Influencing internal people at work. Your opinion please

JackeeBoy

I have been in the so called professional environment for 8 or so years now but at my current place I'm at my wits end. I'm used to having to influence external people and I'm used to getting internal build to speed up with things but at my current job I'm just scratching my head thinking if it's me who needs to do better or if I work with a bunch of jokers.

Current situation is that there is a critical compliance error that needs to be fixed. In order to get it fixed, all I have to do is make the amendments and get it to IT for them to upload. Won't take them more than 5 minutes if someone simply put 5 minutes into it. I've been trying to get this done since Thursday, raised it up to various people and still can't get it over the line. The thing that's bugging me, and our external partners who need this changed ASAP, is that there seems to be no urgency at all. "it's been there for some time already so we'll fix it when we can". This is a problem that affects the entire business.

Not long after I joined, I found an error which meant we owed our main partner hundreds of thousands of pounds. Turns out it was a minor error but has been going on for years to accumulate to this massive figure. It was raised initially but again IT fobbed it off and now it's a problem. And stuff like this is not just with IT. We even had a situation where the finance team were simply ignoring invoices for a year. Now it's snowballed into a mess I'm sorting out.

And that seems to be the bulk of my work, forcing IT problems through and cleaning up others mess. We've lost out on contracts, money and has cost us in other areas the bulk of these problems. A lot of this is simply people not doing their jobs. I'm just so baffled how some things get by.

getmore4less

Identify the key stakeholders.

Deal with them and their bosses.

Comms69

JackeeBoy wrote: »

I have been in the so called professional environment for 8 or so years now but at my current place I'm at my wits end. I'm used to having to influence external people and I'm used to getting internal build to speed up with things but at my current job I'm just scratching my head thinking if it's me who needs to do better or if I work with a bunch of jokers.

Current situation is that there is a critical compliance error that needs to be fixed. In order to get it fixed, all I have to do is make the amendments and get it to IT for them to upload. Won't take them more than 5 minutes if someone simply put 5 minutes into it. I've been trying to get this done since Thursday, raised it up to various people and still can't get it over the line. The thing that's bugging me, and our external partners who need this changed ASAP, is that there seems to be no urgency at all. "it's been there for some time already so we'll fix it when we can". This is a problem that affects the entire business.

Not long after I joined, I found an error which meant we owed our main partner hundreds of thousands of pounds. Turns out it was a minor error but has been going on for years to accumulate to this massive figure. It was raised initially but again IT fobbed it off and now it's a problem. And stuff like this is not just with IT. We even had a situation where the finance team were simply ignoring invoices for a year. Now it's snowballed into a mess I'm sorting out.

And that seems to be the bulk of my work, forcing IT problems through and cleaning up others mess. We've lost out on contracts, money and has cost us in other areas the bulk of these problems. A lot of this is simply people not doing their jobs. I'm just so baffled how some things get by.

Is it your job to sort out problems? If so, eliminating problem causes may well eliminate the need for your role.

ReadingTim

Appreciate you're frustrated, but there's a bit of an attitude in your post that you consider yourself to be the most important person in the organisation, whose every instruction must be immediately acted upon because you're the only one who's remotely competent to sort anything out. Any wonder why that might rub some people up the wrong way?!?

In any organisation there is an element of the peter principle (google it...), but then again, very few people actively come into work to do a bad job or be an @rsehole. You may therefore need to consider that no matter how important you feel an issue is, in the grand scheme of things there may well be far more important things going on which you're simply not aware of. Alternatively, you've got so invested in sorting out whatever it is, there you can't see the wood for the trees, and don't realise that the company isn't as concerned as you are. Appreciate this isn't a massive boost for the ego, but as I said at the start, I think it might be a little inflated, which is the real problem.

Dox

Looking at your other posts, I see you are on your fifth job in 8 years: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76512179#Comment_76512179

Perhaps time to look at yourself (as opposed to others) rather more critically...?

Blatchford

Well, what strikes me here is that if it is your job to interfere in an entire range of your employers departments, highlighting and fixing all their mistakes, then you are very senior and were employed, probably on a high salary, to bring numerous skills and experience in problem solving and change management. In which case, why on earth are you asking a bunch of anonymous strangers on the internet how to do your job? And if it isn't your job, then stop interfering in these things because you aren't winning any prizes, you are just p**** people off! No-one who finds this many gross errors is making friends, even if they are right.

Blatchford

Jsacker wrote: »

2 of those 5 seemed to be due to redundancy so not the worst record in the world and maybe even the case that they would have stayed with one of those long term.

Just an observation, as nobody can say, but there is redundancy and "redundancy". I know quite a few employers who have "redundancies". It's the easiest and least painful way of dismissing someone. Not saying it's true here. But it happens. And it happens a lot.

ThemeOne

It's not clear whether it's actually your job to fix these problems. If it is then, as suggested above, you probably would not have to ask for advice here.

I can understand you wanting to fix all these things, even if it isn't your job to do so. It's nice to think everything is running as it should and your employer isn't losing money due to others' inefficiency.

The problem is, as I found through bitter experience, no-one will thank you for raising these problems. The reason being, you raising the problem gives them a problem, which they didn't have before (or didn't think they had) and nobody wants more problems than they already have.

If you think you should carry on because it's for the good of the company, remember the company is an inanimate object who can't reward you. Only people can do that, so be careful you aren't antagonising them.

ReadingTim

Blatchford wrote: »

Just an observation, as nobody can say, but there is redundancy and "redundancy". I know quite a few employers who have "redundancies". It's the easiest and least painful way of dismissing someone. Not saying it's true here. But it happens. And it happens a lot.

And even when there are 'real' redundancies, employers find ways keeping the people they want, and losing the ones they don't.