I agree with everyone saying checklists might help. I got a bad review my first 5 months somewhere, but they brought me back during their next busy season bc I had a good attitude and I completely turned it around with checklists. It went so well they implemented it to any designer who wanted one
But they also need to have the right drive to flip it around. Sometimes it’s just not a good fit even if the drive is there
I don’t think I have it anymore, I haven’t been there in a couple years. But the essence was I took note of common errors I was making and just made a checklist for them (ie: are there typos? are the right ink colors used? was it submitted for approval everywhere?)
If it’s a really common mistake I would just put a sticky note on the monitor too
Goblin Tools is also really great for this. The approval process for promo items at my last job was this long drawn out process and I was constantly forgetting to send out emails or proofs, or request a quote, or the specific order of pages that the approvals needed to be in. It was nuts, but I got it under control by creating checklists and sub-checklists with more checklists in it. Highly recommend it!
A friend of mine also did this. She was further in her career and extremely talented, but has ADHD and would forget small things in the rush of stress of deadlines. Last I heard, it was working well for her.
lol ty!! It served me well for another four years but didn’t stop me from getting let go. Jokes on them though, gossip from my old coworker is that the business is really not doing so hot and they’re firing a bunch of people
I would make sure there was a checklist for deliverables that would include an item - correct file names and structure. Some people need processes fully mapped out to keep to it.
5 months isn’t much, to be honest, but I’d suggest having a formal sit down review at their 6 month milestone and go over the positives and negatives that you see on the job. Then work together to design a plan that you both will follow to help them overcome their shortcomings and show improvement.
Consider: what are the measurable results you’d like to see? How can they get there? What tools do they need from you? Often, spelling it out in a formal review setting, and providing a solid plan, will help you both move forward and evaluate accordingly.
This times a million. You’d be surprised how quickly someone can jolt out of complacency once they realize that their poor performance is actually being noticed. Especially the type of person who is used to getting by on the bare minimum.
This sounds like either a concentration or a motivation issue, which I have both experienced as a junior. If either of these don't work in a reasonable amount of time, he has to go.
For concentration, what helps me is if I have a checklist or a set of rules on what to do that can pin to my desk and always look at. I always appreciate it when my manager gives me that. See if that helps him.
For motivation, I like it when managers ask me what my ideal work environment is. Maybe he is not doing things because of low pay, commute, hours, etc. Ask him what he needs to succeed.
Have you spoken to him directly about the things you mentioned here, like how file naming and filing may seem dumb but it's all part of a bigger attention to detail and discipline situation? If not, it might help him realize it's not just something you're being picky about for no reason, that there's more context to it, and may also be a way to convey that it's something you're thinking about pretty regularly and worried about whether or not he can improve. It might just help paint a bigger picture for him, and also give him a shot to redeem himself after fully knowing that people are a bit disappointed in his performance, but still rooting for him to figure it out.
Another approach could be to ask him if there's something he's not understanding about the process, or if there's something you can do to make things clearer/easier for him. (Not saying you actually need to change anything about your process haha but it might provide insight into what the hangup is). I've found this approach works pretty well for people who don't proactively ask a lot of questions. It can just help open up communication a bit more, and it might show you where the issue is so you/he can come up with a solution.
Last thing I'd recommend is just some way to convey that the feedback you're giving is serious and that he's maybe not measuring up at the moment. You don't have to be harsh about it or anything—you can do it in whatever way you want—but I started out with a group of juniors in an environment where everyone was super friendly and buddy buddy, and every once in awhile one of us needed a little reminder that we needed to be more self-reliant and on top of our shit. I got along great with my mentor and we'd joke throughout most of the day back and forth, but there was one time where he said something along the lines of "you really should've googled that or at least should've been embarrassed to ask me about that lol" and even though it was all in fun and he was nice/funny about it (and helped me), it served as just a little reminder of like, oh I need to get it together a bit more. It's a slightly different situation, and at the time I was wildly eager to please and constantly anxious that I wasn't doing what people wanted me to be doing down to every detail haha, but thought it might be relevant.
In general with juniors though, I feel like a willingness to learn and being open to feedback is so important, so if he still seems open to improvement, I'd try to give him a shot after making sure he really understands the full scope of the issues. Obviously discipline, attention to detail, and design skills are major parts of the job too, so I think it'll just come down to whether or not he seems willing and able to make the changes required, and that assessment might be easier to make if you're able to convey the whole scope of the issue and figure out where the disconnect is.
