How to deal with an Irresponsible Team Member

How to deal with an Irresponsible Team Member


Background Scenario:

You are the manager of a team (onsite offshore model) . Your team members are exposed to the corresponding onsite counterpart i.e. they also interact with onsite team members on daily basis. Few of the projects you are driving from offshore site where team is comprised of both onsite and offshore team members. On the other hand your parallel manager from onsite is driving few projects, that too comprised of team members from both the sites.

Challenges you are facing:

Few of your team members are not responsible enough. Many a time your parallel onsite manager needs to follow up with the these offshore team members about the status update. A number of times it also happened that he got shocked at the last minute that the assigned task has not been completed and no alarm was raised by them. As a result your reputation is also going down as you are the manager of the offshore team and consequently responsible for the whole team.

Despite of few reminders and coaching from your side the team members are seemed to be not correcting themselves and now it is the high time to take some actions more diligently.

Here are few thoughts on this perspective what you can apply based on your situations.....................

Before you implement any of the following action, first and foremost call the team for team meeting and discuss with them that there is some dissatisfaction from the onsite team which you have come to know from the previous day's meeting with the onsite manager. It was raised that there is some lack of responsibility noticed within the team which might be bigger concern in future. Hence you are going to take the below few actions to streamline the process. Also say that it is good that the manager brought this issue to your notice before it could go for higher escalation and things could be completely different in that case. You can also mention about the higher management in the onsite team, how they are more particular about the commitment.

1. Include Manager in the mail loop

Ask the team members to keep you in loop in each mail exchanged with the counterpart.
Make them understand though you are not contributing anything to the project (as that project is driven by your parallel onsite manager) but your responsibility include to make sure your team members completes their assigned task within stipulated time. Hence you need to be in the scene to know what is happening.

Also make sure that your team members understand that in case they receive a mail from onsite without you in loop, but while replying back they should include you in the mail thread. Also ask them to forward any mail which comes from onsite without you in the loop and the mail does not require a reply, else you will miss the information in the mail. In this way you can get hold of the situation.

Meantime also communicate to your parallel onsite manager that due to the concern raised by him you are going to take few steps to control the situation and you have decided to be in the mail thread so that situation does not go out of control. If you don't communicate this beforehand, chances are there he might get offended to see you in every mail suddenly where as the project is driven by him. Mention that you will act as a passive observer as long as your team members are proactive and acting responsibly and only come into picture if you see your team member lacks any kind of commitment.


2. No follow-up mail from onsite and be proactive


Mention clearly to your team members that immediate objective would be there should not be any follow up mail from onsite henceforth. Also there should not be any status enquiring update from the onsite team as well.

How to achieve that? Each team member should be proactive and update the status. He should communicate to the onsite in case if he is facing some blockage which is hindering him to achieve the assigned task proactively.


3. Daily status report

Ask you team member to send daily status report to onsite team in case this process is not in place keeping you in loop.

You might get a number of arguments that what will be achieved in one day to mention in the status report etc etc. But you be assertive and tell them how they spend the day should go into the status report. Insist that even if they are doing some R&D , mention specifically the same in the status report (Personally I am very scared of this word when a team member says that he/she is doing R&D on a particular issue, it is a very commonly used word by an irresponsible person to dodge the assigned task ! So beware !) .

To give a more clear picture on this what i men to say here....

As for example say in a banking domain project the team members is to validate an issue after it got fixed by the developer on stop cheque payment functionality.
He might say he was exploring what is stop cheque payment functionality before he goes ahead and validate the defect. As a result end of the day towards the activity he does not achieve anything e.g nether reproduce, nor set up the environment, nor validate the issue. What to mention in the status report.
But you insist that he should mention the same i.e. he spend the day exploring the domain knowledge (stop cheque functionality) for the day. At least thus you will come to know how the guy is spending 8 hours in the office!
Hence they will be forced to mention something concrete in the status report which they should achieve in 8 hours time in the office when they have to write in black and white. Else it will be very vivid to everyone there is not proper time utilization.

