How do you handle colleagues mistakes?

[wanderingback]

I stepped down from a leadership role at 1 of my jobs, yay.
Obviously this is probably work place specific, but wondering how you handle these type situations.

If someone in another department makes a mistake that needs correcting. Do you-
Only alert the person who made the mistake
Alert the person who made the mistake and cc their boss
Alert their boss so they can alert the person
Other

Let’s say this isn’t a global issue with many people, but similar mistakes have happened here and there (like once every 6 months). For example, let’s say Susy is supposed send someone some confidential information but accidentally sends it to the wrong person. So you need Susy to correct this- it’s happened before, but not regularly.

[waverly]

I tell their boss so they can alert the person.  This is a company standard because otherwise we get a lot of "helpful comments" about people at the bottom of the totem pole.  Having people escalate it to their boss and then the bosses talk works better for us to weed out legitamate issues from general comments. And allows the leadership team to keep an eye on issues if they happen repeatedly.  

If it was a NBD, general reminder then I would make those, but actual mistakes with consequences, we escalate those. 

[jinkies]

Unless it is egregious, has repercussions that will cause other problems, or is an ongoing persistent issue, I would just email the person directly and not involve their boss.

[fernweh]

You say it’s happened before- was Susy notified of the mistake previously and it reoccurred or has she never been notified before?

If she has never been notified before I would probably notify her privately and give her chance to fix it. If she has been notified before and hasn’t fixed it I would escalate to her boss.

You mentioned confidential info though, if that was the case and it would come back on the company in a lawsuit or other negative manner I would probably cc the manager so he has a heads up in case anything hits the fan.

[hermione]

As a supervisor, I want to be told and I address it. Mostly this is because I don't trust some people to address it kindly or effectively. So it's not that I want control, it's that I want my staff member treated well.

[wildrice]

Well, for your specific example I think the supervisor would need to know because it would be considered a breach of policy and thus needs to be documented. I believe at my work we'd have to put in an incident report, too.

But for general, non harmful mistakes I usually just let the person know. If I've had to tell them more than once, I'd copy their supervisor. Generally I try to be proactive about fixing things myself by reaching out to the person vs just handing them off to the supervisor to fix, but I realize this may also be specific to my job since I'm HR.

I think a good rule of thumb, absent other company culture context, is that if it needs to be documented in case it becomes a pattern or needs to be escalated in some way, the supervisor should know. Otherwise, I'd leave them out of it.

[wanderingback]

Sept 24, 2024 13:11:56 GMT -5 fernweh said:

You say it’s happened before- was Susy notified of the mistake previously and it reoccurred or has she never been notified before?

If she has never been notified before I would probably notify her privately and give her chance to fix it. If she has been notified before and hasn’t fixed it I would escalate to her boss.

You mentioned confidential info though, if that was the case and it would come back on the company in a lawsuit or other negative manner I would probably cc the manager so he has a heads up in case anything hits the fan.

Yes Susy has been notified.

These are mistakes that need correcting. Like a message was sent to the wrong person so the correct person needs to get the message so Susy needs to fix it so the correct person gets the message.

[Susie]

Error made by someone who doesn't report to me, internal:
if minor, just them.
if significant, them and their supervisor.
if due in part to a process that can/should be improved internally, them, their supervisor, and whatever partner owns that process.

Error made by a peer, internal:
just them, unless for some reason it's a major red flag, or part of a pattern of behavior

When the error is in external materials/processes and/or is delivered work product that went to a client, then it's a different situation and requires notifying the client/etc. etc.

[waverly]

Sept 24, 2024 13:12:24 GMT -5 hermione said:

As a supervisor, I want to be told and I address it. Mostly this is because I don't trust some people to address it kindly or effectively. So it's not that I want control, it's that I want my staff member treated well.

This too.  I know wanderingback has management experience, but I don't need someone without management experience addressing my team in an inappropriate manner.  

I have one person on my staff that is an aggressive communicator.  She is not a manager, but still feels the need to be helpful and doesn't understand that repeating herself 5 times and acting like she knows everything is not helpful communication.  

[meanie]

One-offs I might alert the person, especially if something needs to be corrected or addressed down stream

If there is a pattern I will bring it up to the person and their direct manager, from a problem-solving angle trying to find the root issue or put a best practice in place

Unfortunately the mistakes I deal with are usually the global teams kind and lead to me having to fix it and deal with the client relationship end so I yell at people through e-mail. 

[ssmjlm]

For 90% of the people, I let their supervisor know. We have a lot of people that "helpful" because they think they know the right answer, when in fact they make things worse.

So I let the supervisor handle it.

[glw]

Only the person who made the mistake.

If it's a recurring problem (and it makes sense for me to be involved in this way), then I would CC: their boss and ask how we can plan/document/verify/whatever together so that it doesn't happen again.

