Help! My Co-Worker Isn't Working!

or manager about another employee. I work in a very small knit law firm and we have a receptionist who completely messes up everything and makes more work for everyone else. Oh that's a tough one. No matter how many times you try and teach and explain how to do it correctly, she never takes notes or changes her processes. Our files are a mess. We've got missing documents constantly, and it makes our job so much harder. Any advice how or if I should approach my bosses? We are all blamed first,

and she never takes responsibility. That's really tough. Our bosses never say anything, and I'm getting really over it and tend to jump to her defense. I'm not sure if it's even worth saying anything, but myself and other employees are over it. That's a really hard scenario, so I

guess I can only speak from my standpoint. I guess from my perspective being the boss, if there was one team member in our workplace that was really kind of dropping the ball and everyone else was suffering because of it, and if it was something that I wasn't aware of at all, I would absolutely want to know. But I guess it depends, like how much you care and how

much your coworkers care. At the end of the day, clearly you care enough because you know you've reached out to me and you've let me know your trouble, So obviously this is an issue that's bugging you enough that I definitely think it's worth mentioning to your bosses. My first question is, like, maybe your bosses are already aware of this if like, surely they are, But then again, like things can definitely go unnoticed. But I guess your question is like, how would I expect an employee to

approach me about another employee. I think it's really important, like for workplaces to have open communication, and I would only hope that all of my staff would feel comfortable coming to me to talk about anything, especially if it is about one of their co workers. And I guess one of the hard things when it comes to having an issue with another coworker is you never want to look like you're throwing them under the bus. And I think a lot of people will have guilt surrounding that.

And in my experience, you know, I've had staff come to me in the past to essentially make a complaint about someone else. But the tricky thing from my end is they've come to me and said, hey, Britt, this problem is happening and this is the person that is causing it. But I don't want them to know that I told you. And so as bosses we get put in a really awkward situation where we can't do anything without kind of pointing out who came to us kind

of thing. And I've found myself in that situation where I've had to say to someone, look, I absolutely want to do something about this, but because you're the one coming to me and the issue is lying between you and this other person, like this is going to kind of have to be all of us involved in this, and I think as an employee, you just have to not be scared in that situation of how that other employee is going to maybe react or you know, they

might feel like you've dibb a dabbed on them or whatever, because at the end of the day, as bosses, we only want what's best for the whole team. We want everyone to be happy, and sometimes we have to have a really shitty, awkward conversation that's going to make a few people feel really out of their comfort zone in order to fix that problem and hopefully move forward all together.

So my best advice for you would be to maybe speak with the other coworkers that are experiencing this same problem and say, hey, like I think we should, you know,

take this to our bosses. Maybe there's two of you that want to arrange a meeting with your boss together if you'd both like to give your feedback, or maybe you're going to be the one that's going to kind of take one for the team, and I'd schedule in a time to sit down with your boss, even write everything out that you want to cover with them, like give yourself some dot points all the things that you

want to go over. There's no shame in showing up with a bunch of notes that you want to go through. Maybe there's certain things that have happened on certain days or during certain times, and I'd just sit down and as awkward as you'll feel, and you know, I want to throw someone under the bus, I would just map out to your boss, like all the things that are happening, you know, how it's affecting your team, how it's affecting

you in your role. Is this person stopping you from doing things that are more important because you're there just constantly trying to pick up the pieces. I just go to them, open and honestly, and hopefully you will get a good response from the boss that they are willing to look further into this and hopefully figure out a solution. I think that's like my best advice, and you definitely don't want to leave it, especially if it's impacting your day to day job and your well being at work.

I'd just go in, have that awkward conversation and see how your boss comes back to you, and it may have to be them then taking this information and going and speaking with the employee. I know this is what I would do. For example, let's say you were working for me and you have come to me and said, look, I'm experiencing X, Y and Z with this other person. I would take that on board and say, no worries, leave it with me for the time being. Then what I would do is I would go and organize a

meeting with the other person. And I would tread really lightly to begin with, because you don't want it to turn into like a battle between your two employees. But instead I would go to the other person and i'd just sit them down and just do a check in, like how are you going with everything? How are you

finding your workflow? There's ways for us as bosses to kind of bring up issues without you know, throwing you under the bus, for example, and I would say things like, oh, I've noticed this, I've noticed that if I'm in that office or wherever every day kind of thing. Before I would fully go and say this person has said, because

that's when it can get really awkward. But I would only hope that That's what your boss would do for you, is they would go and try and figure it out with the other person, try and help them in their role in any way before it gets to the point of having to get everyone involved and everyone talking about all of these issues in the sun room. So I guess that would be my advice is just write everything down, have the awkward conversation with your boss, and hope that

they will do something about it. And if they say they're going to do something about it, and another month goes by and nothing happens, like I just touch base again. It is a tricky scenario, but at the end of the day, I know, speaking from my experience, I want everyone to be happy in their roles. I want everyone to be fulfilling their roles, and I would be mortified, you know, if one person was letting my entire team

down and I didn't know about it. So hopefully your boss will be grateful that you are bringing this up to them, and hopefully it can be something that can be resolved, because there's nothing worse than just feeling like you're constantly having to pick up after someone else if they're not doing their job right, and that's not on you to fix that. It's definitely on your boss or your manager or whoever it is that you're going to be approaching. But yeah, I guess that's that's my best

advice for you, Kristen. Let me know how you go. Keep me in the loop, and sorry that you're feeling this way. I feel like, unfortunately, this is something that a lot of people probably deal with in workplaces, just feeling like they are constantly having to do someone else's job and it really is not fair because you really should only be doing the job that you're designated to do,

and that is your role. So I hope that your boss can pull some strings and help out the other employee to be more efficient in their role, or maybe workout somewhere along the line that maybe that person isn't meant to be in that role. But who am I to say who should be in your workplace because I don't even know where it is and I've got nothing to do with it. But thanks so much for sending

through your question. If anyone else has any questions that you would like me to give my professional not professional advice on Britney's advisory is open. Send me an email. It's always in my show notes or slide into my DMS or my Big Business Podcast Instagram account. And that's all for today's episode. I'll be back next week. For my man, so I'll see you then, mhm.