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Rising Star
Give the feedback, leave out the pregnancy part.
For example, I haven't gotten Susie's model and she hasn't responded to the pings I've sent her. We have the presentation coming up Friday, any suggestions on what we do to close this out?
This is good context. Thanks!
I still think OP should look at other options before reporting the woman after two days. Especially if they’ve got a decent amount of lead up time until it’s due. If played right, OP might have an opportunity to stand out as a team player and a strong leader. Regroup, make a contingency plan, get it done.
Chief
Your lack of awareness is cringe tbh. Someone being MIA one time and you’re characterizing them as underperforming?
Reach out to her manager (which I hope is not you). They can decide if this needs to escalate to HR.
Lol, as if MIA for weeks could be a thing
Enthusiast
She could be out sick. I wouldn't respond to your text/email either.
Pro
She may have told her direct superior, who should tell the team if applicable. I am definitely not telling my team of 20 people individually if I won’t be in that day.
If you can close the loose ends, you should do that and mind your business. If she doesn’t contribute or whatever it will be obvious to the audience/management that she has nothing to add to the presentation and that can be a conversation between the necessary parties. You don’t know what she is dealing with, you don’t even know that she’s “really underperforming.” I get being irritated that she didn’t contribute, but it’s not your job to investigate her circumstances, determine if she had a “good reason” to be missing and so on. People in professional - reputation based - roles don’t usually just ghost their employers. Maybe someone, like HR, knows and they just haven’t informed you/your team. Maybe she’s been kidnapped. Maybe she’s been hospitalized. Maybe she’s transitioned roles, maybe she was conflicted out of the project, maybe she complained to HR that she felt she was being subject to extra scrutiny and hostility from her peer because she’s pregnant so they separated the two of you… and you don’t know because they’re investigating you. Again, endless possibilities. Mind your business and focus on your presentation.
OP needs some training in ppl management/leadership. How can you mark someone as ‘really underperforming’ just coz they missed a couple of days? Do you even understand what it means to be ‘really underperforming’? And we know you’ve made up in your mind that it must be coz they are pregnant else you wouldn’t feel the need to bring it up. There are specific steps to take in this situation, shame you’ve received zero training on how to handle it. Slightly questioning your motivations for this tbh and unless you manage her, stay in your lane and don’t jump to conclusions to suit the narrative in your head. Unexpected things happen with work deliverables so adapt and figure out a solution. But definitely try and get some training.
Chief
Don’t mention her health circumstances (that’s none of your business), just tell your manager that you haven’t received X deliverables from your team member and you wanted to make manager aware of the situation and potential impact on client deliverables.
Rising Star
Get her a burger 🍔 and offer to eat her spaghetti 🍝
🧐
The only thing that will make you look like a bad person is the fact that you’re indicating her pregnancy is causing her to be “low performing”.
It isn’t relevant to this situation. Also, if this person has been performing well this entire time and this is a one time occurrence for her then technically from an HR standpoint she isn’t a “low performing employee” therefore this doesn’t need to be escalated which if it did, you would not be the person who can do that, it would be her direct manager.
How you can approach the situation? You can contact the person directly to check in. If there’s no response, you can complete the material on your own. If that is not possible nor feasible, then you can take it up to your manager in a simple email such as “Hello, our client presentation is coming due soon and unfortunately we have not been able to reach “insert employee name” for the past few days. I’ve tried reaching her with no response. She has been on top of everything thus far so this is not typical of her nor her work so I am hoping everything is well with her. Do you have any updates as to when she may be in office or any suggestions to add so we can close this one out successfully?”
Something along those lines should suffice
The point is, it's just two days. And emailing isn't reaching out to that person..op hasn't made any effort in reaching out to the person, just saying they didn't respond to email for two days. No text, call it checking in for well-being.
Leave her pregnancy out of the conversation.
Reach out to her manager and see if they know of her absence.
Raise the flag on your project and the bits that are missing because of her absence and see if you can either do it yourself or get help with it.
But more importantly, BE KIND.
The way your wrote this made it sound like her pregnancy is an inconvenience to you. Women’s body’s go through a lot while creating little humans. A little compassion goes a long way.
I’m not condoning her being MIA but the reasoning could be anything from her not feeling well to her having had a miscarriage, to some other random life emergency.
The point is you don’t know WHY she’s MIA. Don’t fixate on that, you have a project to work on, take care of that and you can chat with her about how her absence impacted you/ the project when she gets back if you have to.
Chief
What about helping her out for a while until it shows that it's a performance issue unrelated to her pregnancy? This is a prime time to be a good person.
Exactly, but a good team, not a person. It’s not on your shoulders to cover. Your manager will find a way
Enthusiast
1) OP: For now, you don’t know if the person’s pregnancy has anything to do with her absence. So leave that out of the equation.
