Remember that it's human nature to resist change. When you make suggestions there is change for her even if you don't see it. She may have some form of anxiety and deals with it by thinking everything out in her head for the day at the start of every day. If you go in and change what she had already thought out and coped with for her day, it creates major stress for her even if she doesn't realize it. The best managers recognize that everyone has a certain level of bad reaction to change, be it planned or unplanned. Helping people process the change always helps the workflow and workplace vibe. Simple things like saying "I know you had this planned for today but we need to do this instead" (and then tell them you realize that will cause them delay on the other work) and being ok with it pushing the other tasks out, will go a long way in realizing they don't have to do BOTH things at the same time. You being reasonable about the change is something they likely aren't prepared to hear from you. People have a strange way of adding pressure to their lives without realizing it.
Good managers also know when not to make changes even if they would do things differently. In the end if their process works for them and it causes no issues with the business, what should you care how they do it? You aren't actually doing the work, so don't you micromanage their work process. That has a way of pissing a person off, where they think hell they don't do any of this why should they be changing it. If you have to change for accounting reasons or because other processes farther down the line are affected (in this case maybe regulatory filings or shipping information off to external accountants), then tell them why you NEED to make the change, then show them or tell them where it's affecting the farther processes. Sometimes they don't look at the whole picture, just their own tasks at hand. The change can then be easier to handle since it has a real purpose. Also sharing the whole process sometimes lets employees think about things more and they may offer up suggestions as well that improve things. When it comes to the additional hire, talk to the existing person. Ask her what tasks consume the most time in her day and what seems to create timing pressures for her. Ask her what process or task she might like relief or help for. Then create the new position for those specific tasks and it might make her realize you are doing this for her relief. If she insists she can do it all, tell her you are concerned for her stress and happiness at work and you want to take pressure off. Get her used to the idea she doesn't have to be superwoman or that she needs to do it all and be responsible for it all. She likely has never had the time to think about it that way, nor does she realize that the company is getting bigger and she needs to shift and split some of her duties based on that. Try to include her in this process. If she still has attitude problems then at least you tried to do it the right way and she just couldn't adapt, then as Chuck said it's time for her to move on and learn from her perspective and attitude at another place of employment. About the backup person or train your replacement, I would institute a company policy that says at least one other person in every job needs a second person who knows roughly how to do their duties. I would explain like this, if a person cannot be sick for a day or two or take vacation, you have failed as management by making one irreplaceable and cause the company major hardship if they are out for a few days. This also applies to yourself. Everyone needs a break from time to time and that includes knowing things will be ok if you take a few days off. You will kill yourself with being worried or overworked in the long run without making that a policy and actually sticking to it. Thank you, Brian Webster www.wirelessmapping.com -----Original Message----- From: AF [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Chuck McCown via AF Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2021 1:43 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Cc: Chuck McCown Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Employee Handling After visiting with her about the issues, I would ask her how she thinks you should solve the problem. She might surprise you. You could have her find and hire someone to share the job duties. She might be more considerate of a coworker if it was her that made the selection. Or she could turn into maniac micro manager too. My experience is that a problem employee rarely changes the problem behavior. And when you finally get around letting them go, no matter how painful, you wonder why you didn't do it years ago. You could simply hire a person and have her "train her replacement". Like she needs vacation time so someone needs to be backup. She will get the hint. If she pitches a fit, wish her well in her future search for happiness. If she begrudgingly trains up the replacement, you have an immediate plan B for the future. I think I would do this in any case. -----Original Message----- From: Matt Hoppes Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2021 11:32 AM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: [AFMUG] Employee Handling I've got a situation and looking for advice on how to best handle it. I have an employee who is very detail oriented and does a great job of organizing things and keeping scheduling running smoothly for the most part. However, at times she has expressed that she feels overwhelmed if there are too many leads coming in and trying to keep them straight - so as a result at times we have deployed slower than I would like. We really should hire an additional customer service person, but two people we've had have left because of her attitude towards them (she can be blunt, and at times has mood swings). She basically runs our billing and customer service departments, and I've given her authority to do that, but when I make suggestions on things we should or shouldn't be doing she gets very upset about it. Right now we're working on some expansion projects and she has expressed various concerns/reasons we shouldn't do things that I think we should do. I hesitate to throw out the baby with the bath water, but the behavior needs to change and thus far I've been unsuccessful at changing this behavior. I plan to have a frank conversation with her in the next few days, but I'm curious to hear thoughts from others on something like this. How do I best allow autonomy of the department she's managing while also keeping in mind I sign the paychecks. -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list [email protected] http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
