Training a new employee who is inpatient

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in·pa·tient
?in?p?SH(?)nt/
noun
a patient who stays in a hospital while under treatment.

im·pa·tient
im?p?SH?nt/Submit
adjective
1. having or showing a tendency to be quickly irritated or provoked.
"an impatient motorist blaring his horn"

2. restlessly eager.
"they are impatient for change"

Maybe this is why she feels the need to follow up so much?

What an asshole.

NP

That typo changes the meaning of the question. I was imagining an employee who had been shipped off to rehab. Spelling matters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in·pa·tient
?in?p?SH(?)nt/
noun
a patient who stays in a hospital while under treatment.

im·pa·tient
im?p?SH?nt/Submit
adjective
1. having or showing a tendency to be quickly irritated or provoked.
"an impatient motorist blaring his horn"

2. restlessly eager.
"they are impatient for change"

Maybe this is why she feels the need to follow up so much?

What an asshole.

NP

That typo changes the meaning of the question. I was imagining an employee who had been shipped off to rehab. Spelling matters

Yes, but third-grade reading leveling comprehension should have made it clear that inpatient was a typo.

[Anonymous]

Training people can be really annoying, because they want concrete tasks to do (Do step 1, 2, and 3 and then let me know) when most jobs require you to understand large bodies of knowledge.

So when I tell someone to read or at least skim a manual, they need to do that. But most don't do this, because it's "boring" and then lie about it and then lack the necessary info to do the job.

[Anonymous]

There's no need to be terse with her, but also no need to put up with this. Just tell her nicely that you're aware when she's sent you an email, and you'll respond in a timely manner (you may have to clarify what this is, since she seems not to have a strong grasp on this concept), so there's no need for her to IM you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am training a new employee. I could tell early on, she is someone with a Type A personality.

As soon as she sends me an email, she sends me an instant message to let me know she's sent me an email. For things that need to be taken care of right away, I usually respond promptly. For other things, my response time is a little slower (a day maybe) because I have my own workload in addition to training. However, the instant message in addition to the emails and all the "friendly reminders" is starting to drive me crazy. Thoughts on how to handle this?

OP, it's time to sit down with her and tell her to stop this. But before you do that, does she have a workload other than this training? One of the reasons she may be doing this (reminding and messaging you) is that she has nothing to do other than the training assignments.

I was in a training relationship with a not very good trainer at a federal agency that lasted for months. Other than meeting with her and being given random tasks by her, I had no work to do. It literally drove me crazy. Establish this woman's assignments and tasks.

So, meet with her.

"Do you have enough regular work to do, Larla?" Find out.

If she does, then tell her: "Larla, I want you to stop emailing me and messaging me when you finish assignments and following up your emails with instant messages. I cannot give you instant attention, and it's not appropriate for you to do that. Is that clear to you?"

Wow, the bold is way too direct & borderline rude for a first conversation about communication & expectations with a new employee.

This is so condescending.

Is she from a different industry? In my work this type of "managing up" is critical to success.

+1. Just tell her that IMs are not necessary, and tend to slow you.down. And tell her that follow up emails aren't necessary as you do keep track of what's urgent.

If she has nothing to do while she's waiting for a response, make sure she has a menial easy ongoing task she can work on intermittently. And TELL HER that's what you expect.

[Anonymous]

Larla, one of the things that slows me down is excessive e-mails and text messages from all of the staff. I spend hours wading through email and text. I'm asking everyone to only send me one copy of things that need my attention and to only send reminders when something is due or after 24 hours for more urgent matters. This will help me cut back on the volume I'm dealing with.

This works for me since I already get a huge volume of emails a day and it is true. Duplicate messages bogs me down a lot.