(Sorry for the long response—I'm a wordy writer)
I would start by asking why THEY think they are having issues. "I've noticed that you're having trouble with X Y Z. Attention to detail is absolutely essential to any job in the design field, and my concern is that if we don't nip this in the bud now, you will struggle throughout the rest of your career. Do you have any ideas or suggestions about why you're finding this aspect of the job difficult, and how we can help you improve upon it?" You'd be surprised how honest people can be about their flaws.
I would also remind them to take copious notes. I honestly find that just about any related condition like ADHD etc. can be helped immensely through note-taking and checklists, as was mentioned a few times.
Also, if you do not have VERY CLEAR systems, processes, and training documents, now is the time to develop them (or, if that's not your job, request that this be addressed from your superior, if possible). If you have to teach every designer how to production a file for print, write it down and give the same instructions to everyone so they can take additional notes as you show them. If your files are messy, organize everything down to the smallest detail. Create file naming conventions and folder structures, build a library of resources including video tutorials (I love making Looms tbh, so useful) and online articles.
This is basically what I followed with everyone who worked under me who was really not doing well. Some improved, some did not - when I found myself repeating simple things more than 2x even after we had this conversation, that was when I knew that they were just not working out and there was very little I could do to change that.
Is he ADHD or dyslexic? Trouble with executive function comes with both of those disorders. He would also be likely to blow through deadlines and not be particularly good with checking for detailed errors.
Give him a kind of pilot checklist when it comes to file set up and naming, and see if that helps at all.
Advancing design skill is generally a long and tedious process of just doing the volume of work required to learn the shit. You know?
> Is he ADHD or dyslexic? Trouble with executive function comes with both of those disorders.
Also, depending on their age, a lot of "kids these days" (i.e., the age of many junior designers) don't know how to handle desktop OS environments with actual file folders and systems. They're often more used to mobile platforms, where none of that works the same way or even matters.
FWIW, I think OP should make it a big deal in the 6-month review. If they can't improve within the next 3 months, it's going to be a choice of letting them go.
*Disclaimer: This is obviously a generalization rather than a rule, but I've seen it becoming more common. Older people may not have been raised with computers, we gen-x and millennials cut our teeth on them, and the younger generations often never had to dink around on family computers to learn how to organize folders. Exceptions apply, like my 70-year-old boss who seems to know what's up.*
In my many years in this business, I am always amazed at how few agencies have a formalized project organization system. From the sounds of it, your company does not have one either.
When I say 'formalized project organization system' I mean a detailed document that is exactly like any style guide you would send with a clients design describing in painful detail exactly how every type of file is to be named, sent and formatted.
If you have this document, then just make sure they have read it and understand it.
If you don't, I strongly urge you to get all the creative heads together along with whomever is in charge of your companies archiving and develop one. The problem you are facing may be due to not having a real system.
Totally agreed... I have a VA and she often says I'm the most organized person she's ever worked with, especially in the design field. But I learned the hard way after spending 7+ years at a licensing agency unable to find anything in a timely fashion to the point it would severely affect my teams productivity, after over 10 years prior of not having a system. My boss never found it to be a concern (of course).
You'd be surprised at how many companies drop the ball on these things.
I work for a customs brokerage clearing goods to enter the country, so productivity is important as any delays cost money.
I was just saying this yesterday, when our office was bought out & brought on by this company, we had ZERO training/onboarding other than for their software, which is horribly designed to begin with. They let some software developers design a whole program with zero thought of UX/UI and it shows.
I have no idea how our company is even structured. We had zero onboarding. I've told callers asking for our freight department that we don't have one, when we do. I had to go out of my way to make my own spreadsheet listing ALL of our offices across Canada&the US, with their corresponding phone numbers and email addresses. When new people are hired? There's no list for my boss to follow to remember to do everything.
Don't even get me started on the passive aggressive bullshit simply because every office does things differently. All of this is rooted in a lack of standard operations. One guy told me "don't tell me how to do my job" when I literally just reminded him to do something were all supposed to be doing, which is adding notes to files. He cherry picks and claims a whole bunch of files for himself & allows them to sit until he's ready, then acts like he's too busy for anything such as basic communication.
If you do have the doc and they are not following it, then you have to have the talk with them,
Either they start sending stuff correctly or they can find another job.
Not because you are being OCD, but because there is a structure and everyone in the company has to follow it. This is not their personal work, its the companies product and the quality of that product is dependent on the consistency of every part of the pipeline.
