Employee demands whole office works harder, manager pleads for her to calm down: 'She was calling me on her day off'

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  via Vitaly Gariev

  _{^{A female employee touches her face as she sits behind a laptop and an open planner in an open-plan office}} 

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• A manager at an organisation that did community work found herself having an issue with one of her hardest working employees. She was determined to create a relaxed working environment that encouraged employees to balance their job with their life, and this wasn't something that this worker seemed to completely agree with.

  She was determined to work in a way that the manager deemed excessive, as well as pressuring her coworkers to be the same way. The boss believed that she was making herself miserable in a way that just wasn't a necessary part of her job. She wanted guidance on how to deal with her.

• Employee determined to "grind" - Not in my office!!!

  We don't have emergencies here. The work is not urgent. We do nice work helping the community. It's great! I have spent a lot of time in miserable industries working for ab*sive bosses, and I have spent more than a decade building a compassionate, family-friendly culture.

  Long story short, I have a very productive employee who loves to work like there's a g*n to her head, and expects the rest of us to be the same way. I say absolutely not. She knows we're the kind of place she can (and does) call in any time if her kid or her dog gets sick, and vacation requests are freely granted. Not a grind!

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  via Vitaly Gariev

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• I am at wits' end. We had our big event last week, and I thought she would calm down (after six horrible months leading up to it) when it was over, but the next day, she was calling me on her day off, demanding to know when we would meet to discuss the event. (Uh, we will do it during work hours, chill out.)

  This is culture fit stuff. If she insists on making life miserable just because she has a belief system that life is meant to be miserable, I am not going to work with her, AND I DO NOT HAVE TO! But I would rather have her here.

  _^itsemmab

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  via Vitaly Gariev

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• Have her write up her analysis of the event, write up a plan to improve it next year. It's ok for people to care deeply about the work they spend a considerable chunk of their lives on, she just has to do it in a way that is flexible for others. Does she think life is meant to be miserable or does she actually enjoy working hard? I think putting yourself in her frame of mind for a minute might help you. She likes working and is passionate so keep her busy she doesn't want to chill.

  _{^{Glad_Astronomer_9692}}

  Here are some strategies in software engineering, but I'm not sure how applicable they are to other fields. Please use your own judgement.

  1. If she's paid for 40 hours a week, but is bored or has a lot of extra time, give her more projects/responsibilities. You can even ask her what she'd like to do with her time. One time an employer told me that I could take grad classes during work hours & they would pay for it. (For the classes, I automated away most of my job & had a lot of free time.)

        2. If she's paid for 40 hours a week, but is working more, schedule a meeting and send a message that you need to figure out why she is       unable to finish her assigned work in 40 hours. You can ask if she is struggling, if the tasks are too much, if there's a skill mismatch, etc.       etc..

  I've found that #1 will help with boredom, and is what driven employees like. If they are a driven employee, but working too hard & you're worried about burnout, #2 will force them to come to terms with the fact that their current strategy is not an effective way of showing they are a driven & hardworking employee in this organization, and that what they are doing is problematic.

  _^x-jhp-x

  
  You need to have a frank discussion with her about your workplace culture, what is expected of her, and what she should expect of others. Calling you off the clock is inappropriate and demanding others perform more work is not her job, it’s yours.

  It needs to be clear what your companies vision and goals are, her position in that schema, and what the inappropriate behaviors are.

  If this were my employee, I would start this conversation by asking them what they are looking for in their career and then explain all of the above. She might expect more from the company than the company is willing to give her, and if so then that should be clear. If her behavior doesn’t change, then it would become a personnel management scenario

  _{^{alphawafflejack}}

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  via Vitaly Gariev

  _{^{A female employee wears glasses as she works on her laptop in an open-plan office}}

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