I am raising this question as the experienced staff member in a department of two.

I have working for the organisation for over eight years and was recruited (as one of two staff members) to be part of a new department which was set up February last year – I was totally new to this role and received limited but adequate training. My co-worker left and a new person that has been recruited. As the only other person in the department it has fallen to me to train the new member of staff by way of mentoring them. I am having great difficulty with this as the new person who has been with us for 5 weeks:

1. Does not recognise that I have the authority(?) to tell them how to do the job.

2. Ignores requests to perform certain tasks if they do not want to do them.

3. Does not have a good work ethic ie prefers to go out for a smoke, cup of tea, chat etc rather than do the work.

4. Has made mistakes but does not appear to be concerned over the mistakes that have been made and expects me to put them right.

5. Is reluctant to take on any responsibility constantly saying that they are not ready and require further training.

The attitude that this person is taking is causing me problems now. Due to major mistakes that this person is making I am having to work overtime to correct their mistakes and my own work is now falling behind as a result. I have made management aware of the difficulties and they are looking at starting the unsatisfactory performance procedure. This will rely almost totally on my input/opinion as the training of this staff member has not bee adequately supervised.

My concern is that it will take another few months for the UPP to progress to the stage where the new staff member is asked to leave. In the meantime I am becoming ill as a result of the stress that this is causing me. Whilst I understand that the new employee has rights what about my rights? Surely the expectation that I will have to try to continue to train someone who is not interested, tidy up their mess and perform my own job effectively is unreasonable. At present I am being told by my employers that they are working on the problem and there is nothing more that they can do to support me.It feels as if they are more scared of upsetting him than damaging me and it doesn’t seem fair.

I know this is very long winded and sounds like I am feeling sorry for myself but I really would appreciate some advice as this is having a detrimental effect on my personal life as well.

Amanda Grant