How do you manage the impact of other's poor organisation?

[chrisstribbs]

I hope this doesn't come off as rude, however, it sounds like this is part of the job you signed up for. It's par for the course for anyone involved in the professional development world to be asked the same question(s) repeatedly. Most people don't want or think such events/activities are worth their time and/or attention. They are usually multi-tasking during such events and basically just "showing up" but are not actually present. They often just ask for any documents, slides, etc. afterwards so they can say they got them, maybe peruse them, read them, etc.

Thanks for your response. It is challenging to fit in learning as a freelancer. You aren't directly paid for the admin that comes from client work, it is included in the fee. You're also expected to keep your skills up to date, so some referral companies kindly offer activities, so you don't need to pay for them.

Another thought, again take it for what it's worth: based on your post; you seem to be judging these people without perhaps understanding or incorporating their perspective on the context. I am going to bet these folks have many other priorities and asks of them. Which, with all due respect, are all probably far more important and urgent (especially since they are likely being measured upon hitting those targets) than what you are presenting. Not that your work and materials aren't important, because they are, but a client needing an immediate reply, a conflicting call/meeting that is impractical to reschedule, a critical slide deck or document they need to work on and finish before EOD, their kids' school calling for something, etc. are just always going to win. Sometimes they just have to make a choice to pick a higher priority ask of their time.

I say this all because I am guilty of all of these kinds of things and I am sure many professional development folks were irked by me and my asks of them.

There will be some of all of that too. Associates (like me) work with different companies; have shorter weeks for other commitments and some are also employed part time.

Now that is all well and good, we might have a bit more sympathy for the folks but that still doesn't help you (maybe a tiny bit but probably not much). Some tactically useful tips and tricks could be:

• Using text expander (or similar tools [even if just copy-paste from a text file/word doc]) to provide pre-canned responses to common questions. Makes responding to such requests much faster & streamlined.
• Repeatedly send the information out after the fact to folks via multiple communication streams (e.g. email, Slack/Teams, internal portals/boards, etc.). Everyone has their own communication preferences and casting a wide net can help reduce some missed hits (i.e. the black hole of email).

We have a learning management system as a freelance team, where this information will also be once live.
At each event, we also remind folks the date and time of the next event verbally.
As independent associates, we have different email hosts etc.

• Generalize the resources, if possible, so you can provide a common link / self-service solution for folks (i.e. a shared Google Drive folder where the contents don't need to change/aren't session specific). Might be considered a little lazy but rarely are things required to be personalized. Even client specific shared drives can work, especially if you present the same material many times throughout the year/etc.

I have suggested this, its not for me to arrange.

• Ask folks for a brief survey in terms of the event logistics: Was the time slot a good time for them?, Did they find the length appropriate?, Would they like a longer Q & A section? Would they like to send questions in ahead of time or pre-read materials?, etc. Keep it ideally, short and to the point, maybe 5 or less yes-or-no questions with a single optional open ended "any additional comments/feedback" question at the end. The time slot might just be during most folks busy time.

We ask for feedback regularly, including to email me or the CEO or COO at any time.
We have yet to have much about logistics, although will publish next year's events soon.

• Try presenting events around common lunch times. Include an offer for a free $25 food stipend for all attendees at the end of the presentation or something (free food gets a lot attendance).
• Maybe host a duplicate version of the event at different times on the same day (or different days in the same week). Sometimes that helps folks in their schedules or if they need additional material and would normally ask ... instead they have the option to attend the event again very soon.

I know it's frustrating but hopefully this helps and makes dealing with such common requests easy and painless. You might even be able to make lemonade from the situation by being using the above tricks and making it appear that you are so responsive and helpful that folks relay the positivity to the CEO/etc. and so forth.

The company invests alot in learning and it's not cost effective to run multiple sessions. I do vary the dates and times to help those who work different hours!

