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!

I think they need some consequences of their mistakes, otherwise they will keep happening. My suggestion is that you consider some of the following:
Mistake maker has to contact client to explain what's happened, apologise and explain how it will be sorted;
Formal disciplinary action / warning;
Brining this up in their appraisal;
Creating written record of the error;
Bringing it up in a team meeting as an example of a mistake and how can we stop this in future;
PIP;
Long long lecture from you about how important it is to check your work etc etc plus stern telling off.

I’ve been setting up many procedures at work lately and I keep pushing back on management trying to default to anything that requires complicated steps by the workers to happen properly. What I get from them is “oh it’s just a few details to take care of”. Yes it is, to an employee who is being given 20 other similar tasks with just as many complicated steps that they have to multi-task.

wherever possible I am fighting for our budget to be spent on adding automation to tasks. If that isn’t possible, we build in cross-checking procedures at critical points because humans make mistakes.

some employees are still just sloppy or refuse to follow instructions, but it’s important not to blame them for being overworked in a flawed system.

It’s either skill or will.

Full retrain and get them on a performance improvement plan, they will either perform or you’ll exit them.

If the rest of the team can cope then it’s not the workload

Woah there, I've actually been busy working during the day and have only come back to the thread.

I have three reports at the moment and have been a manager for four years, and a team leader for several years before that, including in another company. No major issues with previous reports.

I'm not sure what you mean by "OP's laissez faire attitude to the business."

This OP!
I had a similar previous role.
I made lots of mistakes when overworked. Of course the obvious solution is to slow down and check, but then I got blamed for being too slow. I had loads of things thrown at me and before I had time to even write it down and process what needed to be done another 10 things had appeared.
Finally I got fed up and told my boss that she could have it correct or quick, pick one! Especially as so many instructions were vague I needed space to think about the required action.

I have ADHD so struggle with executive function but my current role also involves detail - I can control my time if I say I need time to check people don't rush me. It's a bit better in that it's not a set of mindless procedures to remember but things in a logical sequence.

What about other people? What's their error rate? How do they work?

OP, human error is an absolute fact of life. You cannot bollock people into not making mistakes.

Nothing should be going out to clients without you reviewing it. They prepare the documents, you review.

And also, if your team is negligently costing your clients’s money you need to be aware of your professional cover for these errors.

I also manage a team in Finance and would not be able to cope with this.

Are your team qualified accountants?

I absolutely understand that it's a fact of life, and if it was only an occasional mistake that would be fair enough. However I've built in checklists for my team to complete once their work is done, and several of the recent mistakes would have been identified if those checks had been completed properly.

As an example (not the actual type of work but similar), they're asked to provide sales figures for the ten stores in the south west region. There's a document outlining exactly which stores are in which region (and I will remind them to check it) but they only include nine of them, or include Blackpool instead of Bristol. It's not that difficult and just requires a bit of attention to detail.

I give their work a review but I can't do a detailed level of checks on every single thing they produce, I simply don't have the time. My manager agrees that I shouldn't be doing that anyway and I need to be able to trust in their work.

Also to address some PPs, I make sure the volume of work is reasonable, they're not overworked and they never stay late (not would I expect them to).

The thing is OP some people are bad with detail. Some people are just careless.
Unless your staff are willing to work on you with this - introspect, and understand 'why' the mistakes happens you're not going to get very far.
What was their thought process behind doing the work? Why did they skip the checks? Do they double and triple check everything?

There's a term for process mapping at work (I forgot what it's called) but it's where a third party sits through the work process and identifies weak spots of the process. You could also consider this.

The checklist could also be a daily log where they need to actually 'tick' the boxes of what they have done. If they tick something and they didn't do it they are outright lying and this will help you build a case against them.

As a PP said have them and/or someone else check their work, '4 eyes'. Not forever but until this issue is resolved.

Ultimately if they don't want to engage there's nothing you can do but get rid. However, as you've stated it's a complex area and if you can't get new staff you're shooting yourself in the foot if you won't be able to replace them.

