My team keep making big mistakes - what to do?

[Helpwithsnorer]

I manage a team at work and there are two employees who are generally good workers but have a tendency to make really silly mistakes. Some of these mistakes have been quite costly to the company and our customers.

It's a busy finance role and it's things like misinterpreting an instruction, looking up the wrong data, not reading an email in enough detail to ensure everything asked for was done, etc.

I have given lots of training and set up check lists to be completed before certain tasks are sent off. I always write down what I need from them and then chat through it in person to make sure they understand. I ask them if there's anything they feel they need support on and they say no.

I check their work as best I can but I need to be able to rely on them, it's simply not feasible for me to do detailed checks on all their work. I feel like I already have to do too much hand holding, but when I stop and try to get them to take responsibility and initiative, the quality of the work suffers.

There's been a really bad error today which should never have been made in the first place, but it also should have been caught through their checks. It has had a big financial impact.

I'm afraid it's starting to look really bad on me but what can I do? I'm at the end of my tether with it now and so fed up, especially when I'm the one getting an earful over the errors.

It's a complex area so not that easy to train up someone new.

I'm honestly so stressed I often feel like quitting. Any advice very gratefully received!

Have you documented their performance in annual reviews? If so, I would put them on a Performance Improvement Plan. If you feel that you have given sufficient training, instruction and support, you need to PIP them to a) show that you are acknowledging and taking steps to improve their performance and b) hopefully actually improve their performance!

There's a few different reasons I can think of as to why this would be happening and you need to get to the bottom of which it is.

• too busy, too many jobs and they're rushing
• not focusing on work, are they chatting/socialising causing them to not pay attention
• not capable - either the training is poor or they are genuinely just not capable of doing the job

If there is too much work, then you need to either reduce the workload or increase the team headcount. Reduction can be by de-prioritising activities that bring limited value, by delegating to other teams or by improving processes/technology

If they are not focusing then that's a conduct/behaviour issue and you need to address that through performance management which will probably need to include sign off of all tasks before they are marked as completed to check for mistakes before the mistake can be made.

If they are not capable then you need to assess the training objectively, set clear targets under the performance management process and either support them to improve or manage them out.

The thing is they could do 95% of the work well, but those 5% of careless mistakes can cause big issues.

I honestly don't know what more I can train them on. It seems like they have a few blind spots where they're just not retaining information. And yes I have written notes for them.

Do they have sufficient time to work carefully and double check key work?

If they do, and it's just carelessness, then you need to think about formal performance management

What reason do they themselves give for making the mistakes? You can't know how it tackle it until you know the cause surely

Are you all working together in an office?

Surely PIP and out. Time to bring in someone competent.

You writing notes for them isn't going to work, that's treating them like children.

They need to identify why the error happened, what went wrong and what they'll do differently next time to make sure there isn't a repeat. Then they own the process and they're much more likely to stick to it.

Or you manage them out because they're incapable of following basic control processes.

Harsh answer... there are no bad students, just bad teachers.

Are they the only two people under you? If yes, and they're making similar mistakes, that points to you.

If they're making different mistakes, and/or there are other people on the team (that you have successfully trained), that would point to them.

PIP is the obvious answer, but you'd need lots of evidence to show you've supported them until now.

How often are these mistakes being made? If its having a big financial impact maybe you need to employ another person so that everything can be double checked? Depends if the losses are more than an extra salary would be of course.

Harsh answer... there are no bad students, just bad teachers.

Not necessarily, I'm sure we've all known a few colleagues who were lazy or careless regardless of which manager they were under.

Have you asked them why they feel they made the mistakes?

You will be performances managed if your team is not performing. You will need to work out whether they need addition training, whether they are not up to the job, or whether their workload is too high and you need more resource. This is all something that you need to discuss twitch your line manager too.

Bloody typos but hopefully makes sense

One of them just gives me excuses, which I do push back on. The other is genuinely very apologetic and clearly wants to improve, but their knowledge isn't as strong as the other person.

Sometimes you have to acknowledge when something isn't working out for whatever reason.

My guess is that it's not deliberate but that they may have an attention issue which makes it difficult for them to do the job. I went through a phase of being careless at work in my 20s (I don't mind admitting to being crap at stuff). The issue was a combination of ADHD and being depressed in my job. The solution was actually leaving and finding something more suitable in my skull set. A PIP may work for a while but I don't always think it's a bad thing to admit when something isn't working out.

You need to get the full team together first thing tomorrow and go through what went wrong over the last X months, and how as a team it never happens again.
And if it does, start disciplinary proceedings.

You are the manager, so you need to manage them.

Either-

They are insufficiently trained - offer training/support

The system is flawed - look at the system , identify or speak to your line manager

They are incompetent- investigate, start giving formal warnings

As manager it's your responsibility to figure out what's going wrong. Go to your line manager if you feel you need support with this.

Are they under a lot of pressure? Do they have a really heavy workload? Stress and exhaustion would be the reason normally good employees would start make ng mistakes. As it’s not one but two it’s worth looking into.

We had a computer program which kept changing numbers. So, if I put in 12,345 it would change it to 897543.4 randomly-something to do with formulas on the page. No matter how many times you put in the correct number it would change it. Could it be something like that?

Can they check each others work before it's submitted, as another level of cross checking?

I occasionally send something to a colleague to double check over before sending it off if it's very important and going externally. She sends things to me too. But it's by choice.

Is there a pattern , is there something missing in your process, does it need another check and balance before the final sign off. If generally the workers are good I think they are either too busy to be able to work in fine detail in the way you need or there is something wrong with the process which you can rectify. I'd spend time looking at the processes with the workers in a non blaming way.

I have a theory that many (younger) people's focus and concentration spans are really going downhill. And our gentle hand-holdy work culture means they don't get a bollocking for mistakes. So it's not really a big deal to them.

I have a theory that workers are expected to just churn through work and there is a pervasive culture of 'don't let trying to be perfect, get in the way of being good' . This is fine in some contexts but where being accurate and being able to look at fine detail is needed it isn't ok.