#Onboarding #NewEmployee #SmallBusiness #Training #HR
Hey all! 👋 So my boyfriend and I are navigating a tricky situation with our new sales associate during the onboarding process. We’ve noticed that she’s been spending quite a bit of time in the restroom during her training sessions, especially when it comes to the online portion. 🚽💻
We want to handle this delicately and make sure we’re not jumping to conclusions. She mentioned that she’s been experiencing some urinary urgency issues, but it’s also concerning that she’s been taking her phone with her and missing important training videos. 📱🚫
Here are some possible solutions we’ve considered:
– Possibly adjusting her break schedule to accommodate her needs
– Providing her with a note-taking tool so she can jot down key points before stepping away
– Suggesting she leave her phone at her workstation during training sessions
What do you guys think? Any advice or insights would be much appreciated! 🤔 #HelpNeeded #HRAdvice
How many employees? Affects the conversation here.
Might be going to vape?
she’s new, in a probationary period, just fire her.
I’ll admit I have no idea if CA state law changes things but my guess is you are small enough that most laws protecting her don’t apply.
From there, the best approach is to not treat it like a “going to the bathroom too much” problem, because it’s not.
It’s a performance problem. Address it as such. She is missing valuable training info and you have concerns about her ability to actually do the job. Either those concerns need to be addressed or she can’t remain an employee.
It’s great that you want to be kind and sensitive but at the same time, that can only go so far. Ultimately, she needs to demonstrate that she can do the job. If she can do that with frequent bathroom breaks, then it’s ultimately not a problem.
I personally think she might want to get a second opinion. Her doctor couldn’t find anything wrong. However, her situation is not your business. Are you able to find someone else?
Do you have an employee handbook? It should have all information your employees should know prior to their start date. What misconducts would you consider an employee committed to be terminated?
If she still does that, you might want to issue a verbal warning.
If there is still no changes, you might want to issue a written warning.
If both warnings don’t affect her at all, you might terminate her for the misconduct.
Does she wear a lot of makeup? Is she thin?
> assumed she’s getting up to go on her phone.
Stop it.
> boyfriend assumed drugs
Stop it.
You don’t know _why_ this person is using the restroom. It could be nefarious! It could be she has the world’s tiniest bladder. She could have an undiagnosed medical issue. Maybe she’s taking semiglutide or another GLP-1 drug and the Ozempic Shits started up (you don’t even _know_ how bad that can get). You don’t know.
Focus on outcomes. If this worker isn’t meeting performance goals, or can’t complete a reasonable set of assigned tasks in a workday, start the corrective process — you know the one, verbal warning, written, warning, PIP, termination, all documented, in that order.
It’s not about how often she pisses, it’s about her (in)ability to do her job effectively.
Focus on her job performance. There has to be an average time it takes an employee to get through the training. Has she exceeded that average? Is she passing the tests on the first or 2nd try?
My newest hires have been on their phones during the online training too. Don’t even try to hide it. One even took multiple personal calls after I went over the police with her and had her sign it, because she took multiple personal calls one day. She assured me it was because she left her 13 year old at home. Yet the very next day she did the same thing (and was obviously not talking to her child). But that’s better than an employee vaping in the bathroom every hour lol.
If she’s missing training, let her. It’ll be pretty easy to catch that lack of basic knowledge at this early stage and use that to let her go during her probationary period. Just focus on her progress and leave the trips to the shitter out of it.
I’ve got ibs, it’s never prevented me from hitting pause.
since you caught her on the phone before force all employees to have their phones in lockers. don’t have lockers? buy some. Enforce this policy heavily.
Training videos are dealt difficult for a lot of people as many are not audio learners. And as she is nervous also, the sense to pee while sitting in a new environment probably is understandable. Maybe she drank coffee or her nerves…
There is such a thing as functional THC, coke, or meth addicts. Getting up every 10 minutes is too frequent for any drug though, but if I had to pick one, I’d say coke, *but*, you can take a bump in 30 seconds beginning to end. Coke is also absurdly expensive, but, I had an employee once who won a big settlement, and she just spent it all on coke and booze. Did you drug test this person on the way in? If so, I’d suggest making that the new policy.
A UTI wouldn’t be out of the question, there are bladder conditions that are just, unpleasant. She could have IBS and could be having an attack? Could she have anxiety?
Either way, you’ve got to get to the bottom of this quickly.
I worked with female who took 40 min restroom breaks every 15 min 🤔. She was also gay which made it hard for company to outright lay her off. They had to wait for her to quit.
I have interstitial cystitis and when I’m having a flare this is me. Maybe it genuinely is a medical condition. I mean, or she’s doing drugs haha
It’s possible she does have medical issues and her doc has not caught them. Sometimes it can take years and lots of tests to find what is wrong. I would try and give her the benefit of the doubt. She was honest with you about her medical issues and what is going on. It’s possible she’s going in the restroom and fucking around but based on your conversation with her I feel like she just has some medical issues she is trying to work though. I would have an honest conversation with her about this and see if you guys can come to an agreement about letting her go to the bathroom as needed but also get the training done in a timely fashion.
I think you should go with your gut. Cut your losses and move on.
Trainee employee had some issue. You don’t need to find out what it is; just end it. Their problems don’t need to become your problem.
As someone who went through the same type of issue several years ago, please be patient with her, I know what she’s going through and it’s embarrassing when people start to notice and the fact that you and your boyfriend are making small jokes about it disgust me.