Managers - how do you raise a knowledge transfer that didn't happen, without it sounding like blaming a colleague?
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I'm new to a role in a ministry I hadn't worked in before. Fixed-term. The work itself is a step up in scope from what I was doing previously and I'm delivering, but it's costing me far more than it should, and I think I know why.
The handover I got was a high-level document, what the portfolio covers, who the contacts are, but nothing operational. No walkthroughs of how things actually get done. The transfer sessions that were scheduled were basically "let me know if you have questions." I didn't have questions, because I didn't yet know enough to know what to ask. So I've been reverse-engineering processes on my own and hoping I'm doing them the way they're supposed to be done.
When I do go back and ask for guidance, I get a response that's more critical than helpful, and I've stopped wanting to ask. I don't know whether that's territorial, whether the person is stretched, or whether the detail was never documented and asking exposes that. I've decided I don't need to know.
My manager is genuinely supportive and I have a standing weekly 1:1's. I just haven't used it for this. My worry is that raising it lands as complaining about a colleague, or as an admission I can't figure things out independently.
For managers: how would you want this brought to you? Is there a framing that reads as a competent person asking for inputs rather than someone struggling? And is there a point where you'd expect a new hire to just absorb this and stop flagging it?