[wanderingback]

I see a variety of opinions ha. But still helpful
But good point about not everyone handles communicating well so as a supervisor you prefer to be notified so it can be communicated correctly.

Thanks all!

[mofongo]

As an employee I would prefer whoever noticed just tell me first, obviously if it’s something egregious or happening frequently I’d expect my supervisor to be notified. So, I would probably tell them, but keep a record in case it happens more.

[flygirl]

It’s standard practice where I work that the supervisor is told of any errors (no matter how small).

[livinitup]

At my old company we had many roles where people had hands in my staff’s deliverables. These were lateral roles to a director. People like the Compliance officer, the Training lead, the IT director. It was a disaster that each role was given authority by the president to directly address mistakes or workflow changes. The president was all about “If you see something, say something”.

Disaster.

It was the #1 reason people gave for quitting. “Too many people criticizing me. Too many people telling me too many things that changes all the time.”

If you are a peer and see a mistake, tell your peer. If you are in a supervisory role and see a mistake, tell the supervisor. If you don’t know your role, it’s already fundamentally messy.

[pixy0stix]

I would not function in an environment where my supervisor knows about my mistakes before I do. (Barring the mistake being stop work critical, or a serious privacy breach.)

I've always been in an environment where you address the issue with the colleague first, and then start moving up should it be a persistent problem or there is no resolution.

Does treating your employees like children needing an adult in the room generally work for people? (See also, I'm probably the meanie you tell your other employees about.)

[jinkies]

Sept 24, 2024 15:42:40 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I would not function in an environment where my supervisor knows about my mistakes before I do. (Barring the mistake being stop work critical, or a serious privacy breach.)

I've always been in an environment where you address the issue with the colleague first, and then start moving up should it be a persistent problem or there is no resolution.

Does treating your employees like children needing an adult in the room generally work for people? (See also, I'm probably the meanie you tell your other employees about.)

Yeah every place I've ever worked, it would have been considered a wild over-reaction to email someone's boss because they copied "John B" on an email instead of "John K". If it's a minor mistake with a simple fix, I'm not seeing any scenario where it would make things easier or more efficient to loop in the boss. Just the idea of it stresses me out. 

I have generally always worked at companies smaller than 50 people though, so maybe I'm just not understanding the dynamics of bigger companies. 

[waverly]

I had assumed it was a HIPPA violation that she has done several times.

[Patsy Baloney]

Oof to having to loop the supervisor in no matter what! I hope they have good benefits to pay for the anti-anxiety meds everyone is going to need. I’m sorry to those of you who work in gotcha environments. That doesn’t sound enjoyable.

[pixy0stix]

Sept 24, 2024 15:55:33 GMT -5 waverly said:

I had assumed it was a HIPPA violation that she has done several times.

Yeah, but you've also admitted to being a micromanager to keep the plebes from resolving their own issues, so...

[raleighnc]

Specifically for confidential information, we need to report any time it is shared with the wrong people. This goes for both internal-only information and double for any sensitive data (personal data). It's an animal health company, so it doesn't fall under human health information, but it's still a big deal. We can report to our manager, via a compliance line, or to legal. If you don't report, it's a big problem. You're supposed to self report if you realize it before anyone else does.

If it's another type of mistake, it can be handled directly. But for confidential information, ethics, potential safety issues, or harassment, it needs to be reported.

[brooke77]

Directly with the person. If it is an ongoing issue, I will also mention it to the supervisor so they can address it and help figure out a root cause (training issue? capacity issue? other?)

I appreciate when people come directly to me with mistakes before escalating to my supervisor.

[wanderingback]

Sept 24, 2024 15:51:17 GMT -5 jinkies said:

Sept 24, 2024 15:42:40 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I would not function in an environment where my supervisor knows about my mistakes before I do. (Barring the mistake being stop work critical, or a serious privacy breach.)

I've always been in an environment where you address the issue with the colleague first, and then start moving up should it be a persistent problem or there is no resolution.

Does treating your employees like children needing an adult in the room generally work for people? (See also, I'm probably the meanie you tell your other employees about.)

Yeah every place I've ever worked, it would have been considered a wild over-reaction to email someone's boss because they copied "John B" on an email instead of "John K". If it's a minor mistake with a simple fix, I'm not seeing any scenario where it would make things easier or more efficient to loop in the boss. Just the idea of it stresses me out. 

I have generally always worked at companies smaller than 50 people though, so maybe I'm just not understanding the dynamics of bigger companies. 

To clarify, the issues I’m talking about aren’t wrong emails within the organization.

They’re things involving patients/patient care. Not like huge safety issues that caused a life or death situation or actual HIPAA violations but things that need to be corrected, things that I can’t correct and things that have happened more than once.

