Irritating trainee

[pyzaz]

I'm currently managing a graduate trainee. At a surface level, she's lovely - polite, hardworking etc. But God, I'm finding her so irritating, and I don't know if AIBU! I've managed a few trainees over the years and this is the first experience I've had of this, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

She rushes all her work, doesn't think about what she's doing or why, doesn't check anything. She just wants to tick off that it's "done" (except it isn't). I've pulled her up on this, had frank one-to-ones, no effect. She's desperate to do well so she can get promoted quicker, but we need people who take their time, think carefully and check everything. I've told her all of this.

Then, she's constantly volunteering for extra work so once ended up doing a load of work for a completely different team, when she'd done a bad job of everything she was supposed to be doing for us, because she'd rushed it! And our team has silly amounts of work on. Why volunteer for other work when she's not doing her basic work properly?? And then I see the messages coming through from the stakeholder asking why she didn't do x or y. I reckon probably 75% of all the work she does has to be re-done due to mistakes, and the lack of checking has caused major issues down the line.
And she constantly invites herself into meetings that are irrelevant for her - I mean why? Most people try to avoid meetings like the plague, they mostly waste time, and she's got so much else she could be doing.

She's constantly asking me what else she can do to get a pay rise/promotion next month - I'm just on repeat now saying "take your time with stuff, work carefully, not fast, double/triple check everything etc.", but she doesn't listen.

And to top it off she's only 23! FFS why can't she just chill out - if she works slowly, carefully and plods along, she'll have 10 years experience by the time she's 33, and she'll be on good money with that level of experience, and still young. I've told her all of this, she doesn't listen.

I've accepted I can't change who she is, so I now just want to work on myself and stop myself from feeling so irritated by her. And if she apologises one more time (after I pull her up over another rushed job), I am going to scream.

Are you also her line manager?

How did she get the job?

If you are her manager I'd be putting her on a performance improvement plan. This isn't irritating, it's poor performance.

I have a colleague like this. Rushes through doing a slapdash job. You can spend hours trying to unravel what she did and then putting it right. To the outside, she looks really efficient. But on the inside, she's a nightmare, cutting corners, getting stuff wrong and burying things. I can only cope if she does A and I do B jobs, so they're completely separate.

Sounds like she's doesn't particularly care what you think of her work. She's rushing around trying to impress other people so she gets noticed and promoted.
Sadly those who plod along and have good attention to detail aren't always appreciated .

If you’re her manager, you can stop her volunteering for random stuff and attending irrelevant meetings. Just tell her she’s not able to as she needs to concentrate on her core job.

If you want to get her up to scratch, you need to put the work in. Make expectations super clear; give her detailed feedback and make her redo work until it’s OK; have regular 121s where you are super clear about expectations (how clear is her job spec?).

Or, talk to HR about her suitability for the role and start the process of getting rid of her.

Having suffered some crappy trainees (as well as amazing ones). I’d start the process of getting rid. Not just for your sake, but because it will presumably open up a slot for someone who actually wants to learn.

How long has she been in this job and what's her probation period/process like if she's a trainee?

I think if she's not taking feedback on board and is more of a liability than an asset to the team then you need to manage her out.

Thinking back to when I was 21 I would cry after getting gentle feedback and work late into the evenings to make sure I did things properly. I was maybe excessively anxious, but my point is it's about a person's attitude.

It's a weird set up - I'm not her line manager, but I direct most of her work. Me the line manager and our boss did have a long discussion about whether to pass her probation, but she's always so keen and so polite, and works so hard - she's definitely not slacking, rather she's rushing everything, then fitting in more jobs, which are also then rushed. She's straight out of uni, and everyone does make mistakes, and graduates do make a lot of mistakes early on and there has to be a no blame culture, or everyone would get sacked. It's not the mistakes as such, it's more the lack of attention to detail, never questioning anything, never checking anything, so she never notices the mistakes she's made. We're hoping that she learns that working that way is not a good way to work in this job, but TBH I am now regretting not pushing for her to fail the probation.

This bit that @Spottidogs said is very much how I feel: I can only cope if she does A and I do B jobs, so they're completely separate.

