Describe the Work Before Judging the Person
Missed deadlines can reflect excessive work, conflicting priorities, unclear instructions, missing access or difficulty performing a task. Several explanations may coexist. Start with observable work and a private, respectful conversation. Do not infer a health condition, motivation or disciplinary outcome from lateness.
ILO's HR fundamentals, 2023, treats resources and support as part of job design. WHO's mental health at work guidance, updated September 15, 2026, identifies working conditions as a management concern. This tutorial is an original management exercise, not clinical assessment or employment advice.
Compare Two Fictional Cases
In Case A, coordinator Nia has thirty available work hours after agreed meetings and other fixed duties. Her manager assigns tasks estimated to require thirty-six hours in the same period. Those planning estimates may be wrong, but under the supplied assumptions the work exceeds available time by six hours. Asking her to improve time management cannot make the stated allocation feasible.
In Case B, another coordinator has a feasible assigned workload under the supplied estimates and necessary access. A repeated status error also occurs in a quiet fictional exercise: the coordinator confuses dispatched with received. That supports a focused task-understanding discussion. It does not rule out wider design problems or establish misconduct.
| Discussion | Case A | Case B |
|---|---|---|
| Describe evidence | Tasks, estimated effort and available time | Specific repeated error and supplied task example |
| Ask for the colleague's account | Which estimates or interruptions are missing? Which priorities conflict? | What does the field mean to you? Which instruction or example did you use? |
| Examine the work system | Reprioritize, sequence, redistribute where authorized or reduce commitments | Clarify labels and instructions as well as providing practice |
| Agree a bounded next step | Manager owns a realistic allocation and communicates changed priorities | Reviewer demonstrates, colleague practices and explains a fresh case |
| Check later | Actual workload and remaining consequences | Actual authorized outputs and whether support is usable |
Have the Conversation
Manager: "These three items were late. I want to understand what happened before deciding the response. We planned thirty-six hours of work against thirty available. Which assumptions should we correct?"
Nia: "The receiving task also took longer because the specification changed."
Manager: "Let us update the plan and decide what can wait. I will confirm the changed priorities with the other requester."
This acknowledges the manager's part in work design. It does not promise that every deadline can move. If an external requirement is fixed, the decision owner needs to resolve resources, scope or another feasible response and communicate the remaining risk.
Avoid a False Choice
A colleague may need task support and a manageable workload. Training may help a real skill gap while leaving an excessive allocation untouched. A reduced workload may help while an unclear instruction remains. Check both instead of selecting a category to close the conversation quickly.
If the colleague raises a health concern, ask about work support through the organization's appropriate confidential route. Do not demand a diagnosis in a team meeting, recommend treatment or make unsupported promises of confidentiality. Qualified HR, occupational health or local employment advice may be needed for actual accommodations or formal procedures.
Agree What Will Be Checked
The output is a short factual note of the concern, the colleague's account, changed work priorities or support, responsible roles and the next proportionate review. Distinguish an estimate from measured time, a recommendation from an approved work change, and an unresolved issue from a conclusion about the employee.
Skills and incentives explains a wider conceptual distinction; bottleneck diagnosis follows service flow. This page's purpose is the management conversation and feasible follow-through, not an organization score or staff diagnosis.