Wait until Monday morning. Schedule time with her and hear her side. Family emergencies come up and things happen. Hard to repair a relationship if she is normally a good employee and you let accusations fly plus it will give you time to cool down and reflect.

Have you previously communicated your expectations for notifying out of office? It may be sort of implicit, but it may not. If you/your company hasn't shared those expectations, that needs to be done.

I know what I think is good practice and seems obvious, which is letting people know, but I've worked in companies where the requirements were different.

I would focus more on the tasking that was needed and not completed vs diving straight into accusing them of being away and non responsive. Ultimately that (not completing their duties) is what you need them to address. It is also likely to be a far less confrontational discussion if you focus on the tasking. Less accusatory, IMO.

Agree with the last few. Focus the initial follow-up on the tasks that weren't delivered on Monday. "Hey, I was expecting XYZ and didn't see them. Did something come up?"

I've never been a manager that tracks time, but that leash comes with the expectation that you get your job done and that you are also responsive (within reason) during work hours. If it's been a good employee, I probably don't take it further than understanding what happened with the deliverables and maybe just a "next time just give me a heads up"

I'll give you real advice. You said they are normally a good employee. Let it go.

$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I'll give you real advice. You said they are normally a good employee. Let it go.

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I'll preface this with how much I respect your opinions and like you as a poster, but I think it's strange to say you've got "real" advice in this instance, as if others don't.

This may be great advice if you own your own business, but I think it's terrible advice if you're doing work as a federal contractor where time-keeping is a serious issue. There's a wide range of relative factors that could make this situation different for everyone.

Are you paying her for her time or for her experience?

Thats the question I'd be asking.

Also what the cost of replacing this employee if she gets tired of getting hassled and jumps ship.

If otherwise everything is fine, I'd be reluctant to touch that tar baby.

Not everything requires a response.

That's how I'd look at it.

$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I'll give you real advice. You said they are normally a good employee. Let it go.

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I'll also give you real advice. Tasks were waiting on them. Remind them that communication is important. If something came up to where they couldn't complete a task, then communicate. Pretty simple.

Ok guys. Do what you want. I've managed lots of people at this point and have done the full journey from being a hard ass manager to being a culture leader. The number one skill a manager needs to have is knowing when not to say something.

My first concern would be for the employee - did something happen, are you burnt out, etc. My second concern would be about the deliverables. I'm suggesting inverting your thinking.

Do you not communicate with your folks verbally? Seems like if there was something "hot" that had to be done on this particular Friday you would have called them as soon as it hit their court to make sure it got done and reiterated the importance.

Sorry but just letting it go is an absurd response because the standard you walk by is the standard you accept… and also if you say nothing your base response to it is one feigning unimportance of both their work and the person if you care about them.

What you say is something only you can figure out depending on what balls were dropped and the person who dropped them.

ATM9000 said:

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Sorry but just letting it go is an absurd response because the standard you walk by is the standard you accept… and also if you say nothing your base response to it is one feigning unimportance of both their work and the person if you care about them.

What you say is something only you can figure out depending on what balls were dropped and the person who dropped them.

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I don't think it's absurd at all. She's clearly a performer, and the ONE time she doesn't perform to a "standard" then the manager has to say something?

That is how you discourage hard work and how employees get jaded. I would want to tell that manager to go F himself after busting my ass for a long time and then they feel like they have to "manage" when something comes up.

OP, wait for a pattern to develop to avoid ruining a good working relationship.

Bird Poo said:

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ATM9000 said:

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Sorry but just letting it go is an absurd response because the standard you walk by is the standard you accept… and also if you say nothing your base response to it is one feigning unimportance of both their work and the person if you care about them.

What you say is something only you can figure out depending on what balls were dropped and the person who dropped them.

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I don't think it's absurd at all. She's clearly a performer, and the ONE time she doesn't perform to a "standard" then the manager has to say something?

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Yeah… you say something.

I'm not suggesting you immediately go in chew the person out or even accuse and blame, but you need to understand what happened because if you don't know what happened, you have no idea if the person is alright or not for one… and if you don't acknowledge the missed deliveries, you are also inferring their work isn't very important and that communicating to find cover or let you know something won't be ready on time is your standard.

To put it to a personal example, let's say your spouse picks your kids up every day and gets dinner ready by 6 PM without fail. One day the school calls and your kids haven't been picked up. Your spouse doesn't show up home until 2 in the morning blitzed drunk. You wouldn't ask what's going on? Of course you would… because it is out of pattern behavior and you want to make sure everything is ok. You cite not ruining a good relationship, but… if a friend told you this happened and they just let it go and never asked their spouse about it… would you not think there's something not great about their relationship?

Just ask is the thing. Could be they asked some time off and you forgot about it. Could be they meant to ask for time off and forgot to. Might be they did a liquid lunch, it ran long and they just fobbed work off on a Friday. Or… it could be a personal emergency came up. Any of those 4 scenarios, the common theme is it was definitely a miscommunication… which by definition is dysfunction. Also in any of those 4 scenarios, as a manager, you kind of need to know for different reasons.

Nothing use to piss me off more than working on deadline or dealing some urgent situation on a Friday afternoon.

But it happens all the time.

People get backed up all week then all of a sudden get this paniced burst of energy and get in a mad rush to get things done on Friday afternoon.

The best use of friday afternoon is to leave early, or spend some time organizing for the next week and then leave early.

If you trying to rush something through on a friday afternoon its often times low quality and mistakes get made,

I've always been a fan of pushing things until monday. Especially if its got to get done right.

But it depends what industry you in. A lot of folk don't have that luxury.

There's a huge difference in chewing someone out for something like this and telling them "hey, I noticed you were out and a few things got missed. In the future, I just need to be aware so I can reassign them."

The "why" you need to know is almost more important than the needing to know in this conversation.

I think some of you guys take yourselves way too seriously. Like I said earlier, I've evolved a lot as a manager and I used to think the way some of you guys think now. Be open minded that your journey to being great is just beginning.

#1 skill as a manager is knowing when not to act. Nobody wants to feel like they're under surveillance. It is possible to have "good" employees that play by your "rules" but don't perform their best in terms of creativity, impact, etc because they view the environment in a manner where they'll do what they need to in order to appease you but it may not be the best they can do for the business. Shifting my management style to a shared mission, macro outcome style approach was a game changer for me. I didn't have to worry about things like this anymore.

If you have access to your CEO or some equivalent executive, ask them this hypothetical and see what they say. OP will have to confirm, but it didn't sound like these tasks were mission critical and needed that second.

Termination notice should be delivered Monday for sure