Hello!

I've just discovered this forum today, and I'm hoping you all might be able to help me with a difficult situation.

I have a very productive employee who does an overall excellent job. She assists our company's most valuable salesperson, which is not an easy task. The problem is that she can be dismissive and outright disrespectful, primarily to me, but also to the rest of the staff. This also spills over into a lack of trainability.

Why not simply have a firm discussion with her? The problem is that her husband doesn't want her to work, and she is traveling almost an hour to get to work, and I cannot afford to have her quit unexpectedly. I am looking for another candidate, but as I said, it's not an easy job and I would much rather keep her in the company.

How do I rein her in without pushing her away?

There is one other detail that makes things more complicated. I think she has a bit of a crush on the salesperson she assists. That person is my good friend and mentor, and together we run our company. I believe she has the wrong idea, and unfortunately I believe this is partially the cause of her behavior.

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Originally Posted by angelinah

Hello!


There is one other detail that makes things more complicated. I think she has a bit of a crush on the salesperson she assists. That person is my good friend and mentor, and together we run our company. I believe she has the wrong idea, and unfortunately I believe this is partially the cause of her behavior.

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Yes, a very difficult situation, but your good friend and mentor may be leading her on because, as you do, he/she finds her an asset. I think he/she {the mentor} must be the one to put a stop to this budding relationship and bring her down to basics. Otherwise, you may just have to terminate her assets and get someone who is more suitable and less vulnerable,

Anytime you don't think you can do or handle something without an employee, it is time to change things.

First yes you have a talk with her, since if you don't, you set up a habit and a history of how you do things, so the next employee, who can be gotten rid of, will have a background to say, that you do not have a right to do something to them. Since you did not the other person.

You do the right thing for management, you tell her that you can not accept this, if she quits, let her quit, you can get though it. If you can't get though it, you were a poor manager to start with, ( sorry but there is always a way)

The are this way, since you have allowed it.

I'm assuming you are this person's boss. What I would do is have a one to one with her where you start with a discussion about how she thinks she is doing, what parts of the job she enjoys and what bits she finds hard. You can then see the role for her perspective and this might give you some information on why she is acting in the way she does. You've said that the role that she does is not an easy one. Perhaps there are period where she gets stressed by the job. How can you help her with this? You say she has a lack of trainability but perhaps if the training is linked to making her life at work easier then she would be more amenable to doing it.

Also sounds like she has some stress in her personal life (husband attitude and the travelling). Perhaps she needs a bit of support in making the change from home to work, switching off the home issues in her head and changing to work. Perhaps you could discuss with her what tasks she can do when she gets into work which will help her make that change. Perhaps it's full on the minute she walks through the door and that means she carries on in the stressed out mode.

If she has a crush on your colleague then she'll probably get over it a some stage. Unless this is a problem - i.e. inappropriate conduct then perhaps the best thing to do is just bear with her and let it pass. If it is causing issues then what I would do is identify the parts of her behaviour that are unacceptable and saying this to her. For example "Sally, the comment you made to John this morning about his underwear was not appropriate for our office environment. I would be grateful if you could not make comments like that to him again". In my experience you have to do this when it happens and not let it pass otherwise colleagues think this sort of thing is acceptable.

Hope that helps