Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Britney Saunders and welcome to Big Business Today.
Speaker 1: You've landed in one of my bonus episodes, which come
Speaker 1: out every Wednesday. Just in case you didn't know, I
Speaker 1: have had a juicy question slide into my DMS from Kristen.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Kristin for sending this through. Let's read
Speaker 1: it out and let's give my advice. Even though I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm talking about. I do, but you know, okay?
Speaker 1: Are you able to make an episode about employee conflict
Speaker 1: and how you would expect an employee to approach you
Speaker 1: or manager about another employee. I work in a very
Speaker 1: small knit law firm and we have a receptionist who
Speaker 1: completely messes up everything and makes more work for everyone else.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a tough one. No matter how many times
Speaker 1: you try and teach and explain how to do it correctly,
Speaker 1: she never takes notes or changes her processes. Our files
Speaker 1: are a mess. We've got missing documents constantly, and it
Speaker 1: makes our job so much harder. Any advice how or
Speaker 1: if I should approach my bosses? We are all blamed first,
Speaker 1: and she never takes responsibility. That's really tough. Our bosses
Speaker 1: never say anything, and I'm getting really over it and
Speaker 1: tend to jump to her defense. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it's even worth saying anything, but myself and other employees
Speaker 1: are over it. That's a really hard scenario, so I
Speaker 1: guess I can only speak from my standpoint. I guess
Speaker 1: from my perspective being the boss, if there was one
Speaker 1: team member in our workplace that was really kind of
Speaker 1: dropping the ball and everyone else was suffering because of it,
Speaker 1: and if it was something that I wasn't aware of
Speaker 1: at all, I would absolutely want to know. But I
Speaker 1: guess it depends, like how much you care and how
Speaker 1: much your coworkers care. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: clearly you care enough because you know you've reached out
Speaker 1: to me and you've let me know your trouble, So
Speaker 1: obviously this is an issue that's bugging you enough that
Speaker 1: I definitely think it's worth mentioning to your bosses. My
Speaker 1: first question is, like, maybe your bosses are already aware
Speaker 1: of this if like, surely they are, But then again,
Speaker 1: like things can definitely go unnoticed. But I guess your
Speaker 1: question is like, how would I expect an employee to
Speaker 1: approach me about another employee. I think it's really important,
Speaker 1: like for workplaces to have open communication, and I would
Speaker 1: only hope that all of my staff would feel comfortable
Speaker 1: coming to me to talk about anything, especially if it
Speaker 1: is about one of their co workers. And I guess
Speaker 1: one of the hard things when it comes to having
Speaker 1: an issue with another coworker is you never want to
Speaker 1: look like you're throwing them under the bus. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people will have guilt surrounding that.
Speaker 1: And in my experience, you know, I've had staff come
Speaker 1: to me in the past to essentially make a complaint
Speaker 1: about someone else. But the tricky thing from my end
Speaker 1: is they've come to me and said, hey, Britt, this
Speaker 1: problem is happening and this is the person that is
Speaker 1: causing it. But I don't want them to know that
Speaker 1: I told you. And so as bosses we get put
Speaker 1: in a really awkward situation where we can't do anything
Speaker 1: without kind of pointing out who came to us kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And I've found myself in that situation where
Speaker 1: I've had to say to someone, look, I absolutely want
Speaker 1: to do something about this, but because you're the one
Speaker 1: coming to me and the issue is lying between you
Speaker 1: and this other person, like this is going to kind
Speaker 1: of have to be all of us involved in this,
Speaker 1: and I think as an employee, you just have to
Speaker 1: not be scared in that situation of how that other
Speaker 1: employee is going to maybe react or you know, they
Speaker 1: might feel like you've dibb a dabbed on them or whatever,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, as bosses, we
Speaker 1: only want what's best for the whole team. We want
Speaker 1: everyone to be happy, and sometimes we have to have
Speaker 1: a really shitty, awkward conversation that's going to make a
Speaker 1: few people feel really out of their comfort zone in
Speaker 1: order to fix that problem and hopefully move forward all together.
