THE Review

Well, we got our 2.30pm start sorted alright. As we sat in the meeting room I started to go through what all the relevant paperwork was for and to explain the format of the Review. At this point Mrs X (as she’ll be known) started to well up, tears were forming and the bottom lip was starting to quiver. Putting all my best parenting skills into action, I decided distraction and diversion were the best course of action. So I asked her what she hoped to get out of the process. This seemed to confuse her and stopped the tears escaping. She thought she was just going to get slated she said. So I made it clear that this was a two way discussion to sort out what was going to happen in the next six months. This apparently went in one ear and out the other, but it seemed to work at the time. I pulled out my copy of the topics I’d asked her to think about the previous week, and asked her which she thought were the priority. She hadn’t got her copy with her, and it was obvious from her face that she hadn’t even thought about what she wanted to discuss. Tears weren’t far away again, but I averted disaster by saying it might be good to have a spontaneous discussion, rather than a scripted, over rehearsed one. So I set the agenda that I thought might work best. One key area that just hasn’t been working was an easy start I thought. Part of her job involves carrying out certain calculations to ensure that we don’t overpay, or underpay any of our clients. It’s there in her job procedures and the deadline is the third week of the month, but preferably at the point of paying the client. As it’s not been working we’ve had to instigate formal disciplinary procedures recently. These take forever to actually have any bite, and we seemed to be making progress, with almost everything up to date. So I thought setting the completion of these as an objective would be a no-brainer, she’s almost there now, so in six months it should be a dead cert. Her response: “Well, I’m not quite there, and I don’t want to set a target that isn’t realistic” I gently pointed out that it was a target she was already supposed to be achieving as part of her core job, and that if it wasn’t happening in six months there was a real risk of disciplinary action being continued. I must have pointed it out gently as there were no tears falling and she agreed to the target. It continued pretty much in that vein, I set a realistic objective, she tries to say it’s not happening now, I say I know, but it’s a target for six months time and we’d reach some sort of agreement. Unfortunately the meeting that was supposed to start at 4.00pm must have been cancelled, or they were waiting outside to see how long it would be before I could escape. Which was at 4.45pm. The difficulty with her position, is that under the realignment we’re having at the moment, job profiles are changing. If you fulfil 70% of the job profile in your current position, you will be “slotted in” to the new profile. You are still open to challenge from other employees, but they’re going to have to have some major ammo to knock you out of the job. A large part of Mrs X’s job is being transferred to another department, leaving a new profile containing a lot of things that she doesn’t already do. So some of the new profile contains part of what she does, and some is new. If she can make a case that she’s already doing 70% of it the profile is hers. Unfortunately in a meeting with the head of function last week, while I was off, she told him that half her job was going, half, that’ll be 50% then, leaving 50% of her job in the new profile. Not the 70% required to be “slotted in”. She’s facing having to apply for her job in effect. Once I pointed this out to her she’s tried to backtrack, but it’s hard to change 50% into 30% without some major reasons, which she just doesn’t have. So yesterday I tried to buoy her up by pointing out to her that if she makes these targets work and achieves some results quickly, she’ll have a better case for being slotted in. She seemed to end the Review on a positive note and with a new determination to sort herself out. Unfortunately these moods never seem to last long and I don’t think she’ll have the same attitude this morning. From a selfish point of view I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, she’s really difficult to try and manage. The rest of the team chugs along really well, we hit all our targets and get good results, and I don’t have to employ carrots or sticks too often. Their reviews were easy. At least I've got six months till the next one, if she's still part of the team. The cynical suspicious part of me wonders if the head of function had deliberately designed these profiles to weed her out…..