. She walked out of a performance review meeting last week, saying it was bullshit and she didn’t even know if she will be here in a month. I haven’t outright fired her as I suspect she may have ASD, or ADHD/ODD, or something causing the behaviour that she cannot control or help. I also think she had something very stressful in her home life as she mentioned her husband a few times and stress that he is causing her. In any event I would like to be able to reach her, or connect with her rather than just ditching her. Any tips for making a connection with an EXTREMELY hostile person who has me on eggshells? Thanks!

Imagine though, when you let her pass probation and she sees it as a green light to be a shit to everyone else as well. Your colleagues will not thank you.

Thanks @Ted27 we have two more probation meetings - the next in 2 months - I will be flagging the importance of passing these next week

If it helps I have worked within both Poland and the Ukraine (a long time ago). The women there are tough be default, some are lovely underneath, but if they don’t know you they have no problem treating you with zero airs and graces.

Ukrainians in particular, despite the ‘tough’ exterior, seemed to need, or respected, strong guidelines and rules. In an airport they never went beyond any barrier they thought they should not cross but would happily yell at you for waiting in line quietly at passport control if your presence annoyed them in some way.

I've worked in Asia as a manager.

Staff there had very different expectations of a manager. They didn't want friendship or closeness they wanted a figure of authority they could respect.

Humour or candour were not seen as marks of a relaxed approach to leadership but inappropriateness.

If your colleague is working for the first time in this country and telling you don't be my friend, don't invite me yo socialise then you need to flex your leadership style with her perhaps. You certainly need to forget being liked by her: it isn't relevant to her and it's not necessary.

@flabbygoldfish she is definitely one of these “tough” women. I thought I glimpsed some loveliness beneath the surface at the start when we were spending lots of time together and she would occasionally lower the barriers and let me in, but then it was like she realised she shouldn’t do this and would put barriers up and become horrible for a while. She still can be very sweet from time to time - but always reverts to being difficult afterwards

Maybe she feels patronised by you. Like she's a poor foreigner who needs pity. You say she's good at her job, let her get on with it. There is no need to suck up and try to "connect" with her on another level because she's not from around here.

@Christmaspyjamas yes that rings true with her - all of us on the team get on really well and are quite close, we have a laugh and would regularly socialise after work and occasionally on weekends. That is the culture of our workplace and without giving it a thought I naively tried to extend it to the new woman and was a bit confused when it was taken SO badly.

That’s a bit crap from your HR department. Admittedly my company is larger, so we have a big HR team (mostly useless!), but they will sit in performance reviews to provide support to both parties. They don’t sit in bi-annual development reviews, but if it’s at the stage of needing a performance review they should definitely be involved for both your benefit. How does it work if you’re the only one monitoring after the performance review? The goals need to be clear, especially as it sounds like a personality clash. If I was in either of your positions I would be making sure HR were involved to cover both your backs.

I agree. Take control of the situation OP, you just sound like a complete walkover right now.

@Diamondjoan it was confusing for me...it took me a while to figure out.

But actually staff felt awkward if I didn't conform to their idea of a good leader...

It's tricky for you because you have her and the rest of the team

But you could try being more formal and detached with her and maybe over time a workshop or discussion for the whole team about what makes a good boss, what makes a good colleague, what makes a good employee to raise everyone's awareness of the fact that we all have different ideas

More and more we will all manage international teams so will face these issues.

My staff in India addressed me without fail as Ma'am. Asking them to call me by my first name made them very uncomfortable...it might take her a while to adjust...but hopefully a group discussion will help her hear from others on the team rather than you trying to explain this

You're very caring to try and think about these things

@BadNomad i think there may be some truth to that - she is a very independent woman and doesn’t like taking help from anyone, she may view my “attention” as unwanted. I’m only trying to connect as at the beginning g (and still to be honest) she knew no one here and was lonely, and also we do need to develop a better working relationship

You’ve done more than enough trying. Get rid of her before her Probation Period ends. No need for two more months of her unprofessional and bad attitude.

Inviting her to your home was unnecessary and way too premature, especially as she’s being so rude to you.

Regardless of culture, being tough does not mean being rude to people that are simply trying to be nice to you. Enforce firmer boundaries and follow through.

This might be the problem. Would you describe a man in this way? You say ‘tough’ as though it’s a negative and ‘sweet’ as though it’s a positive, and also ‘loveliness’ which is also mostly attributed to women. None of those adjectives are wrong or right, it just sounds like you both have different ideas of how someone should ‘be’ at work.

