Staff member(s) causing me stress

[Elfie23]

Hi all,

Will have to keep this slightly cryptic as might be outing.

I am a line manager to half of my team.
Two of the team are long standing (longer than me) and one new person.

Person A is great, just cracks on, rarely complains and is such a hard worker.

Person B is new, I'm helping to train them and they are a lovely person. Seems to lack in confidence though and asks sooooo many questions even though they've cracked what they need to be doing.

Person C trained me when I first started and was a fab trainer, really patient and good at explaining things.
However - once trained C effectively downed tools as we both did the same role, and I was doing more work than them in my 18 hr role than they did in their 37hr role.

Person C struggles with their mental health but refuses to take medication and has twice been referred to counselling, went to a few sessions then didn't bother.

Each year that I've been there person C crashes at some point and ends up taking around 3/4 months off. I am expected to cover their work plus my own (which was bloody hard when I was part time, I'm also a single parent so do alllll the running about, clubs etc)

I have worked my way up and am now C's line manager. I've offered so much support for C which has been ignored.
C has now crashed again. Currently off work and I've found over 50 mistakes/half done tasks in 3 weeks. Stress to the max fixing everything and had some very very irate customers have a go at me for these errors.

I'm finding it incredibly hard to keep up. This time round I'm trying to cover C's work, train B who asks questions every 2 mins, complete my own work plus fill in umpteen things for HR and payroll concerning C.

Dreading work next week and I hate feeling like this. If I'm honest I don't want C to come back, if they do they will be put on a performance plan but I know they will continue the shoddy work and yet again I'll have to fix it.

I've basically worked 2 jobs for the last 4 years and am thoroughly fed up.

Would it be unfair to take a week off for stress?
I feel like I need it but there will be a mountain of work waiting for me when I get back.

Is it too much to ask for a decent employee 🙈🙈

Sorry for the length of this if you made it to the end, pitty party and rant over x

If you feel like a week off will help, take it. Can someone else in the team be a mentor / buddy for the new guy? You definitely need to tackle C on return about quality (and quantity) of their work. Sounds like they’ve been coasting for a long time with no come back for low and poor output. Good luck

You need to look at how you get rid of C - not because she’s ill, but because she doesn’t do anything to mitigate the illness. Having someone off for a third/quarter of each year is unacceptable. Yes, her illness will be classed as a disability, but that does t mean she can’t be be sacked.

It sounds like 4 completely different people and not one cohesive team.

What I'd do is to go in this week and spend the first day with A and B evaluating everything you all do.

Using the 7 habits 4 quadrants approach, which is urgent and important, important but not urgent and look at who is doing this, and who is cross checking to make sure mistakes aren't made. Set a plan up to start getting this done and off your desks depending on urgency.

Not important but urgent, if it isn't important why are you doing it? Get this stuff ditched for now if you can.

Neither urgent or important, forget about it.

B needs to look in 3 places for answers before asking you each time. It's part of the next phase of their induction. Every question they ask, ask them which places they looked, and why they discounted the answers and don't tell them the answer, tell them where to go to find it. If there are too many questions that don't have places to go for answers, then you also have a problem with processes and procedures and so that needs documenting. This will help you in the long run.

Every task your team does needs to be able to be done by everyone, so that this situation cannot occur again and checks and balances can be put in place as a matter of course.

Deal with C if they come back and be enthusiastic about the new way of doing things when you speak to them about returning.

@AlisonDonut that's such brilliant advice about things should work. I'm copying and pasting that to help me organise my own work and team processes.🙂

Thank you so much this is so helpful!

This is exactly my thoughts at the moment! If C went and we got someone as great as A life would be a world easier!

Can you make better use of A? It sounds like they are performing well and may be up for a challenge/ opportunity to step up. Could they support with the on boarding of B or take on some work belonging to C?

B and their questions... you need to establish if these are questions because they really don't know/ can't find the information or are they a type of reassurance seeking? If B seems to have got the hang of things but is just lacking confidence/ asking questions for reassurance then tell them to make a note of the question, where they looked for info/ answers and what they decided was the correct response and have a 15 min catch up each morning for a week. Then reduce to alt days and then weekly/ monthly until they are 'weaned' :)

The next step after a month of the 3 questions is to make them write out the options, and a for and against each option each time and submit it to you in writing for discussion.

If that doesn't stop the bloody questions then you have to take further measures.

You don't really sound cut out to be a manager...

