nouggatti Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 (edited) I manage approx four teams in work (a total of 23 people) The teams are a mixture of permanent staff, contractors (as in the pay us enormous amounts by the day) and outsourced staff (as in they work for me, but their HR management is done by another company) Anyway, I'm having problems with two of them, in total my team support over 20 different sites, and often tend to be away from our main office onsite in one of the other 20. The accepted approach to this is to let me know where you are, once I know where people are I generally don't have an issue at all. Anyway two of the staff (both outsourced) are there less than a month. From the outset, I have gone through the structure of the IT department, the general rules for day to day work and I have emphasised the need for me to know when they are offsite. I have two problems, person a and person b. (both outsourced) Person a. has been spoken to three times due to their constantly disappearing for hours/days offsite and no one knowing where he is. Their boss (i.e. the company they work for) has also been informed twice, and the behaviour stopped temporarily but resumed this past week, and I had no idea where they were. Person b. is fairly arrogant and opinionated, and has also performed the dissappearing trick. On top of that, he has made comments that have offended by one of my staff (a woman, of which I manage two) which has been noticed by several other members of staff, has made comments to other members of staff that he feels demeaned by the work he is doing, and wants to do other work currently going on in the department, and (in my opinion) does not communicate with me nor keep me up to date, but rather prefers to update another senior techie (who is male) as to what he is doing. One member of the team has even suggested that person b. has a problem reporting to a woman full stop. With person b. I've had to ring his company already with one minor issue, at which his boss sounded panicky that within a couple of weeks there were issues. Also we need more resource from his company, and I know they have several available. Person b. also appears to be key in causing person a. to behave as he does, in that person a. (also male) looks up to person b. and appears to behave as if he reports de facto to person b and I am just an annoyance. I've the following options: 1. have both of them replaced (knowing that replacements are available and the contracts under which they work specify that right) 2. replace person b and hope person a. gets the message. Any thoughts? edited for carp spelling Edited June 8, 2008 by nouggatti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycas Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 Do either a or b offer any explanation for their disappearing acts? And do they not have phones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nouggatti Posted June 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 (edited) Do either a or b offer any explanation for their disappearing acts? And do they not have phones? Both have mobiles provided by my company and my number which they do not use, and frequently don't answer Retrospecitvely they can provide explanations for their absence, but cannot correlate it to a logged issue, which means it's dead time. Edited June 8, 2008 by nouggatti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 sorry you are having problems T, I'd go for replacing B as the ring leader and seeing if you it improves a. I would also ask for a daily record of where they will be and an update via email if that changes, behave like children get treated like children mentality... Good luck x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nouggatti Posted June 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 sorry you are having problems T, I'd go for replacing B as the ring leader and seeing if you it improves a. I would also ask for a daily record of where they will be and an update via email if that changes, behave like children get treated like children mentality... Good luck x Done that already murtle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReikiAnge Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 sorry you are having problems T, I'd go for replacing B as the ring leader and seeing if you it improves a. Not that I have any experience of this but I would agree with Murtle Can't abide people who get funny over reporting to someone because of their age/gender etc. <helpful Ange> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycas Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 I'd get rid of both of them then, if there are reasonable replacements available. Sounds like both have been given more than one chance to explain and do better, and if they are just making dodgy claims about non-existent callouts, rather than something more serious or home-life related, it sounds like they are taking the P to me. If A hadn't already been given so many chances, I'd say give him another go, but really I think you've done all you can for him: he needs a short sharp shock, and I don't see why you should have to chase after him while he decides if B being got rid of is short and sharp enough or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nouggatti Posted June 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 I'd get rid of both of them then, if there are reasonable replacements available. Sounds like both have been given more than one chance to explain and do better, and if they are just making dodgy claims about non-existent callouts, rather than something more serious or home-life related, it sounds like they are taking the P to me. If A hadn't already been given so many chances, I'd say give him another go, but really I think you've done all you can for him: he needs a short sharp shock, and I don't see why you should have to chase after him while he decides if B being got rid of is short and sharp enough or not. Ah you are me then, I'm thinking the same and am actually having problems with the fact that I am having to be brutal and having to make that decision. I just feel bad about it, but will be relieved when i do. I honestly cannot justify the amount of time person a. claims he is away doing stuff, and on Friday I discovered via a customer that he is indeed doing unlogged stuff without reporting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycas Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 So he actually is doing the work - just not reporting it? I was assuming he was making up work as an excuse for a crafty snooze. that's just very odd. I don't suppose you can tell him that he'lll only get paid for time which is documented...