 

[dtj]

Hi
I organise events for a freelance coaching team, such as workshops and CPD. So far I have:
Sending calendar invites (one person said she hadn't been invited to something she accepted)
Sending out a word document with a reminder to organise, which I send out regularly.
I also send reminder emails.
These details have been uploaded to a platform for future access.
I also feedback regularly to the company owner.
The person who onboards the team and allocates work is also copied into this information

I still get many emails repeatedly asking for the same thing over and over.

The team even send the part time HR/other team members questions that then get sent to me.

I know that many of the team might be neurodivergent and some have admitted how far behind they are on core admin.

It feels like they're dumping this on me... apologies for the rant

In our family we have a very "You teach people how to treat you" ethic. My inclination in cases like yours is to introduce "friction" into *their* side of the equation. If it's not your responsibiliity say to answer a question, but you usually just do. Put it on the back burner for a while. Don't jump in and just do it, because that only guarantees that you're on the hook for it next time. Something akin to "a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part". You get spam emails because they cost nothing to send. Make them cost enough and they go away. Make the stuff that gets dumped on you cost something. They not fill out some critical piece of HR paperwork and have a paycheck delayed, they'll not do that again.

 

[chrisstribbs]

In our family we have a very "You teach people how to treat you" ethic. My inclination in cases like yours is to introduce "friction" into *their* side of the equation. If it's not your responsibiliity say to answer a question, but you usually just do. Put it on the back burner for a while. Don't jump in and just do it, because that only guarantees that you're on the hook for it next time. Something akin to "a failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part". You get spam emails because they cost nothing to send. Make them cost enough and they go away. Make the stuff that gets dumped on you cost something. They not fill out some critical piece of HR paperwork and have a paycheck delayed, they'll not do that again.

Thanks, I've done that to a certain extent

 

[fooddude]

Thanks, I've done that to a certain extent

To dtj's point, If someone doesn't come through wouldn't the company CEO hold them accountable for in-action? I would be highly ticked if one of my team had the information and didn't act on it. I would be even more upset if the information was readily available and wouldn't find it themselves.

 

[cfoley]

Some thoughts on how I might handle this.

I like the idea that email, slack and SMS are all for communicating. But they are not for sharing or disseminating information. The information itself belongs in another system.

I might implement a personal policy of not answering anything in the emails but only linking to the answer. "Thanks for your query. It's in the knowledgebase. Here is the link". Or "Thanks for your question. I have added it to the Google doc. Here is the link". The document will become better over time, and I bet much of it can be reused for other events.

This would probably work better if your entire team or company could implement it as a policy.

If you are sending out reminders frequently, then you are probably already answering many of the questions people ask, just not as a direct reply to their email. If that is the case, then just delete those questions in the knowledge that you will send the requested information soon.

People don't necessarily want fast replies to emails. They often just want to get things off their to do list or off their mind. I might be tempted to deal with these questions at set times. Maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 pm, or more frequently if that is found to be unacceptable.

I imagine that the combination of having a really good document to link to, and a short delay before replying will make it easier for people to go to the document in the first place. Offer time, that may change behaviour.

 

[Y_Lherieau]

Hi
I organise events for a freelance coaching team, such as workshops and CPD. So far I have:
Sending calendar invites (one person said she hadn't been invited to something she accepted)
Sending out a word document with a reminder to organise, which I send out regularly.
I also send reminder emails.
These details have been uploaded to a platform for future access.
I also feedback regularly to the company owner.
The person who onboards the team and allocates work is also copied into this information

I still get many emails repeatedly asking for the same thing over and over.

The team even send the part time HR/other team members questions that then get sent to me.

I know that many of the team might be neurodivergent and some have admitted how far behind they are on core admin.

It feels like they're dumping this on me... apologies for the rant

In your shoes, I would introduce a premium fee moving forward to account for the additional workload. My tagline would be something like “This ensures that we can continue to offer timely responses and maintain the quality of support”.

Then I would see this as potentially increasing business size with this client as it highlights an opportunity to streamline the team’s internal processes to reduce these inefficiencies and the strain on service provider.

So all in all, my approach with this kind of customer behavior is to politely to charge with a kind of “polluter-payer” system.