My Employee Disappeared With Crucial Data
Posted Aug 14, 2023
Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues--everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.
Here's a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.
1. My employee disappeared with our data
My team employs several part-time remote employees who conduct field research and submit data summaries back to us so that we can report out to our clients. Recently one of them has fallen out of communication before finishing his work -- he completed the required field visits but has not turned in the required data. He is now over a month past due and in the last couple of weeks has stopped responding to us via any communication method. We are running out of time and if he does not get us the data, we will have to redo the work on an extremely tight timeline. This will look bad to our clients, who will know something went very wrong and who will consider having to redo the visits a burden.
We have tried every type of outreach I can think of, offered additional assistance and empathy, and said that if he can just hand over the raw data we'd be happy to pay him for the time he took to conduct the visits and finish up the rest of the work for him. We're getting no response back to any of this and don't know if he's just avoiding us or having some kind of crisis. Would it be crossing a line to reach out to other members of the field team who he may have a relationship with? Do we have any recourse here, or do we just have to eat the lost time and money and redo the work?
Green responds:
It's not crossing a line to contact other members of your team, explain you haven't been able to reach this guy, and ask if they know if he's OK or how to get in touch with him. These are people who work for you; it's not like you're calling his neighbors or his last employer.
But if that doesn't work, then yeah, unfortunately there's not much more you can do, and it sounds like you'd need to redo the work. It might point to changes you can make in your procedures going forward though -- like maybe it would make sense to require people to turn in their data after each field visit rather than stockpiling it (if that's practical).
Do you by chance have an emergency contact for him? If so, this warrants contacting that person now to ensure he's OK (totally aside from the question of the data).
2. My co-worker pounds on the door while I'm in the bathroom
My co-worker, Jane, and I have jobs that are very interdependent. She sees clients first to sell them things. Then the clients come over to me, and I do paperwork with them.
I have, for lack of a better term, bathroom problems. When I have to go, it's urgent, and I can be in the bathroom for up to 30 minutes sometimes.
If I happen to be in the bathroom when Jane is finishing up with a client who needs to see me, she will come to the bathroom and pound on the door. I'll say "occupied" and she'll then announce to me that I have a client waiting whenever I'm done, and sometimes she'll ask how long I think I will be.
I do not like to be talked to while I'm trying to use the bathroom, especially about work. Nor do I like being asked how long I think I will be. A few times, I have chosen to not respond to the pounding on the door, and she continues to pound until I say something. Am I overreacting? Do I need to just get over it? Or is she as out of line as I think she is?
Green responds:
No, you're not overreacting, and you don't need to get over it. Jane is being really rude! And ineffective -- I can't imagine how she thinks you're suddenly going to finish up more quickly just because she's pounding on the door.
You should say this to her: "Please don't knock on the door to tell me I have a client when I'm in the bathroom. I don't want to talk while I'm in the bathroom, and I can't speed things up -- I'll be out when I'm able to be out. Instead, please tell the client I'm not available yet but will be with them as soon as I can."
In fairness to Jane, it's true that 30-minute bathroom visits are long, and so if that's regularly delaying clients, the two of you should decide how to best handle that -- is there another piece of the process that can happen while you're indisposed, can someone else begin the process until you're out, is there better messaging to use with them, etc.? But the solution shouldn't be that she bangs on the door and demands answers while you're on the toilet.
3. Parking space shuffles are taking up too much time
Our office is located in a downtown area with notoriously expensive rates for parking in lots. We're also located near residential areas that allow free parking for two hours at a time. Several employees who drive to work have opted not to pay for parking, but to park in a free spot on the street and then leave every two hours to move their car. Given the demand for these free parking areas, they are typically gone from work for a while and have to do this at least three times a day. They're doing this as part of their work time rather than their break time, thinking, "Oh, it's just a few minutes." But a) it's not just a few minutes, b) it is not fair to employees who have no reason to leave repeatedly during the day, and c) it is theft of time if they are not using break times for this.
Management has come under fire lately for being draconian about theft of time, but supervisors are raising this as an issue because of the disruption of work. Any suggestions for how to manage and communicate with employees about this without taking on the persona of time cop?
Green responds:
You should leave the "time theft" language out of it. That's very adversarial wording and is likely to result in arguments about the fact that people spend 10 minutes on work at home that they don't log, and so forth. You don't need to go so rigid with this.
The organization needs to say, "If you choose to park in free spaces on the street and thus need to move your car during the day, you need to do that during your breaks." You could also say, "We're finding people are often gone for 30 minutes [or whatever] to move their cars, which is more than we can accommodate unless it's during breaks." And then if it continues, managers need to follow up with people individually, telling offenders directly that they can't be away from work that frequently or that often -- the same way they'd presumably handle it if someone was disappearing that often and that long to go do crossword puzzles outside or practice yoga in the lobby.