Speaker 1: So my best advice for you would be to maybe
Speaker 1: speak with the other coworkers that are experiencing this same
Speaker 1: problem and say, hey, like I think we should, you know,
Speaker 1: take this to our bosses. Maybe there's two of you
Speaker 1: that want to arrange a meeting with your boss together
Speaker 1: if you'd both like to give your feedback, or maybe
Speaker 1: you're going to be the one that's going to kind
Speaker 1: of take one for the team, and I'd schedule in
Speaker 1: a time to sit down with your boss, even write
Speaker 1: everything out that you want to cover with them, like
Speaker 1: give yourself some dot points all the things that you
Speaker 1: want to go over. There's no shame in showing up
Speaker 1: with a bunch of notes that you want to go through.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's certain things that have happened on certain days
Speaker 1: or during certain times, and I'd just sit down and
Speaker 1: as awkward as you'll feel, and you know, I want
Speaker 1: to throw someone under the bus, I would just map
Speaker 1: out to your boss, like all the things that are happening,
Speaker 1: you know, how it's affecting your team, how it's affecting
Speaker 1: you in your role. Is this person stopping you from
Speaker 1: doing things that are more important because you're there just
Speaker 1: constantly trying to pick up the pieces. I just go
Speaker 1: to them, open and honestly, and hopefully you will get
Speaker 1: a good response from the boss that they are willing
Speaker 1: to look further into this and hopefully figure out a solution.
Speaker 1: I think that's like my best advice, and you definitely
Speaker 1: don't want to leave it, especially if it's impacting your
Speaker 1: day to day job and your well being at work.
Speaker 1: I'd just go in, have that awkward conversation and see
Speaker 1: how your boss comes back to you, and it may
Speaker 1: have to be them then taking this information and going
Speaker 1: and speaking with the employee. I know this is what
Speaker 1: I would do. For example, let's say you were working
Speaker 1: for me and you have come to me and said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm experiencing X, Y and Z with this other person.
Speaker 1: I would take that on board and say, no worries,
Speaker 1: leave it with me for the time being. Then what
Speaker 1: I would do is I would go and organize a
Speaker 1: meeting with the other person. And I would tread really
Speaker 1: lightly to begin with, because you don't want it to
Speaker 1: turn into like a battle between your two employees. But
Speaker 1: instead I would go to the other person and i'd
Speaker 1: just sit them down and just do a check in,
Speaker 1: like how are you going with everything? How are you
Speaker 1: finding your workflow? There's ways for us as bosses to
Speaker 1: kind of bring up issues without you know, throwing you
Speaker 1: under the bus, for example, and I would say things like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've noticed this, I've noticed that if I'm in that
Speaker 1: office or wherever every day kind of thing. Before I
Speaker 1: would fully go and say this person has said, because
Speaker 1: that's when it can get really awkward. But I would
Speaker 1: only hope that That's what your boss would do for you,
Speaker 1: is they would go and try and figure it out
Speaker 1: with the other person, try and help them in their
Speaker 1: role in any way before it gets to the point
Speaker 1: of having to get everyone involved and everyone talking about
Speaker 1: all of these issues in the sun room. So I
Speaker 1: guess that would be my advice is just write everything down,
Speaker 1: have the awkward conversation with your boss, and hope that
Speaker 1: they will do something about it. And if they say
Speaker 1: they're going to do something about it, and another month
Speaker 1: goes by and nothing happens, like I just touch base again.
Speaker 1: It is a tricky scenario, but at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I know, speaking from my experience, I want
Speaker 1: everyone to be happy in their roles. I want everyone
Speaker 1: to be fulfilling their roles, and I would be mortified,
Speaker 1: you know, if one person was letting my entire team
Speaker 1: down and I didn't know about it. So hopefully your
Speaker 1: boss will be grateful that you are bringing this up
Speaker 1: to them, and hopefully it can be something that can
Speaker 1: be resolved, because there's nothing worse than just feeling like
Speaker 1: you're constantly having to pick up after someone else if
Speaker 1: they're not doing their job right, and that's not on
Speaker 1: you to fix that. It's definitely on your boss or
Speaker 1: your manager or whoever it is that you're going to
Speaker 1: be approaching. But yeah, I guess that's that's my best
Speaker 1: advice for you, Kristen. Let me know how you go.
Speaker 1: Keep me in the loop, and sorry that you're feeling
Speaker 1: this way. I feel like, unfortunately, this is something that
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably deal with in workplaces, just
Speaker 1: feeling like they are constantly having to do someone else's
Speaker 1: job and it really is not fair because you really
Speaker 1: should only be doing the job that you're designated to do,
Speaker 1: and that is your role. So I hope that your
Speaker 1: boss can pull some strings and help out the other
Speaker 1: employee to be more efficient in their role, or maybe
Speaker 1: workout somewhere along the line that maybe that person isn't
Speaker 1: meant to be in that role. But who am I
Speaker 1: to say who should be in your workplace because I
Speaker 1: don't even know where it is and I've got nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. But thanks so much for sending
Speaker 1: through your question. If anyone else has any questions that
Speaker 1: you would like me to give my professional not professional
Speaker 1: advice on Britney's advisory is open. Send me an email.
Speaker 1: It's always in my show notes or slide into my
Speaker 1: DMS or my Big Business Podcast Instagram account. And that's
Speaker 1: all for today's episode. I'll be back next week. For
Speaker 1: my man, so I'll see you then, mhm.