Let her go. It won’t get better. She’s manipulative difficult bullying you and isn’t a fit. I was in your situation and ending up leaving my job as she wasn’t in probation and it was too hard to get rid of her.

@jacult i think we are talking about different things in relation to performance reviews - in our company this is what we call our formal half yearly and end of year (carried out in January) performance appraisal - it’s not a disciplinary or anything negative - just how things went against objectives

Personally I’d feel my manager was overstepping the boundaries if they invited me to their house etc, if I didn’t already have a rapport with them. I’ve been ‘alone’ in a new job but I’ve had friends outside of it and think your tone sounds a bit patronising, so I would also have come across ‘on the defensive’. There’s no excuse for being rude at work though, and if you’ve got to the stage of a performance review then her work is suffering and I think it will look bad on you if you don’t involve HR in this.

Oh, I see! We call those personal developers reviews. Performance reviews are when people are performing as they should. If she’s not performing then I’d call one of those and get HR involved and then your back is covered.

*personal development reviews (PDR)
*performance reviews when people are not performing as they should.

I do regret some of things I did at the beginning, that are being called out here, such as inviting her to my home, and giving her endless suggestions of good places to go, interesting sites to visit, where to meet new people etc etc. she did react very badly to this and I did apologised at the time for overstepping, but that it was coming from a good place. On reflection I think she may have seen this as patronising and a slight on her that we haven’t recovered from.

You went too far, though. Inviting her to your home, inviting her to non-work related events, inviting her to lunches - is all very inappropriate and unprofessional. You're trying to blur the boundaries. She's trying to maintain them. Her home life and relationship isn't any of your business, whether she is lonely or not isn't any of your business. You need to step back and manage her, not keep trying to befriend her. Keep it professional.

I appreciate you've said she doesn't act like this with other colleagues, but for how long?

I had a colleague who was a nightmare. Honestly just so abrasive and difficult and...well very much as you've described. We had a brilliant team before she joined us and in actual fact she had been shipped from team to team because nobody knew what to do with her. I did suspect ASD, possibly PDA and I did try to have sympathy because I have both children who are autistic and I am also neurodivergent myself (ADHD) and knew that sometimes measures had to be put in place to accommodate me (although I hope I never took the piss!)

Eventually however what ended up happening was that we all had a lot of resentment for our manager for not taking the situation in hand and sorting it out. We had to recover a lot of work that she refused to do, mop up her mistakes/outright lies with clients and generally put up with a hugely soured team atmosphere. And our respect for our manager plummeted because she just wouldn't do anything. Please don't be that manager!

Even if she's doing a great job, if people in your team see her treating you like that are they still going to respect you?

@BadNomad yes I understand - but just for context the invites were early on and happened once after she asked me what I do on the weekends - I told her my plans and asked hers - she said she will just stay in her bedroom until Monday morning as she knows absolutely no-one and has nothing to do. I felt bad and said she was free to join my family and I and some friends for dinner, she might make some new friends, or that I could invite some colleagues and other friends to the house for drinks and a chat. I didn’t think it was unreasonable at the time, but since then I realise it was

FGS. You were trying to be kind and welcoming when she arrived. Don't worry about it. Even if you overstepped that is a completely separate issue from her conduct in the workplace now. Being as unpredictable in behaviour and interactions as you describe - with no mitigating factors - and sneering, eye-rolling and telling you as her line manager a performance review process that is company policy is bullshit is simply not acceptable. Serious conversation needed about her attitude. If no improvement, follow process to dismiss.

@BarnacleNora i won’t be that manager! She will be dealt with swiftly and harshly if this bleeds into any of my team or they become aware of anything off. I’m empathetic but not a walkover - there will be no one picking up her slack or being bullied.

Exactly what Christmas and Nomad has said. You have overstepped boundaries at the beginning which you realise now, you need to be professional and detached. Her being lonely and new to the country is none of your concern if it doesn't affect her work, you've embarrassed her. You sound like a manager I worked with before, the one big happy family and socialising doesn't work for everyone, it can make people feel incredibly uncomfortable and pressured if they just want to come to work and do a good job and go home. Address head on the disrespectful eye rolls starting now and speak to her regarding walking out the review. Does she realise she's on a shaky peg being on probation? If it continues after you have detached yourself from trying to make her a friend, dismiss her.