Working World

I supervise an office assistant who has become less and less of a good worker. In the past year, I've watched her productivity go down, her chattiness around the office go up, and the amount of time she spends on the Internet go through the roof. Everyone feels sorry for her because she’s a single mother with a troubled kid, and we’ve fallen into a pattern of acceding to her victimized attitude. In addition, she’s the receptionist, so she knows people’s secrets. Like J. Edgar Hoover, she’s adept at letting us know she has a mental file about things, like how often we get personal calls. This place doesn’t tend to fire people, even if their work is marginal, and especially those that play the sympathy card. Am I stuck?

If you are indeed her supervisor, you have various forms of remediation available, short- and long-term and long. Start by persistent and careful micromanaging. Have a meeting and explain you need a better idea of how long things take to accomplish. Ask her, and anyone else you supervise, to make an inventoried list of what’s backlogged on their desk and how long they think it should take to finish. Have them set calendar goals for completion. Repeat that meeting weekly. Also, every morning stand at her desk to ask what progress she is making with her current deadlines and her backlog. If your organization conducts annual performance reviews, use the process to set broader performance goals and standards.

If she attempts any kind of emotional blackmail, just shrug it off and smile. When she realizes she can’t intimidate you, she’ll also realize there’s more of a payoff in having you as an ally than as an adversary. You may have to be on “better” behavior yourself, but that can only help your own performance and how you are viewed by those who supervise you.

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