There's no substitute for people who just don't care - especially if they know that there are no consequences on them personally.

It also makes no sense that your manager is 'relaxed' but at the same time you 'get an earful' about their mistakes. Who is giving you the scoldings?

btw where I work fraud is a big deal and a mistake that results in criminal activity going missed would result in prison time and potentially being banned from the profession. That certainly focuses the mind.

Sounds like maybe you could take some of the remembering out of the process?

For example with the sales figures (I realize that's not a real example but maybe it's close enough) there could just be a template to fill in each time with all the stores in each region already populated. Someone competent would keep the template up to date, or it could even automatically update from a central data source.

Thanks @PikachuChickenRice there's definitely some food for thought there.

The bad reaction is from the client, which is understandable to be fair.

That is a ridiculous mistake to make and there is no excuse for it.

Are they admin staff or do they have any accountancy qualifications?

I would just manage them out of the company and recruit new people. I would not put up with this in my team.

And your manager's OK with this?
What I don't understand is how she can be so cavalier with a clear 'business impact'. If clients are constantly complaining - and 2 out of your 3 (so most of your reports) are regularly making mistakes how is this not a major issue.

I get that it looks bad on you, so perhaps you don't really want to make it known but if you do go down the path of getting rid you'll need support. Maybe not your LM, but once you involve HR, go through performance management etc you need solid evidence of business impact. If your manager doesn't really care what hope do you have?

Any evidence of client complaints in writing?

If your line manager thinks this is reasonable then either:
a) this is a part of the organisational culture that you're unlikely to shift alone, and therefore looking elsewhere might be your best option
b) you're reacting disproportionately, which is why I asked about the overall volume and how frequent the mistakes are in context earlier in the thread. Of course ideally no mistakes would ever happen but that isn't realistic so your manager may see this as within the acceptable norm and comparable to other teams. It is possible that the mistakes, or the cost of them, seem more significant to you than her - there are contexts where losing the organisation £1000 would spark a major investigation and others where that wouldn't be considered more than a rounding error.

PIP and then manage out if doesn't work

It's unlikely to be a small issue if clients are complaining. Unless OP has particularly onerous clients.
I'm wondering whether manager doesn't actually know the extent of the problem. Of course, if she did, it might reflect badly on the OP, who's supposed to be managing it.

or, sometimes, the team has been 'inherited' and management don't want to get rid for whatever reason. OP's the poor sod stuck dealing with them.

Honestly I've been completely upfront with my manager and I'm surprised myself that she's so relaxed about it.

I think the culture point is very relevant actually, we have data supplied to us from other teams and often find mistakes in that, e.g. where someone added an extra zero to turn a six figure sum into a seven figure sum. There is a bit of an attitude of 'don't go too hard' because people are encouraged to own up to their mistakes so they can be corrected before they become a bigger issue. Which I do get, but it doesn't exactly encourage people to do better if they know they'll never get pulled up for their mistakes.

You need to create a dynamic power bi dashboard (that’s one and done) for each client (that you personally check and approve) that all data is the pulled from. A single golden source. Look online on how to set it up - it’s fairly easy.

But having worked in Investment Banking IT in the past these types of errors happen. Nobody should be furious at you over them. It’s your job as the manager to style it out - apologise, don’t be defensive, and say you’ll get it fixed. I would suggest that every meeting you make it clear that the data is indicative and an illustration and that the final packs will be sent to them in due course.

Sounds like there are a lot of manual entries/intervention with the data in your work OP, adding an extra zero undetected is a huge red flag. Either Power BI as suggested above or Excel macros templates, where the manual entries could be limited and lots and lots of control column checks added.
You are their manager but it doesn't mean you should "own" their work, if you did then what's the point of having a team?Accountability unfortunately cannot be taught, you either have it or not, but that's why there are performance management plans in place, so if nothing else works, do that.

I'm thinking a review of what happened with the employee concerned to find out what went wrong and why plus implementing 4 eyes checks for particular higher risk areas is necessary.