Overcoming a Lazy Coworker

Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here.

Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.

Dear Bev,

One of my co-workers is lazy. He doesn’t come in on time, he never does the work he is asked to do and he won’t answer the phone. The rest of us take care of everything. It frustrates me that the owners do not see how hard we work and how he never helps out. Is there some way I can let them know about the inequities without coming across as a tattler?

Name Withheld

Dear Frustrated Employee,

I hear this complaint a lot from people in all sizes and types of financial firms. There are few things more frustrating than watching others take it easy while you run around taking care of everything and cleaning up after their mess!

Unfortunately, you are limited in what you can easily do to deal with this problem if the partners don’t (or won’t) see it. Sometimes the boss knows what’s happening, but doesn’t like to deal with conflict or problems. Don’t necessarily assume they don’t know what’s happening!

Let’s look at some of the options. These will all work best if the other staff members are seeing the same thing with this colleague and are equally frustrated. One caveat – first check your own lens to make sure you are not being overly critical or feeling like a “victim.” If you are sure it’s him, not you, try the following options:

You could have a conversation directly with your colleague and express a desire to allocate work a bit more evenly. Make sure you stay objective, and are not accusatory or frustrated in approach. You could ask if everyone on the team could get together to outline responsibilities and then ask him what he wants his responsibilities to be. Write up an agreement that gets circulated with all staff members involved and have everyone sign it. The downside? Sometimes if management isn’t involved, your colleagues won’t play nicely because they don’t respect you. You have to influence everyone else to see the value, but try not to assume too much of a “boss” mode when asking – your peers will reject any idea if they think you are trying to take charge. Make it very collegial and collaborative in approach.
You can be helpful to the firm overall by making a plan with a task list of who/what/when/how that gets circulated to those involved, with a copy to the partners. In fact, if you have the kind of relationships where you can first go in and propose the idea to the partners “just to make things run more smoothly in the office,” that’s even better. Their buy-in would be great. Offer to play a project manager role, then circulate the document and update it. Start highlighting in red areas where people are not meeting deadlines. After a while your colleague may feel pressure to do something if his name shows up too many times with a red underline.
Do some internal self-promotion. Come up with other ideas for improvements in the office you can share with the partners. Suggest, for example, that to ensure clients always get their calls answered, there is a coverage list when people are working on projects, with others as backup. Or suggest that projects get assigned differently to ensure coverage throughout the office. Find ways to highlight what needs to be done, and tag staff members (including your colleague) with responsibilities a bit more publicly. Always frame these things in a manner that shows the partners it’s better for the firm and for the clients – never point the finger at your colleague directly.
Practice stress management. At the end of the day, you can do some of these things and try to get the partners to see what’s happening, but you don’t run the firm and you aren’t in a position of management. For all you know, this person is a partner’s long-lost son. You have to be careful to make sure you are doing the best job you can do and not allow his laziness to impact your attitude or competency. You can try to make the inequities more public in subtle ways, but ultimately you might have to let it go if the partners just don’t respond.

Dear Bev,

Our advisory firm is small – only three people. Out of necessity we are “jacks of all trades,” and take on many of the different tasks throughout the day. As owner, for example, I work with clients – but I also clean the coffee pot. Lately my administrative person is asking for a clear job description. She says she has to do low-level work that she never agreed to when she took the job. I feel like we all do whatever we need to and that’s what happens in a small firm. Am I wrong to want to avoid putting responsibilities in writing? I think it gives her the chance to say “It’s not my job” every time I ask her to do something.

Sharon D.

Dear Sharon,

Your situation is all too common in small firms. It may not be possible to have clearly defined roles with people for every single function, but your employee is right to request something in writing describing her responsibilities. Without a job description of some sort, there is too much room for interpretation about who is doing what – and to whom!

Most employees, no matter what sized firm, want to know how they are doing against expectations. They want feedback. They want to be measured, and they want to know if the boss is happy with their performance. The only way to really measure and track this is if you have clear responsibilities and can give her feedback about where she is excelling, or where she needs to improve. You can always write a job description that includes “other duties as necessary or requested by management,” which would cover unanticipated things you may ask her to do. And you can certainly include things like picking up your kitchen area, cleaning up the conference room for clients, doing errands, etc., if these are part of daily routine requests.

Managers often underestimate how important job descriptions are for employees. Most employees don’t like a vague sense of what they are supposed to do. They will go along for a while, but unless they are entrepreneurial in style and can move quickly from item to item and roll easily with changes, most staff members like some sort of boundaries and clear expectations set. Honestly, it will be best for the firm overall to take the time to do this, as it will give you the chance to think about what the firm needs. Once you have something in writing, you can also refer back to it when doing performance reviews or giving your two employees feedback.

Without an agreed-upon role, if this employee starts to underperform you will have a hard time telling her where she is falling short. Expectation-setting goes both ways.

Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995; in 2008 she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).

She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.

Overcoming a Lazy Coworker

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