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How many chances do you give an employee to suddenly start using common sense?
I hired a virtual assistant in another country, who delegates to other virtual assistants in her office for me. She's sort of a Project Manager. But basic data entry tasks are often done wrong, and things I put on her To Do list are partly started but then I have to push, remind and goad her to continue them until they are completed. It drives me nuts!
The CEO of the company said, "You have to do this with any low level admin, of course. You have to check and double check their work constantly. That's just part of owning a company." But I've had many admins in the USA and that was rarely true, and when it was, I replaced the person.
It seems to me common sense issues are the primary errors. If it is true, how many chances do you give someone to learn common sense before you cut bait?
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8 Answers
If she's not working out, then you will have to either have discussions with her or let her go.
You really should not be checking over basic date-entry tasks. That's a waste of your time and $$
I believe in the saying "Hire Slow, Fire Fast!"
One can teach many things and one can learn many things but, unfortunately, Wendy, common sense isn't one of them.
The other point I would add is that delegation is not abdication. If someone is responsible for a deliverable, the fact that she's delegated some of it to others does not relieve her of ownership or responsibility for that deliverable. Outsourcing, which is essentially what you're doing is a bit different, but the purpose of outsourcing is to enable you to focus on other things.
The CEO sounds about as useless as your virtual assistant. I'm pretty sure you know what you have to do.
Does not sound like common sense it sounds more like habit. A great manager told me that people problems fall into 3 areas.
1. Is lack of training.
2. Is lack of motivation.
3, Is habit.
It is almost impossible to break habits that people do not have the motivation to break and even with motivation it is hard. Unless you are in the business of fixing people follow the advise I got a long time ago. Learn to fail fast.
The best time to fire someone is the first time you decide to do it.
I would say perhaps 2-3 "chances". But before I got to this point, I would make sure that I am making explicitly clear to her not only what her responsibilities are - but also what my expectations of her are. If the person is then absolutely clear that the expectation is that they should be able to do data enter with near-perfection, while also following through and completing tasks on the task without hourly supervision, etc., then there should be quite a good alignment and agreement by both parties as to whether expectations are being met.
Ironically, this will be the second time I've let her go if I do. The first time, my US assistant said, "She keeps making mistakes" and I eventually figured out my US assistant was not training the foreign VA properly, so I took that over for myself. This time, there's really no training necessary but I spent 10 minutes on it anyway. There's just a specific form that has to be filled out, six lines total, from data on a questionnaire. NOT THAT HARD!
I've decided to give them 2 more weeks to start to perform at a higher level. Then, we're done. They've been warned. Thanks for your advice, everyone.
Two chances, tops. One would hope that an interview process would raise some red flags in the common sense dimension.
The virtual relationship complicates the situation, but still . . .
One caveat regarding business relationships involving ore cultures and other countries. You' got to understand how your expectations fit - or don't - in those environments. What might appear to be a lack of common sense could be rooted in deep cultural perceptions.
As others have properly observed, the problem is her, not you. You have clarified output expectations and she refuses to meet them. Despite warnings with progressive severity, she doesn't care and you can't make her care enough to do the job properly. The diagnosis and treatment are straight out of Mager/Pipe's Performance Model.
I believe in the three strike rule when it comes to these types of issues. Anybody deserves a second chance but the third signals a definite pattern...and if that pattern is a detriment to doing business it's time to cut bait.
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