Hi Everyone!
It’s Hector and as usual, it’s wonderful to get your emails sharing your accomplishments and challenges. With Halloween right around the corner, I thought I would share a story from one credit manager about a collector on her team who developed a rather unusual habit. He kept disappearing during working hours.
This credit manager at a mid-sized company recently wrote to me about one of her collectors, Mr. B, who had been with the company for several years. He was experienced, knew his clients well and had generally been a dependable member of the collection team.
Then something began to change.
Like many companies today, Mr. B’s employer had adopted a hybrid work schedule that allowed employees to work remotely a couple of days each week. At first, everything seemed to work well. But gradually, Mr. B became increasingly difficult to reach on the days he worked from home.
Emails sometimes went unanswered for hours. Telephone calls always went directly to voicemail. Clients began complaining that their messages weren’t being returned. Interestingly, his online status frequently showed that he was “Available,” even when nobody seemed able to find him.
Before long, the disappearing act began happening at the office as well.
Mr. B started arriving late, taking increasingly long lunches and occasionally becoming difficult to locate during the afternoon. At the same time, his collection results began slipping. Promises-to-pay weren’t always being followed up, account notes weren’t being updated and delinquent accounts that should have been escalated were sitting untouched.
His manager was becoming increasingly frustrated. But she also hesitated to jump to conclusions.
Mr. B had been a good employee for several years. Was he dealing with a family or personal problem? Was he overwhelmed by his workload? Had he simply become disengaged? Or was he taking advantage of the flexibility the company had given him?
Rather than immediately assuming the worst, his manager decided it was time for a private conversation.
She didn’t accuse Mr. B of anything. Instead, she laid out what she had observed. She explained that he had become increasingly difficult to reach, several clients had complained about unreturned calls, his account notes weren’t current and his collection results had declined noticeably.
Then she asked a very simple question:
“Is something going on that I should know about?”
Mr. B initially insisted that everything was fine and that he was getting his work done. But when his manager began reviewing specific accounts and unanswered customer communications with him, it became increasingly difficult to reconcile his explanation with what the records showed.
Eventually, Mr. B admitted that on some remote-work days he had been using working hours to take care of personal errands and other matters. What apparently started as an occasional trip away from his desk had gradually turned into something much more frequent.
His manager now had a different problem. The issue wasn’t simply that an employee had occasionally stepped away from his computer. It was that customers were being neglected, collection activity wasn’t being performed, and the company could no longer rely on the accuracy of his reported working hours.
Management ultimately took appropriate disciplinary action and made it clear that continued employment would depend on an immediate and sustained improvement in both his availability and collection performance.
Fortunately, Mr. B got the message.
Over the following several weeks, his responsiveness improved, account notes became current and his collection results began moving in the right direction again.
There is an important lesson here for managers.
When a previously dependable employee’s performance suddenly changes, don’t immediately assume you know why. Look at the facts, document the changes and have a direct conversation with the employee. There may be a legitimate explanation that deserves understanding and support.
But flexibility also requires accountability.
Whether someone is working down the hall or from a kitchen table twenty miles away, clients still need their calls returned, accounts still need to be worked and promises-to-pay still need to be followed up.
So, this Halloween, if one of your collectors suddenly seems to be disappearing, don’t call the Ghostbusters just yet.
You might want to start by asking one simple question: “What’s going on?”
Hector the Collector is a credit, collection, and human resources advice column by Nancy Seiverd, President, CMI Credit Mediators Inc. Your thoughts and comments (nseiverd@cmiweb.com) are most welcome!
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