@PlanetOtter Good advice - I make her redo all her work, but I think I'm going to have to have another serious 1:1 with her - I meet her 1:1 every week and say all these things. I do have the power to stop her from volunteering for random work. I actually think I need to have a private chat with some of the stakeholders, and tell them not to give her work. I've already told my boss not to (she went over my head to ask for work from him). Getting rid will be difficult but not impossible.

TBH I thought most of you were going to say that this was normal for a keen graduate, they do make mistakes etc. Although, none of my other graduates have been like this, they've mostly been pretty laid back.

If she is not being accurate with her work, you do need to tell her this. I work with a colleague who is generally quite good, but the attention to detail is just not there. I need to pull him up about this on a regular basis.

I think I need to talk to her line manager, my boss and our main stakeholder, and work out what to do. I didn't know if was just a personality clash or something.

Sounds as though she may have ADHD?

So she's passed probation? Why didn't you guys extend it? How long has she been there now?

As far as she's concerned she's doing well, passing probation and working collaboratively across teams. She probably thinks you're nagging her over insignificant things 😬

I think before another "serious 121" which she's clearly ignoring, you need to come up with a plan of action with her official manager and HR. Maybe that plan involves passing her back to be line managed by her actual manager who can see the issues for himself - or maybe she'll listen to a man, idk 🙄

Either way, your approach isn't working.

@Truetoself I've no idea

Can’t her actual line manager meet with her to discuss?

@loropianalover Yes definitely - I think I'm going book a meeting in with the trainee's line manager tomorrow

I think you tell her that by taking this additional work and doing everything so badly she is achieving the opposite of her goals. Rather than impressing everyone, she's creating a wide pool of people who know she is slapdash. That will make it almost impossible for her to ever be promoted.

And (I hate doing this) - give the work back. Every time. Even if you've done it in the background to meet a deadline, force her to do it over and over again until she gets it right.

If she does, that's her responsibility to raise it and ask for accommodation or support, it's not OP's place to be speculating about her mental health.

she's always so keen and so polite, and works so hard

Is keen, polite and working really hard on her KPIs?
If so, get them changed to the KPIs you want! And if not, then get her on a performance management plan right away.

You should have collectively extended her probation, but you know that now. Nothing gets better just by being kicked into the long grass.

I’ve had bosses who don’t actually say what they mean
maybe you think you have told her clearly but the fact she is so keen to do good but is messing up so badly suggests she’s is not hearing clearly
maybe she doesn’t understand something
can you put it in writing and make it clear to her the consequences if her not listening and taking action

@PickledElectricity So she's passed probation? Yes
Why didn't you guys extend it? Because we're idiots - I certainly feel like one now. I feel like I've been had. I did sack the last person I mentored, so I'm not a complete pushover, but he wasn't a trainee and he was clearly doing no work. She does loads of work, it's just that most of it is wrong, and all of us do things wrong, we're human, so we gave her the benefit of the doubt, and she seemed so keen to improve, whereas I'm not so sure now. She's just irritating the fuck our of me, basically.
How long has she been there now? 7 months maybe?

We've had staff like that. They've all been sacked after performance reviews. Three in the last year. It's quite common.

@Tarantella6 I've sent 3 pieces of work back to her today, all need completely re-doing. I have to do this all the time - which TBH I'm fine with, it's the fact that all this work needs re-doing while she's volunteering to do different work.

I even asked her if she was happy with type of work she's doing, because she can move to another team if she'd prefer to do the work in that team, but she insists she really wants to stay where she is (so why volunteer to do work for other teams then? I don't get it)

This is the approach I would take having first agreed it with her line manager.

As for probation tbh I would personally have extended it until she learns that quality - especially in the beginning - is more important than quality as once you nail that you get faster, to make the message crystal clear but sounds like that ship has sailed.

My darling, wise late best friend used to call people like this a ‘busy fool’.

You're all helping me form a plan, thank you! I need to talk to everyone involved with her training, and also write down a plan of action for either me or her line manager to go through with her. It would be better coming from her line manager, her line manager will be happy to have the talk with her, I think.