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Post Info TOPIC: Need advice on how to manage an employee
ayo


Coach

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Need advice on how to manage an employee
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Let me first say *sigh*

This is such an uncomfortable subject for me, its the part of my job I like the least.

I am managing a guy who is an independent consultant, he has the expertise on one particular piece of software that is key to my application. At this point, he is pretty much a single point of failure, which makes me very uncomfortable, God forbid something happens to him, he has an emergency or dare I say needs to take a vacation. I will be SOL. Let's call this guy A.

We recently hired another woman that has the same expertise. Since she is new so she is not familiar with how we customized the software for our particular application but she understands the out of the box functionality. Let's call her F.

I recently told A that I would like for him to get F up to speed on the application, for the various reasons I mentioned above. He was completely resistent to the idea, and pretty much told me no and that he doesn't need her help. I've tried on several different occasions to have this discussion with him to no avail.

He gets paid by the hour and I believe he is the sole provider at home and he has three kids. I'm not trying to mess with the man's hustle, I get it, I understand it. However, I really need to work in the best interest of my client and ensure that we have more than one person that can support this application.

How would you handle this situation (firing him is not an option at this time)?



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D


Hermes

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I would tell him that this is not about him needing help, this is about making sure the software has a back-up tech if need be. If he continues to resist, let him know this is not optional.

If he continues to resist even after he is told this is mandatory, then in all honesty, she could still probably pick up the pieces if he were to leave...

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Gucci

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I think D said it all. You have to be firm and make sure that you aren't left holding the bag if A should ever leave or get sick. The client isn't going to complain to A, they will complain to YOU. Tell A that you aren't asking, you are giving him an assignment. I would also look into maybe a web class or something that might also give F some education on the software, just in case A should "accidentally" leave something important out of his training.

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Suasoria


Chanel

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I am basically a contractor (in a totally different field) and I have skills/experience I just cannot teach to a junior level person. However I agree - if F is sharp, she should be able to pick up and intuit what she doesn't know.

How do you envision this training taking place? In person? On con-calls? You should be setting them up and participating. In the long run it might be more sensible for *you* to work with A, if possible, so you aren't so locked into either of these situations and can train future support people as needed.



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ayo


Coach

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Thank you all for the input. Perhaps I do need to be a little more firm and S you brought up an excellent point, I need to get smarter on the product so that I will be able to train someone in the future if necessary.

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