2) For the people responding that OP is a horrible person and that he/she/they should mind their own business…those are weird takes. OP said attempts were made to contact her, to no avail. With an important deadline looming, and for all we know MIA person may have had key info/data/designs, etc. to add to this presentation that only she had access to, the notion that OP is supposed to just pick up the slack and let it ride like everything is normal makes no sense to me. And as others have mentioned, it takes no time to call out sick. And doesn’t HR have emergency contacts for employees in case of scenarios just like this one?
We all have to carry extra slack at time for co-workers for understandable reasons. Or it has to be done because a team member isn’t carrying their weight, which sucks. But in this case, I think OP has a right to be concerned. Speaking to the manager isn’t “snitching.” This isn’t grade school. It’s a place of employment.
On the contrary the way OP framed it it absolutely was snitching, they didn't say hey im concerned that X can't be reached and we've the presentation to get done by this date, how can we realign and potentially add temp resource to get it done. They led with the pregnant lady is underperfoming. If the sentiment was the former then I hope they put more time in to the word choice for their big presentation than they did on this post.
I’m invested in this story and need an update!! I want to know how OP handled and if pregnant lady had an actual issue or just dropped the ball.
OP may have been scared off by all the attacks but hopefully they give an update
I’d speak with HR first. You definitely shouldn’t “blame” it on the pregnancy but it’s also not great to railroad a pregnant women who is struggling. But if there is underperforming going on (especially really glaring underperforming) you probably cannot ignore it. But as someone above said, focus on facts, not the fact that she is pregnant. And again… I’d bring in HR first to make sure it’s all kosher
Enthusiast
P1 - please stop skirting the law.
M2 - the conversation is offline as it is harder to track if the company is sued for discrimination which based on OP POV, they will be, by someone, eventually.
OP - You are showing a startling lack of EQ, and maturity, because you are assuming you have full knowledge and awareness
Many women crush it while pregnant. Many non pregnant people turn in deliverables late. Stop framing performance around pregnancy & just send an email CC’d to their mgr. FFS
Go ahead Inform your superior and also check with him is she on medical leave or not because she should atleast reply your message. We don't know her condition since she not replying just let your boss know your doing the presentation alone.
What part of your ego is being hurt here consultant? Take a look at your motives for wanting to tattle on her.
lol I love how everyone on here is trying to tell OP that the fact that this woman is pregnant is absolutely irrelevant while in the same breath turning around and yelling at him for being so heartless and criticizing a pregnant woman.
Do not ever talk about the pregnant part.
I think it’s fair for OP to be concerned about the project / client. OP didn’t bash the MIA colleague. I think OP genuinely is asking for advice. I have experienced one colleague go MIA for a week and didn’t tell anyone. It made work difficult and when they returned they said they were sick and didn’t get a chance to tell anyone - not even their boss. Which is unacceptable. If we are unwell, sick or need to be out for any reason it is still our responsibility to inform our team - even if it’s a quick note that is typed, text messaged. Being healthy is no. 1 hands down. But I think it’s very appropriate for us to all communicate when we are out, whatever the reason. I’m sure there are extreme circumstances where an emergency has happened but I don’t think we need to always assume something is an emergency.
Pro
Not so funny story. I ended up in ICU with no means to communicate as I was in and out of consciousness. My parents did think about contacting the firm I worked at, but they forgot the name LOL
To sum up points that I’m picking up:
1. OP feels their colleague is underperforming, 2. There’s a latest example that went too far for the OP (colleague went MIA for 2 days)
3. OP is concerned about raising the issue against a colleague bc that colleague may be considered special or protected as a pregnant person
Should pregnant people get a pass for leaving their team to cover for them or not meeting minimum duties on a team? I’d argue yes, they are protected and get the pass by society but I don’t think it’s right. Perhaps society gives the pass because society thinks more support should be provided to pregnant people than is already done. Child rearing is extremely important to society so support should be there - it just sucks when it’s not planned for and the team has to pick up the slack unexpectedly
There is no right way to put it by including her pregnancy in any discussion. Check with your manager to see if they have any info that you don’t, something could be seriously wrong. If she’s fine and just didn’t get to doing it and failed to communicate, this will be highlighted in the process and the manager will know why the deliverable was not met… if it’s truly a recurrent issue that warrants negative feedback you’ll at least have different situations and evidence to back it. Even before giving negative feedback to someone’s manager, you need to give it to them yourself and see if it improves before going to their manager, it could just be a misunderstanding
Scream
Depends on how long the under performing has been going and what has happened when the issue appeared. There isn’t much that can be done apart from trying to understand what is going on in the first place. Until then, it’s best not to make it an HR issue.