The situation with C should have been addressed a long time ago and you need to have a firm chat with HR.

It is obvious you can't carry on with someone who needs so much sick leave every year and who is doing nothing to help manage their condition.

You need to manage them out or look at whether they could be moved to a different, less demanding role in the organisation or work part-time.

Person B is new and it is expected that they will be asking questions. But all new starters should have a standard onboarding process where they get to know the organisation and their role. Again you should work with HR to make sure there is something formal in place so that people don't rely on asking you questions every 5 minutes.

All of this is part of a manager's role.

It is but nobody just becomes a manager like that. You have to work within what you learn and who you inherit. We all make mistakes especially in the first few years of managing people.

Do you have an HR department? They need to sort out an occupational health assessment for the absent colleague. She needs the absence managing, so it’s focussing on the impact on the business that she has this pattern and amount of time off and colleagues can’t sustainably pick up (as evidenced by the client feedback) so either the business manages that or puts resources in place to cover the work.

Can you get the steady competent person to buddy up with the new person? So they are the default person who gets the questions instead of you.

Remember that A, whilst bumbling along merrily getting the job done, will still need management support and affirmation.

B is new, needs support, a lot of the time in a new job you ask questions because you think there will be huge consequences if you get something wrong. Are you working in a "blame" culture? Or are you happy for them to get something wrong and just say " oh, well.. let me show what is needed on that one for next time". They may have worked in a harsh environment before. Speak to them about what you need from them.

C... should be managed out of their position. Fired, or put into a different role where accuracy and presence are not paramount. They are not just off sick too often, but also possibly incompetent. Choose 3 of their 50 mistakes. Document them and get procedures in place with HR.

Obviously, if their mental health issues are due to the job, the work needs looking at... before B also ends up going down that path... and maybe A... and you.

Where is your manager in all of this? Because that should have been the starting point for all these matters. If the workload is too high (for whatever reason) then you should be discussing how it is prioritised and what doesn't get done (unless you are given more resource to complete it). If one of your staff is failing to perform, you should be discussing that with them - and should have worked out an action / performance plan with them a long time ago. You may be their manager, but you are also mananged, and it sounds very much like they are abdicating their position in all of this. @AlisonDonut is right that all managers make mistakes, especially in the early years. But that is why managers have more experienced managers - to help them learn management!

It is particulalry important that you have your manager on board when there is a question of competence and the individual very probably would be considered to have a disability based on the degree to which their mental health impacts on their work and attendance.

And for your "new starter" I would also add a further suggestion to the ones already offered. Make sure that you are praising their grasp of things (you seem to be confident they have grasped the job) - and explain that since they are doing so well now, you are allocating then 10 minutes everyday for a "debrief and questions". No more, no less. They need to keep their questions etc for that session and prioritise which are the most important to them. Do that for a couple of weeks, then drop to 3 x 10 minutes a week. Then drop to 1! Make sure the end of each 10 minutes is you praising something they have done well or recognised. It's easy to forget, especially when you have lots of pressures on you, that it often isn't about whether someone is doing the job well, but them knowing they are doing it well.

To the poster who said "You don't really sound cut out to be a manager..."

Get stuffed! Management is hard. Don't put the OP down for asking questions about how to deal with difficult workers.

I've only stepped up to assistant manager in June so this is when I could officially take over on the C person front. As they'd not gone sick until now there wasn't much I could do. I did bring up performance in their appraisal and some things improved (such as doing mandatory online training that they'd not completed) but day to day stuff not so much.

We do have a HR department who follow their policy to the letter. So I have to follow certain steps if I want to ship C out. Which we plan to do. But it is a lonnnnng process. Im going to see it through though as enough is enough.

Someone mentioned keeping an eye on A. A is fantastic but is 4 years off retirement, likes to be left in their corner to crack on, doesn't want any responsibility (and to be fair doesn't get paid for it, they are the lowest paid in the team)

Had a chat with B today and it's definitely confidence rather than not knowing so tried to big them up and give them lots of encouragement that they are doing the right thing

Why is your best, most productive employee the lowest paid?

Their role is a support type role and this person really goes above and beyond.
We spoke to them about a pay rise but they didn't want it because at that next level comes extra responsibilities like report writing and presenting to a panel and they just don't want that. Even though it wouldn't be very often at all and they're basically doing the higher paid role minus the report stuff they just didn't want it 🤷🏻‍♀️