I have an employee that is absolutely dedicated to everything we do. She has dedicated her whole life to the business. When things don’t go well financially she offers to work for free.
Problem is that she sucks. I don’t know what to call it but it’s kind of like the opposite of the Midas touch, everything she touches turns to shit.
We are afraid to even give her the most simple of projects because she will find a way to create a disaster. She has zero self-awareness and thinks that she walks on water. She’s always trying to get involved in other people’s projects and that is a guaranteed way to either bring it to a grinding halt or bring it crashing down.
After saying it out loud the obvious answer is to fire her. But it is hard. She has been ingrained in everything we do since day one. She knows all of our secrets and all of our weaknesses. I’d rather not burn any bridges.
Would be nice just to find a way to tell her nicely that she sucks and we would like her to stay in her lane and only do the basic projects we assign.
You must log in or register to comment.
There was no bad student only bad teacher., I think you should start coaching your employee and help her to transformed for what skills you want her to posses.,
I usually just walk up and say, “you suck at this and you’re costing me money daily”. Generally they will quit. The stubborn ones I let my guys weed out. Nobody lasts longer than a couple days when they go on BITCH status.
People like the one you describe here can be incredibly difficult to correct. You instinctively know that they are going to fall apart the moment you have to tell them they’ve made a mistake.
While the “right” answer is to speak up and start to correcting her, you might want to ask yourself if you are really prepared to take on that challenge. I know for myself sometimes I’ve just had to admit that I can’t deal with certain people and give myself permission to cut ties.
I would suggest asking yourself if you honestly feel like she will make improvements with better management and whether you are capable of providing that management. If the answer is no, then let her go.
If she is thinking big picture and can bounce around projects, she has management potential. Can you offer a promotion or move to a role with higher level responsibility ?
I’d like to hear some of the stories.
Training. You’ve got a motivated and engaged employee willing to go the extra mile for you. You pinpoint where her skills are weak, and you develop her. You give her honest feedback about where she’s screwing up, narrow her job duties, and ask her to stick to her defined duties until you feel she has mastered them. As she masters skills, gradually add more responsibilities.
This is a management failure. Stop letting her run around like a bull in a China closet and manage her. If you find that she doesn’t want to be trained or managed, and she may not since you’ve let it go on for so long, you may have to let her go.
Let her go. Explain that you need to make cuts and that you can’t allow her to work for free. I’m pretty sure that would be a huge liability even if it was her idea. Give her a reference to whatever competitor you want to take down from the inside.
On the tv show ‘Silicon Valley,’ they keep those people on payroll and just let them hang out and play foosball and watch TV all day, so as not to lose them to the competition.
I love what’s already been said, but I’d add one thing: I would think about how bad the conversation would be if you have to fire her, and aim for a somewhere roughly half as bad as that when you talk to her. IOW, you don’t want to wish later that you’d been more firm if you have to fire her, but you have to balance that with the risk of demotivating her by making her feel that she isn’t valued.
That’s a “you” problem, mate, not a “her” problem. I’ve been fired before, and I can guarantee, it has almost zero to do with what the employee is doing, and more to do with what exactly you’re communicating to them that is motivating them to do what they’re doing.
Managers have almost zero visibility on what’s actually happening on the employee’s side, and that’s precisely the problem.
Being a manager has little to do with trying to get people to do things for you, and more to do with helping your team the best you can to get the work done the best everyone can. You’re supposed to be a convenience to them, not a counter that tracks if the KPI is ticking or not.
Good employees are willing to improve, so long as the manager has the competence to show them the direction to head in. 99% of cases involving some from of relationship breakdown is caused by lack of communication… or, often accurately, miscommunication.
Provide constructive feedback; focus on improvement, not personal criticism. Open dialogue helps.
Sounds like she is willing to do a good job. I would sit down with ALL employees after the first of the year and set the tone and vision for the coming year. Set clear goals and expectations, ask each employee if they have any problems with the metrics you have laid out and then hold them all accountable including her.
Get creative find what she is good at there has to be something. Other then shredding paper!
Sometimes a direct approach works best.
Give her a mentor.
It’s hard to know what is going wrong, when you just say she ‘sucks’ and ‘everything she touches turns to shit’.
Pair her up with someone who sees her potential and can make the most of her qualities (everyone has strengths).
I don’t think you are the person to do this, given your assessment of her and her work.