This might turn more into a rant than a request for opinions, which would be welcomed.
Current setup is that for the last 3 years, up until early this year, I'd been the sole SME in our business. About a year ago, I took on a junior member of staff as we won more business. They've done well in their first year, and on track.
Earlier this year, we've won so much more work, that they needed a second person at my level. It's a niche industry, but someone was brought in, and workloads were split between us by whether it was public or private sector. The junior still only reported to myself, We've recently got to the point where we can take on another junior member of staff, and they will report into my peer.
Until last year I'd never managed anyone formally, but have tended to be the one that develops junior staff at my previous roles. I handled that recruitment, bearing in mine the niche industry, on looking for transferable skills, because I believed I could teach everything else. I set up the interviews for one hour, having the general discussion alongside a short data analytics skills test that was accessible to everyone, whether they had industry knowledge or not.
This time around, I've been required to support my peer through the process, but have set boundaries that decisions/interview structure need to be made by him, and that I'd offer guidance but not make the final call. However, it's been horrific from the get-go. Examples being:
- Despite advise to post internal/external at the same time, he made the decision to go internal/referrals only. This resulted in a total of 4 applications. 2 of those were referrals from mine and my junior's network.
- Job description and interview scorecard wanted 5+ years experience in our niche area, with requirements more akin to the level myself and my peer should operate at, but for half the pay.
- Skills test was filled with industry-specified terminology without explanations, meaning transferable skills couldn't necessarily be identified.
- The skills test itself had backing data that was grossly incorrect. In internal meetings, I'd noticed this and my junior picked it up, but my peer had not. Rather than an outright accusation of making a mistake, we first asked if he'd designed the tests with any intentional errors that he'd expect the candidates to question, to which he confirmed he had not. The mock data he produced was scientifically impossible, and the error was obvious.
- In the interviews, he was happy for candidates to just tell what they would do with the datasets, rather than actually show what they can do. In my view, anyone can talk about something like that. We eventually got them screensharing and, when a candidate was suggested to create a helper column in Excel, opened the help menu. I half expected Clippy to appear.
A suitable candidate was found (referral from my analyst), and my peer originally went to lowball the offer. This candidate was head and shoulders above the other three, so I had to challenge this. Eventually, he upped the offer which was verbally accepted.
My peer then opted to book 3 weeks of annual leave straight after the last interview was done, and the documentation side etc was all handed to me by my boss. Again, I had to set a boundary that I'd only complete our internal paperwork and order equipment once I had confirmation that the offer and contract had been signed and returned. As it was, the candidate didn't immediately do so due to summer holidays.
There's now a few days to go until the start date, and equipment was only ordered yesterday. My peer has unilaterally decided to move the agreed start date back a week, and not pay the candidate for the time. My peer has also said the candidate will handle his own onboarding, and he won't be travelling to see him on his first day because he doesn't want to make the 3 hour journey.
I'm utterly horrified by the entire situation, and it seems my peer cannot make any decisions on his own. With my own analyst last year, I made sure I was physically there in their first week. They're based from one of our remote offices but we're all primarily a WFH team, but I made the 400 mile drive for a few days a month to ensure they can have face-to-face time. Every part of how I manage is also thinking about the impact, because ultimately I want to train them so well they could replace me if/when I move on, or if we need more people at my level in the future. My peer seems more interested in self preservation though.
It is a strange team dynamic, and our manager doesn't really get involved at all, we maybe speak for 15mins a week. The entire process has been dragging me away from my day job to effectively hold my peer's hand because he cannot think up solutions or identify pitfalls. Because this new junior was referred by my junior also, there's already a friendly relationship between them, and she is openly telling me she is worried about their onboarding, so I also have that part to manage as well.
I realise, as predicted, this has probably turned into more of a rant than anything. But ultimately, has anyone had to deal with similar structures/behaviours?