Obviously I wouldn’t tell someone’s boss if they accidentally sent a wrong email to someone in our organization!!

[wanderingback]

Sept 24, 2024 15:59:07 GMT -5 Patsy Baloney said:

Oof to having to loop the supervisor in no matter what! I hope they have good benefits to pay for the anti-anxiety meds everyone is going to need. I’m sorry to those of you who work in gotcha environments. That doesn’t sound enjoyable.

Mostly the reason I asked about looping in the boss in this scenario is because she is clueless about actual patient care stuff (which is a whole different issue) and the incidents I’m asking about happen more than once (every 6 months or so as mentioned in my OP). I don’t have their job so not sure if systems improvements could be made but that’s why I was thinking about looping in the boss.

I sometimes think going directly to the boss is "tattling" so also want to avoid that also.

I certainly don’t want to create a "gotcha" environment!

[Saudade]

Sept 24, 2024 20:20:51 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Sept 24, 2024 15:59:07 GMT -5 Patsy Baloney said:

Oof to having to loop the supervisor in no matter what! I hope they have good benefits to pay for the anti-anxiety meds everyone is going to need. I’m sorry to those of you who work in gotcha environments. That doesn’t sound enjoyable.

Mostly the reason I asked about looping in the boss in this scenario is because she is clueless about actual patient care stuff (which is a whole different issue) and the incidents I’m asking about happen more than once (every 6 months or so as mentioned in my OP). I don’t have their job so not sure if systems improvements could be made but that’s why I was thinking about looping in the boss.

I sometimes think going directly to the boss is "tattling" so also want to avoid that also.

I certainly don’t want to create a "gotcha" environment!

I think this is hard because I feel like healthcare functions so differently from other jobs or industries.

Is it something like a nurse/MA giving a VFC vaccine to a commercial ins patient? I think something like that means you educate them and if repeatedly a problem, you go to the office manager (this is how it would function at my work)

Is it another provider making questionable decisions? This would depend on the severity but would likely involve the person identifying it notifying our supervisor(who is the CMO) who would discuss with the provider. We do quarterly peer reviews that are randomly obtained and assigned then submitted and reviewed by CMO. Any relevant feedback is then shared with the person. If it’s petty like “I’d choose a different abx” or something like that, it isn’t shared as there are different ways to skin a cat.

There are so many layers to clinic functions that I feel like it’s hard.

[isabel]

As a people manager, I want to know when my people make mistakes and prefer to address it myself. Primarily, I want to be aware so I can track whether this is a recurring issue or a one-off. If it's recurring, but I'm not told about it, it's hard to address the root of the issue through training.

I also agree with others that I prefer to handle discussions about mistakes and issues myself. You never know how someone else is going to handle it and sometimes people are inappropriate in how they address things.

[Saudade]

Oh another thing I thought of. Idk how large/small your clinic is.

Do you have a daily huddle? We do. Providers don't go. Notes are sent out daily summarizing the information. It does address reminders of things that were likely mistakes at one point:
1. reminder to keep conversations appropriate in the hallway
2. don't give VFC vaccines to commercial pay (sense a theme here? lol)
3. Depo changed from syringe to vial. no you can't over ride this, NDC codes don't match
4. Depo changed from vial to syringe. still can't over ride this. NDC codes still don't match

those are some of the things I can think of off the top of my head. I don't always read the notes.

the difficult part of this is that it's led by the office manager, who has no medical knowledge. also getting into the messy dynamics of healthcare (clinic manager is your manager but not actually your *manager*)

[wanderingback]

Sept 24, 2024 22:30:34 GMT -5 Saudade said:

Oh another thing I thought of. Idk how large/small your clinic is.

Do you have a daily huddle? We do. Providers don't go. Notes are sent out daily summarizing the information. It does address reminders of things that were likely mistakes at one point:
1. reminder to keep conversations appropriate in the hallway
2. don't give VFC vaccines to commercial pay (sense a theme here? lol)
3. Depo changed from syringe to vial. no you can't over ride this, NDC codes don't match
4. Depo changed from vial to syringe. still can't over ride this. NDC codes still don't match

those are some of the things I can think of off the top of my head. I don't always read the notes.

the difficult part of this is that it's led by the office manager, who has no medical knowledge. also getting into the messy dynamics of healthcare (clinic manager is your manager but not actually your *manager*)

What is with the office managers with no clinical knowledge?! Grr. Anyway, you get it Thank you!

[laurack]

For one offs I would never cc or loop in the manager on the first communication on it.

If it begins to affect my job or I think there’s a security concern or something could be affected by these things happening (I am in IT) then I’ll do something else.

But generally for a one off mistake no. Sounds like this person may be a moron though and when that’s the case in my experience when you finally do loop in the higher ups nobody is surprised to hear what’s going on with said person sucking at their job.