Troublesome member of staff

[AndyT77]

I'm a shift manager in a food factory. A Key Op who runs a line, has been troublesome for about the last 12 months, spreading rumours, being two faced with people and generally difficult to manage.

Yesterday was her last day, and she had been working on line as opposed to running the line all week. Yesterday I told her at shift start she had to run the line due to someone calling in sick.

She told me 'you'd better get someone in, because i'm not working a full shift.'

I wasn't surprised as she is a nasty young lady. She knew this would cause problems on shift later when 'she' decided to finish work.

I let her go into the factory whilst I contemplated my next move. 10m later I decided I wasn't having her dictate what time she s going to finish, so called her line, and instructed her to come back to sign in area.

She arrived and I informed her to go home now, hand over your clock card and locker key. She ws surprised, and said something along the lines of 'enjoy your life, you'll need good luck.'

I remained professional and thanked her and wished her all the luck in the world (she is going travelling).

I then had a small issue in rearranging cover for her, but I felt great to have got the upper hand over her, and prevented her from saying goodbye to her 'friends' properly.

Any thoughts on how I handled the situation?

[jagracer]

AndyT77 said:

Any thoughts on how I handled the situation?

You waited 9m 59seconds too long to send her home.

[AndyT77]

I think so too, but didn't want a scene in front of all the staff. In hindsight it would have been better.

[anonymous-user]

jagracer said:

AndyT77 said:

Any thoughts on how I handled the situation?

You waited 9m 59seconds too long to send her home.

Seems better that he dragged 'troublemaker' out in front of everyone and turfed them out after they probably told everyone how 'good/cool' they were, the other may now have 2nd thoughts about taking the p*ss

[T5R+]

Andy, it is all a learning and experience game, good call (speaketh an ex SM from FMCG)

Reading your post cannot help but think that "this person" should have been dealt with a lot earlier within the last year.

If you were one of my SMs - would be supporting your decision, especially if you felt she would have been disruptive or demoralise the rest of the team eg you did not give this person sufficient time to sour the shift, which was good.

[sunoco69]

Hmmmm a food factory you say.

I would of made sausages & burgers out of her and invited her fella to the "Going travelling" send off BBQ.

[rog007]

A challenging situation no less that many of us have also faced at sometime in our careers. Having asked PH to reflect on your actions; what do your own reflections come up with? Do you think you did the right thing? Would you do exactly the same again in similar circumstances? Has there been any fallout from your decision? How has it made you feel about yourself now you've had time to reflect? Only by thinking these things through can you be sure what you did and how you did it was best for all in the long term and that you have learned any lessons to improve your management performance for the future. Good luck!

[edc]

Being very critical, you were probably several months late in dealing with the real situation.

[AndyT77]

Rog007, upon reflection i feel it was beneficial to deal with the situation in that way, so as to show other members of staff they are unable to dictate to management the terms of their employment.

Up until now, there hasn't been any fall out as such, infact my senior manager has commented on how well the situation was handled. We will see what happens next week, as her partner also works on this shift (was off on the day in question), and is doing 2 night shifts next week. I'm fully expecting him to confront me about the situation, but am prepared to tell him in a professional manner, that is has zip all to do with him (he works on the same shift, but in a different department and has tried previously to intervene in situations between this young lady and myself).

I'd say approximately 70% of the people who work on shift didn't like her, and this showed during a little leaving speech and card/collection presentation i gave for them on her penultimate shift (as it was the last shift working together). All the staff were given the opportunity to congregate in the canteen for 10m whilst i did this, and a lot of people decided not to attend.

Perhaps i should shed a little further light on the situation, as i'd previously been pretty friendly with the young lady, more so as she was my partners friend (who also works on the same shift).

During our 'friendship', i wasn't in the Manager's position i am now, i was a process technologist, so worked across all 4 shifts and had no say in the shift management/day to day operations. I was purely a 'service' employee, who carried out process studies, conducted trials etc.

When i was promoted to Shift Manager, there was a definite undertone of jealousy from various people on shift, aimed squarely at my partner. This was dealt with on a one to one level with various people, with quite clear and unamiguous guidelines on how i expected members of staff to conduct themselves on shift.

An issue arose between my partner and another member of staff, with false allegations being made regarding my partners conduct. The person making the allegations was investigated and disciplined, but it seemed he had the ear of the young lady that this thread is about, and subsequently she went from being a 'good' friend of my partners to an absolutely two faced, sneaky, nasty and manipulative waste of space.

Several run ins with her lead to investigations and subsequently she recieved her final written warning (about two months before she left).

Anyway, i feel i've rambled on about this quite enough now. The following weeks should hopefully highlight how well the team works together without the interferance of a nasty piece of work.