Firstly, we should look at how Jim came to decide on the role and the level of experience and skill it needed.

  1. Jim was only spending a part of his day on payroll issues, though daily they were not taking up all of his time. To that end he more than likely did not need someone who was full-time. Jim made the mistake a lot of employers make and that is – everyone else works 9-5  so they are our hours. Quite simply that doesn’t make sense.
  2. Jim was keen to have someone take over all of these duties and presumably carry them out to a standard that meant that he wouldn’t have to be bothered by them. He then sought out and hired someone with no experience in payroll, no experience in an office and provided her with no one but him to teach her this new skill. By trying to save money short term Jim guaranteed that he would have to put a lot of time into his new hire which was the very thing he was trying to avoid.
  3. Jim doesn’t have any training plan set out and doesn’t want to pay for for someone from the payroll company to come out and train Andrea. Again, by saving money short term Jim is ensuring that he won’t give Andrea the tools she needs to really excel in this role.
  4. When Andrea has down time Jim doesn’t approach her to see if it is a case that she is not doing work or if it is a case that there really isn’t anything to do. If he did Jim could look at options like giving Andrea additional work to make up for the quieter times in the day or address any work ethic issues might be lurking.
  5. Andrea’s four day week is a reasonable request and if Jim wasn’t so frustrated with his own bad recruitment he might be able to see it as good solution. Jim isn’t able to provide any reasons as to why Andrea has to be in the office five days a week other than it is what has been done to date.

Had Jim really put some thought into what his problem was he could have hired an experienced payroll person to work a two or three day week. The person Jim needed was someone who was used to working on their own, was aware of the typical issues that arise in a workforce and could address them as routine and would only come to him to approve payments.

Jim has no formal training in payroll and could be making mistakes unbeknownst to himself so training Andrea himself was never best practice. Additionally, if Jim wanted rid of the duties he needed to set Andrea up to excel not simply shuffle on as he had done.

Communication is key in any relationship and there could be a lot of room for improvement if Jim were to take the time to discuss his concerns with Andrea and actively listen to her side of things. By ignoring the problem and letting it build up Jim is only allowing the problem to fester and become worse ultimately ruining the relationship.

Jim really has two two choices here:

  1. Speak with Andrea, try to negotiate different hours and put some money into her training.
  2. Accept that he has made a mistake in hiring the wrong person for the role and start the process of possibly letting Andrea go and hiring the correct person for the job.

We hope this case study has allowed you to consider the multiplicity of factors that have to be considered when taking on a new recruit.

If we can help you with any similar issues please don’t hesitate to contact us on [email protected] or 01 8774608