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!

Pick them up on the mistakes, tell them where they keep going wrong and say that next time you don't expect to see the costly mistakes.

If they make them again, put them in an Improvement Plan, that should focus them.

I have done quite a lot of work on human errors in financial processes - 95% of the time there are insufficient controls in place Ie the process is flawed - people generally don't want to make mistakes

As others have suggested four eye checks should be in place if it costs when there is an error

Simple formulas to establish controls and balances / less manual work / more automation especially dealing with numbers

I would deep dive into the process, go back to the previous errors and see where the weaknesses are - are they the same errors etc - make it a project and even ask them to run it - present on the results - it will give them motivation and feel trusted.

Use automation where possible - humans will always make errors in manual processes so a certain number is to be expected

4 eyes principle: have another team member double check and also tick of the checklist.
Make them sign the list or integrate it in a system so boxes need ticking before next step can be made.

Supervision meeting. Ask what went wrong and explain it’s a serious costly mistake. Ask them if they utilised the check list and if not why not. How can this type of mistake be avoided in future. document your request for them to recheck work before sending. Explain accuracy must be improved.

Document any performance issues in supervisions as you go along. Discuss with HR.

is it possible for someone else (not you) to check their work

Yes 4 eyes and both signing off items before sending

Could you explain more. You don't seem to be addressing this in a systematic way. List it out in steps. Don't accept weak fob off excuses. Be very specific.

Most financial procedures are very simplistic and you do have the checks and controls in place. Are they rushing and not doing the checks.

Is this payroll? Purchases? Analysis of financial data?

There could be many reasons:

• the workload is too heavy so they have to rush everything and details get missed
• your work systems are flawed to start with
• they are simply in the wrong job...

As the manager you need to look at what needs to be done to improve the situation and decide whether the individuals need to be replaced by people with better attention to details or whether there is a bigger issue (poor processes, not enough staff and too much work...) that will need to be addressed so the team can work properly.

Ultimately the current set is not working so you need to make changes.

Do you feel you have a good sense of the overall volume of work completed and how these mistakes factor into that? That might give a better sense of whether this is a disproportionate number of mistakes or if this is a normal volume of human error than needs a better system to catch it. It sounds like there are quite a few different things that have gone wrong rather than one consistent point of failure. As others have said ultimately four eyes is the best response. I sometimes feel like my team make constant mistakes but actually I only see things that go wrong as that's when it gets escalated to me. I'm not suggesting to just go 'oh never mind', but a sense of whether this is happened 5% of the time, which is shocking, or 0.05% is helpful.

The problem is they keep getting away with it, so keep making the mistakes.

I would pull them in each for a 1 to 1, and send an email summary of the conversation you've had, so there is evidence of it. You could warn them if it happens again, they will go on a PIP as the mistakes can't keep happening. This will need to be on the email summary Don't do it to punish, do it to get results. Simply barking at an employee that they're making mistakes won't fix it (not saying that's what you do, OP, sounds quite the opposite tbh). My point simply is, encourage and support them to become better at their role. That is also the job of a line manager.

You mention one isn't as knowledgable, but wants to improve. As their line manager you should be supporting this wherever possible. Some people need that extra bit of support. You'd be surprised what can come from an employee who has that extra support. Put the time into them now and it will pay you dividends. See if there is any extra training you can send them on.

Make sure both are aware from this 1 to 1 that you will offer as much support as is expected, and as you can (this is your job...!) but that they need to communicate with you extra support they need to avoid making these mistakes.

I have had managers say that X was missed & there was a financial penalty. However, there was never clarification of this mythical amount !

Have you actually clarified to your team how much the financial penalty was ?

How many financial mistakes are allowed per month, per 3 months, per year ?

How long have the people worked there ?
Why are all the people not at the same level of competency ?
What can you all do to make things better ?

As pp have suggested, have another person checking the work . Quality control .

If 95% of the work is good, then is the 5% error prone work predictable? Are they making mistakes in the same subsection of their work?

How many people do you have in your team? You need a strong peer review and QA procedure where they check each others work before sending it out.

Can you get them to check each other's work?

Sometimes things just need a second pair of eyes, they might also learn from it (it can be easier to spot someone else's mistakes than your own)

Lol @ReturnfromtheStars great minds

Ref the times that the financial errors occur

Is there a pattern to when these errors occur ?
eg
When someone is on a lunch break ?
When someone is on another type of break ?
Is it after 5pm when most people leave the office, but this team works longer hours, so they lack concentration after 5pm ?
Or during night shift, people shirking their responsibilities ?

I had a similar issue also in a financial role where I don't have the time/don't want to micromanage. I found it was when they were distracted, getting overly distracted in conversation, phones on desks sharing texts etc and losing focus on the work at hand meant mistakes were being made . It was quickly recognised and phone policy changed plus the shared checking seem to have reduced these to a minimum now.

Haha yes @Aria999 it's often harder to spot your own error when you're too close to the work .

I agree are personal mobile phones being used during working time ?

It’s really frustrating, I feel your pain.

If it’s becoming a real problem is there any HR coaching plans/PIPs that can be put in place to give them a kick up the arse. Just make sure you’ve exhausted all the necessary training that’s expected and document all your future conversations with them.

Thanks all.

Had a chat to my own manager today. She was pretty relaxed about it and said these things happen, errors occur when you're dealing with human beings. I said yes that's true, but it's embarrassing giving a client work with a big error in it, especially if it ends up costing them money. Of course there's also the risk of losing the client.

They are younger and I think PP's points about issues with focus and attention to detail are correct. Our company seems to have a 'no blame' culture too (as evidenced by my manager) which is nice in some ways but I feel like a lack of accountability just makes mistakes far more likely to happen.

Anyway, I'll be talking to them and tightening up our controls going forward.

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

Oh, you sweet summer child

There are lousy students out there, who couldn't give a shit and you could put Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox in front of them to teach them and they would still fuck it up

There will always be incompetents

Are you saying I'm lying?

She's not the owner but she's a senior manager.