At the organization I work for, some of our workforce is students from a nearby university, and I supervise a handful of these students. This is my first time supervising people and for the most part it is going well. Our team has good dynamics, everyone seems comfortable with each other and the work they are doing, and we complete our tasks on time. At their 90 day check in with HR, they all told the HR rep they felt like I was approachable, and no one raised any complaints about me or the team. I am worried about one student in particular however, we can call them A.
We let the students set their own work schedules to cater to their school schedule as long as it’s consistent each week of the semester and they at least work 20 hours per week. We’re also flexible with letting them take time off when they have tests or extra school work. I’ve made it clear to them that I need them to let me know if they are not going to work their normal hours or if they need to take time off for some reason. I noticed a couple months ago that A was not coming into work during their normal scheduled time, and they were not communicating with me about it.
After several emails and calls to their office and talking to the other people on the team, no one had seen them, so I called A’s personal phone and asked them to come meet with me the next day. We had a good talk and they mentioned they were going through some personal stuff and just felt overwhelmed. They didn’t want to go into any detail, but I got the impression that they were in some kind of a guilt cycle where they felt bad for missing a day and didn’t want to face the team, so they just kept skipping out and not telling anyone.
I reassured A we weren’t there to judge them and I understand stuff like that happens, but I reminded them that they at least need to communicate with me so we can properly cover their tasks while they are gone. I also pointed them to some resources the university has to help people with stress and mental health, and I encouraged them to talk to HR about work accommodations that will help them with stress and focusing (this is one area where I’ve noticed our HR has helped several people). Despite my best efforts to get them to open up, they were pretty closed off the whole time and didn’t want to go into details about what the root of the problem was, so my suggestions were shots in the dark, and I felt like prying would make things worse. They seemed much less stressed by the end of the meeting however, and I was hopeful about the future.
Things got better for the next few weeks, but I noticed recently that A has started to miss work again without telling anyone. They’ve missed enough work now that I could coordinate with HR and put them on a PIP, but I think that may just stress them out more and is not likely to really fix the problem beyond giving us grounds to let them go. I care about the students I supervise, and I want them to have a good work experience here that will prepare them for their careers. I’d hate to have to let A go unless that is what they want, but at the same time, we can’t function properly as a team like this. What else can I do to help A meet their work obligations without them feeling overwhelmed?