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nouggatti Posted June 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 So he actually is doing the work - just not reporting it? I was assuming he was making up work as an excuse for a crafty snooze. that's just very odd. I don't suppose you can tell him that he'lll only get paid for time which is documented...? Person a appears to be doing the work, but not reporting it, he's not used to working in a disciplined environment, but he does take at least twice the time it should take him to do the work. Person b. appears to resent having to report what he is doing, and is influencing person a. LIke you say it's odd, I have told them both it will only be paid for if it's documented but neither take any notice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murtle Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 (edited) What ever you do, don't feel bad I'm hopeless at the completion of things that result in me getting paid! I am reminded every week to complete my timesheet (I contract) and am happy to be paid fewer times, more money if it means only filling them out once, but more of them then weekly....however, I'm getting into the habit slowly.... xxx Edited June 8, 2008 by murtle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nouggatti Posted June 8, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 (edited) LOL @ murtle, I won't feel bad, but I have to learn to cope with those decisions I suppose, all to easy not to make the decisions, but a lot harder to do it and accept it which is my problem ETA: you are not like me, when I was on contract I made sure my sheets were filled in religiously! But then being posh a mere wage is handbag shopping Sorry Edited June 8, 2008 by nouggatti Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacobean Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 How are they supposed to notify you of their movements? By phone, email or on a spreadsheet/some other kind of record you have? Have you got access to some kind of shared software that people can use like a diary to note each day where they are and what they're up to. It could be they are hopeless at paperwork or it could be they feel it's a bit much having to log where they are for every minute of the day. What kind of discussion have you had with them? Have you asked what their problem is. When I've managed people in the past I've been surprised to find that how I think something is going/people are feeling is very different to how they think. I used to have regular team meetings so each member of the team could say what they were up to and how they felt about stuff. I found it really helped team morale. Having said that it was in accounts and I know IT is a fast paced environment where you get jobs come in all the time as errors occur. So you can't manage the time upfront. I do know Martyn is very good at his job. His manager told him to put his hours down on a spreadsheet on a daily basis because he thought he was skiving a lot. Martyn got all pedantic (Martyn does) and said he'd be in for a shock and he wouldn't see much of him. You see they have set hours but Martyn is the one person in the team who everyone rings at silly o'clock in the morning (which p*sses me off) and often ends up fixing things remotely in the middle of the night. So when he's knackered and strolls into work late of a morning his stoopid boss has no knowledge of this cos systems all working fine. Then starts having a go at him for being a bit late. Martyn has 2 bosses. One is sensible. The other is a complete dickhead. Martyn also asked him why as he was singled out. No-one else was asked to do it. Your situation I know is different. It does sound like a case of bloke b doesn't like having to report to a woman. Bloke a could be a sheep. However you also have to forget what other members of staff are saying because they could be trying to drop the others in it purposely. You can only go on what you know for sure and the discussions that take place with Mr A & Mr B. It would be interested to hear what they think the scenario is. If you think they are definitely taking the pee then you get rid of both. They've had warnings and if you don't follow through you will be seen as a soft target. The suppliers need to know you won't be messed around and expect good contractors for the money they are being paid. They then won't send you the sloppy contractors they have. Hope some of this makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooandboo Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 Replace both Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halfpenny Posted June 9, 2008 Report Share Posted June 9, 2008 Hi T I would replace b but take a aside and tell him that unless he improves he to will be replaced....ask him if that is what he wants and if the answer is no then make him very clear as to what he has to do to stop this happening.... Give it 2 weeks (time to improve and lapse again) and if he has lapsed then bye bye Mr A. Its a hellish position to be in but thinl of it as how dare they B***up your team when the rest of you work so well together.. love hugs and loads of Reiki to you ....letus know how it goes....................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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