One more argument you might face that they might also tell that it will take time to report the status report every day.

Mention that, "I think it should not take more than 10 minutes time from you. In case it is taking more than this then I think I need to arrange a training on how to write a status report for you." I am sure after this statement nobody will say anything.

The idea is not to dare them but you should be assertive enough if you yourself belief that it should not take more than 10 minutes or whatever time you feel is justified.


Advantages of asking them for a daily status report are many fold.
It will force them to do some measurable activity by the end of each day which they can site in the status report for the day.

One more thing you should say that the status report must be send from 5:30 PM to 6:00 PM time every day because it will be easier for the onsite manager to see the status for the day with the timestamp as each team member is going to send an individual report and this is not going to be a consolidated one. Never ever go for consolidated report. Irresponsible persons are always look out for combining their status with others. Even if you are going for combined status, make sure each one's contribution is sited separately.
One might also argue that he works late and comes office late, so for him it will not be possible to send the status report by 6 PM. Mind it these all are excuses. Tell it to him that the task achieved after the 6 pm should come for the next day's status. You will also get the idea how they are progressing and can apply any corrective action if required for the next day after going though the status report by 6 PM. This will inculcate a discipline and regularity in the team.

In the status report ask them to mention

1. What they achieved on that day
2. What they are going to do on the next day
3. Anything is blocking them to achieve their assigned task
4. Any risk they foresee which might hinder them to accomplish the assigned task

Last but not the least the most important thing is
5. % completed of the overall assigned task -- it will push the team member to do something concrete every day to make it an incremental figure

So in this way,
In a 20 days project after 10th day all of a sudden you will never get a shock of hearing only 5% done ! Because in this case you are monitoring on daily basis.

Finally Staus as Red/Yellow/Green - This will act as an early flag based on their comfortability of completing the assigned tasks.

Ask them to keep track of their own task. Also mention that if they feel they are behind the schedule to raise an early flag proactively.



4. Availability of Plan B Task

Ask them to do the part where they have some dependency to the onsite team members e.g. where they will be waiting for some information from the onsite.

Otherwise scenario would be:

5 o'clock you are seeing your team member is very relaxed and playing TT where as a critical issue has been assigned to him. Upon asking him, he will answer in usual way that he is waiting for some information from the onsite. Until he receives the information then he can't progress and his body language reflects that he can't do anything in this world but to play TT !!

So inculcate a habit of keeping plan b task ready in case they are blocked. i.e. complete those tasks where there is some dependency and complete other tasks when you are waiting for the information from others. Encourage them to plan accordingly so that he does not need to sit idle. Idea is to utilize the time properly.


5. Get a buy in


Make them committed. Before assigning a task discuss with them. Make sure they are comfortable and get the buy in from them and thus make them responsible for completing the assigned task.


6. Link appraisal

A very easy way to motivate your team members!

Link appraisal with every commitment failure, every follow up from the onsite, every instance of failure of status update

i.e. Appraisal goal should state that
less than 1 commitment failure/quarter,
2 follow up from the onsite/quarter,
2 instance of failure of status update/quarter


7. Motivate

Praise profusely when they achieve and reprimand when they can not (in case it out of sheer lack of responsibility)


8. Make them commitment driven and goal oriented

Tell them to ask themselves the following question each day
"How can I accomplish the assigned task" and do accordingly.

Tell them to

"Be result driven. Do whatever you feel like doing but you have to achieve some progress by the end of each day. Do research. But you can not do indefinite research and at the end can not say solution is not found. Constantly you have to keep an eye in the timeline as well. You have to raise an alarm if at any point you feel you won't be able to achieve the target. Be goal oriented. "


9. Some preaching in the team meeting - elaborate on each yourself !

More responsibility you handle, more responsibility you will get.

Do not blame others or give an excuse. Rather accept it. Acknowledge your mistake.

Communicate early if you can't deliver but deliver what you have committed to without fail.

Once committed you are answerable.