Difficult Employee and Team Dynamics
Hello,
there is an employee in my team who is struggling. I believe they might be on the spectrum and they have difficulty working with others and have been known to ‘talk down’ to people, they also have a strong personality and steam roller people who disagree with them. My manger is trying to put things in place to support them and prevent them from being ostracised from the group but is struggling to find constructive ways to deal with them. I’d really like to hear some advice how other managers have dealt with individuals like this and any steps that could be taken to bring them back into the team.
This individual has been with the company 10years and they are very good technically, very diligent & they are proactive and keen to take on additional work. They are also not afraid to stand up and voice their opinion. They have taken a different path to attain their position (graduate) than people in similar roles (apprenticeship)On the downside, they don’t work well with other people and people are averse to collaborating with them. When people do collaborate this individual takes over and finds fault with other people’s work. Also they don’t assist with the task but take a ‘supervisor’ role ie checking the work is done correctly but not assisting in the physical job. If there are complications the individual usually appeals to the manager before trying to resolve it themselves. The individual struggles to manage there workload and constantly requires assistance (not from the high level tasks but in low level doing/physical tasks)
Recently we have been going through a busy period, everyone has their own responsibilities and is concentrating on completing them, this individual is constantly asking for support (which is given via other team members reluctantly) but which is alienating the individual from the team as it draws people away from their core responsibilities.
There is a lot of unrest in the team at the moment, my manager can see the issue & has confided he doesn’t know how to deal with the situation. I want to support him and the team as best as I can without volunteering myself to be the permanent helping hand/ emotional support pet of the individual. I think this individual has the best intentions and is very competent and although they genuinely struggles sometimes I also believe they will ask for help before attempting resolutions themselves. Part of me also think they quite like having some one working with them
Any advice?