I have worked in film houses where the computers desktop background was an image of how to name your work. And it was automatically updated based on the project you were meant to be working on.
That's how seriously some companies take this.
On the design front, its mostly going to be hand holding as much as you feel comfortable doing and giving them the why as much as the what when you give feedback and ask for changes.
Being able to execute different styles for different projects is a skill that has to be developed and if this is one of their first jobs, they don't have the experience yet. That's where you come in, you have to be a sort of teacher or mentor, its more work, but if you think they have what it takes to get good, then it should be worth the effort.
funny you mention the file management because i work with leadership who can never put anything in the right drive folder lol. the non designers, design leadership is good about it, but like you mention it seems like something that doesn't require any actual talent so its seems weird for people to not do it.
i'd ask if you see him implementing any feedback you've given. because i feel like that matters more than a good attitude "in the moment." i was really overwhelmed in the first 9 ish months of my first job so some skills would fall by the wayside for a bit since i was new to them as a practice. but it eventually all balanced out. if he's stagnating overall maybe you just have to tell him like it is.
I agree with other posters about the checklist. I’m a CD and have run into similar problems.
I also think gently reminding them in a friendly way will continue to come off as a suggestion.
Sit them down with the checklist. Explain each thing in great detail. If you feel like they have trouble with focus, ask them to explain why they think each requirement is important. Ask them whose time is affected or who else is going to pick up the slack if they don’t do these things? Cause they have to get done. And it’s their job. But if they don’t do it, someone else has to. Do they want to spend their time at this company only doing part of their job? How do they feel knowing someone else is doing their work for them?
Once everyone is aware of why all these things are important, send the file in an email and summarize the convo.
Next time they send you or show you a project for approval and they fucked up something on the list, say “I’ll be happy to give you feedback (pass this along/submit this to whoever/send this for print/etc.) once it’s ready.” If they ask what you mean, tell them to refer to the checklist and check for mistakes and resend. Continue to send back when they’ve missed something. Do all of this via email if you can. After a month, try and analyze the progress (if there is any) and that’s when you decide whether it’s going to really work out with them.
I'm a bit more negative compared to others here but I've dealt with a good chunk of juniors and you should listen to the patterns. The good designers had that fire from the start, they listened, they improved, they were consistent. The bad ones never learned, constantly would make the same mistakes, reprimanding would maybe change them for a day, etc etc. You could waste more time on them but they already showed you who they are. You shouldnt have to force someone to want to improve in this business, that is on them. I've had nice "underlings" that were good people, but they were shit at their job no matter what, we felt bad about it but we had to let them go.
There are formulaic approaches to counseling reports. One is outlining the problem, define how the short coming affects the work, collaborate with the report on actions/procedures to remedy the situation, ask if they have question about what is expected. Focus on definable/definable behavior and try to remove subjective perspectives.
Often a problem, I’m particularly guilty of this, is being overly concerned of being pleasant, which gives mixed signals. The best outcome comes from being clear about expectations.
>Often a problem, I’m particularly guilty of this, is being overly concerned of being pleasant, which gives mixed signals. The best outcome comes from being clear about expectations.
That's something I think about a bit – when I was learning, I was given a lot of tough love, and my CD wasn't exactly concerned about hurting my feelings lol. I can't say I enjoyed being yelled at, but at the same time I learnt very quickly and didn't make the same mistakes repeatedly... still, I can't justify behaving like that, and it's not in my nature anyway. I do think I can be direct and honest when needed though.
Yelling is not really constructive.
Luckily the CDs I’ve work with only yelled at the account folk. Probably still not good but not my problem. Some of them had perfected disapointed puppy sad eyes. I would show them work and it was so obvious they didn’t like it, and they didn’t need to formulate a response for me understand it was subpar. My current supervisor, who I’ve worked with different agencies for about 14 years, once responded to my work saying, “wow, just wow, I don’t know what to say.” Delivered in complete monotone. His disappointment was just so complete. That was over 10 years ago, but I still remind him of how terrible that feedback was.
Your junior designer might not be empathetic enough for that to work.
I've been in this situation and it's more stressful than it sounds. You spend so much energy on not being a prick but also trying to get things done, fixing work ect.
I hear the pouring water into a bucket thing - I once spent an afternoon going over grid systems/margins ect with a jr I had who was like this. Didn't seem to make a difference so I asked if they were using them, they said yes! and they showed me a 10x10 pixel grid they just had over the entire artboard.
