What do you do when you don’t trust your LSI?
I have an LSI that works under me. He is a nice guy, good work ethic, and has been an LSI for almost 3 years. He has worked under 3 licensed surveyors. He has decent drafting skills.
My issue is, his attention to detail sucks! No matter how many times he is shown field or office software, he fails to follow through on tasks. I will hand him all the information he needs for a boundary job and a minimum list of things to complete, only to finds numerous items that he “forgot”. I have sent him out to tie in monuments that have been set/recovered in the last year, only to have him say “not there”. When I go out to verify this statement, I quickly recover these “missing” monuments. I will redline a draft survey, tell him to highlight the corrections as they are made, and he will hand back a partial correction and say “all good”.
I am at my wits end with this guy. My business partners don’t seem overly concerned, but this guy is hurting our bottom line, our productivity, our reputation, and possibly my license.
I have patiently explained to him how to look for monuments, how to draft, how to write a legal, how to collect data, yet he keeps coming up short. I really want to just chew his ass, but at the same time I don’t want to be that kind of boss.
What the hell do I do?!
Give him a written evaluation. Put his good and bad qualities & habits on paper for him to read & acknowledge, making sure to keep the criticism constructive and professional. Give a reasonable deadline to correct his bad habits, and consequences for failure to obtain significant improvement, ir. demotion and reduction in pay or termination.
Posted by: @tim-libs
Other than that you said he has a good work ethic, then list a bunch of characteristics that display a lack thereof. You can mention that in a review and get real with him in a professional manner stating that you cannot sign off on certain portions of demonstrating qualifications when he lists you as the licensed Surveyor he learned them under.
That’s a good point – the possibility that experience might not get signed off on could be a powerful motivator. I too agree that putting things into writing is a must in this situation.
One other thing that I did think about…some folks are easily rattled when they perceive, either rightly or wrongly, that they are under the gun, so things drop through the cracks as they rush to get things done.
I’ve worked with folks who are great when things are calm and sailing is smooth, but as soon as the pressure is cranked up their work takes a nosedive and they start missing simple items. It’s especially noticeable in individuals who may have spotty education and/or training, and really do not like asking for help because they think they should already know everything…
Obviously that’s not always the case, and might still be a dealbreaker, but it might be worth talking about whether this individual is falling down because they’re overly worried about just “getting it done”.
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