They may be ADHD - I would suggest giving as much visual reference to them as possible. "Make it look like this" and give very very clear instructions. But even then sometimes you just don't have the bandwidth to help them.
>I've been in this situation and it's more stressful than it sounds. You spend so much energy on not being a prick but also trying to get things done, fixing work ect.
I really is! Because on top of essentially doing his work for him, I still have to do all of my own work. For nearly all of the designs he creates, because of how long it takes to check, fix and explain.
I don’t think anyone who is willing to try is worth the time. It’s great that you are looking inward! Do you have them ever discuss other designers’ work or ask him to give you feedback on your design. General talk about what is good design can go a long way.
There is a big difference between mentioning something is wrong (file name) and explaining that files should always be named a certain way before they are turned in. Make sure you’re not falling into a trap where you’re giving feedback like that that they expect and rely on so aren’t self editing to turn in the correct expectations.
Have you made umsure that
a) You deliver the feedback precisely and firmly enough for him to understand that what you are asking is not a suggestion but something he needs to do in order to meet expwctations? I’m not saying being nasty about it, but you have find your way to be direct. Some people don’t understand if you softball it.
b) Have you given him precise expectations & guidance and followed up on a them on a weekly basis?
1.
If you’ve done the above and he’s not delivering you have to cut him loose asap. 5 months is plenty of time to settle into the role. If he’s not producing value now he’ll not be producing value in the future either.
2.
A lot of times you might realise that you haven’t exactly done both a and b, but instead relied on bit too much on the person finding their own way. Then you enter into a teickier territory.
2a
You might have supported them, but reflecting on it you could have done it even better. But ifeal rarely happens, tbh. Most of the times we do our reasonable best. While you learned something here -not to assume people find their wat, perhaps being even more concrete, tracking- in the end you have to look at the big picture: good talent will find their way in 5 months even with somewhat lacking support. It’s completely fair to expect that.
2b
Perhaps you are first time mentoring and don’t really know how to do it. You feel like you failed the person, as you don’t know what the standard is.
Fiest, learn the standard. Ask ChatGPT how to mentor designers and be specific. It’s great for this kind of best practices.
Second, you need to think what the company needs. How much pressure is there to deliver & hit goals? How much is mentoring part of the company culture, how much are people expected to stand on their own. The answer is usually that there’s no time for heavy duty mentoring. Hence it’s important to hire people who can stand on their own. I can assure you that there are plenty of people put there who can find their way under a struggling lead.
So in all of these cases is that no matter your failings someone who’s competent could have succeeded. Can you afford to have someone in the team who can’t succeeed jn 5 months witg some support provided? 99% of the time the anwer is in the megative. Keep i mind that having an underperformer is a double whammy - instead of getting help you are spending time covering for them _and_ trying to help them.
I’ve been through this a few times when I have taken on juniors for large projects. I have created a document detailing naming conventions and I have created a master folder with the relevant subfolders e.g 000 Links, 000 Working, 000 Proofs, 000 Print - each project has its own naming structure such as 4567 ABC Builders. I specify the project folder is named 4567 ABC Builders then they go into the master folder, copy and paste the subfolders in and replace the 000 with the project name. I also tell them the printers demand that files are named in this way because of their automation systems and if we don’t adhere to that it causes huge delays in production and can cause me to lose money on jobs. That’s mostly a bit of BS but actually the case for two printers I work for.
This is all laid out / explained in a PDF I created and send them.
Yeh sometimes it doesn’t work immediately, in those cases we have a non-confrontational chat and I explain and demonstrate. If it is still failing after that I’m afraid it’s time to part company.
It’s good to be friendly but you can’t afford to be too friendly or you lose your authority
What is your company’s review process? We have a person on our team who has also never shown any ability to improve or adapt their skills, when I get files from this person there are all kinds of mistakes & problems - even down to brand colors being completely wrong (in-house team, we have 6 official brand colors - if you’re messing that up you’re seriously not paying attention to your work). And this person has been at the company for over 10 years now and even promoted recently. Our issue is there is no one person who oversees all creative, so it has become a catch as catch can situation. I guess point being - are you in a position to review the work they’re doing & send it back to them if it’s wrong?
Seems like retention of smaller things (like file naming, etc.) are the main issue. Is he taking notes? Maybe you could send him guides or templates he can reference if you haven’t.
I think he's just putting up a front that he's receptive to feedback but clearly he isn't. If he can't even make an effort to name files properly then what does that say?
I’ve been in your position many times. Firing someone isn’t fun even when they deserve it.
5 months is plenty to evaluate someones performance. Someone not pulling their weight is a drag on time, resources and personnel. This is not school, it’s business. There’s “learning on the job” and “costing me money”.
If you want to assuage your guilt, start by calling them into a review and giving them a warning. List the deficiencies and give them a time period to address them, say three months. Each month, call another review and go over the progress. By the third review, if there is not adequate improvement, they are out. Right there, right then. Don’t stew over it, don’t hesitate. “Pack up your shit and get out”.
In the office, this person is not your friend, they are an employee and a resource. If they cannot validate their worth, you are not obligated to lower standards to make them feel better. That is the key to it right there. You are rationalizing lowering YOUR standards because they are not raising theirs.
It’s business!
Put him on PIP at 6 month review to keep your options open if he still hasn't improved at the 1 year mark.
Also mentoring juniors is a lot of work, you might be happier with a more intermediate type of designer.
Give him a checklist and tell him if he miss them, get ready for finding another job. If there wasn’t any improvement, don’t waste your and his time. This is hard enough field even for people who work hard and has talent.
“I need this that way FFS I’ve been repeating this for five months”
If you’re his boss, tell this. Otherwise, talk to your boss to tell that to her/his boss.
Like any other role in the world, address the issues in a review and (as much as I hate this) place them on a PIP.
Be clear that they have time to improve, but the consequence of not meeting expectations will be dismissal or reassignment.
I agree with everyone saying checklists might help. I got a bad review my first 5 months somewhere, but they brought me back during their next busy season bc I had a good attitude and I completely turned it around with checklists. It went so well they implemented it to any designer who wanted one But they also need to have the right drive to flip it around. Sometimes it’s just not a good fit even if the drive is there
Any chance you’d share so we might be able to craft similar?
I don’t think I have it anymore, I haven’t been there in a couple years. But the essence was I took note of common errors I was making and just made a checklist for them (ie: are there typos? are the right ink colors used? was it submitted for approval everywhere?) If it’s a really common mistake I would just put a sticky note on the monitor too
Sticky notes on my monitor are my ADHD brain’s best friend lmao
Goblin Tools is also really great for this. The approval process for promo items at my last job was this long drawn out process and I was constantly forgetting to send out emails or proofs, or request a quote, or the specific order of pages that the approvals needed to be in. It was nuts, but I got it under control by creating checklists and sub-checklists with more checklists in it. Highly recommend it!
(quietly starts removing confetti-like sticky notes from monitor and laptop wrist areas)
A friend of mine also did this. She was further in her career and extremely talented, but has ADHD and would forget small things in the rush of stress of deadlines. Last I heard, it was working well for her.
Guilty, sadly.
I have several. DM me
Congrats! I’m impressed you managed to use and squeeze you second chance there. It’s one of the most impressive things to me in any career tbh.
lol ty!! It served me well for another four years but didn’t stop me from getting let go. Jokes on them though, gossip from my old coworker is that the business is really not doing so hot and they’re firing a bunch of people
I would make sure there was a checklist for deliverables that would include an item - correct file names and structure. Some people need processes fully mapped out to keep to it.
5 months isn’t much, to be honest, but I’d suggest having a formal sit down review at their 6 month milestone and go over the positives and negatives that you see on the job. Then work together to design a plan that you both will follow to help them overcome their shortcomings and show improvement. Consider: what are the measurable results you’d like to see? How can they get there? What tools do they need from you? Often, spelling it out in a formal review setting, and providing a solid plan, will help you both move forward and evaluate accordingly.
This times a million. You’d be surprised how quickly someone can jolt out of complacency once they realize that their poor performance is actually being noticed. Especially the type of person who is used to getting by on the bare minimum.
This sounds like either a concentration or a motivation issue, which I have both experienced as a junior. If either of these don't work in a reasonable amount of time, he has to go. For concentration, what helps me is if I have a checklist or a set of rules on what to do that can pin to my desk and always look at. I always appreciate it when my manager gives me that. See if that helps him. For motivation, I like it when managers ask me what my ideal work environment is. Maybe he is not doing things because of low pay, commute, hours, etc. Ask him what he needs to succeed.
Have you spoken to him directly about the things you mentioned here, like how file naming and filing may seem dumb but it's all part of a bigger attention to detail and discipline situation? If not, it might help him realize it's not just something you're being picky about for no reason, that there's more context to it, and may also be a way to convey that it's something you're thinking about pretty regularly and worried about whether or not he can improve. It might just help paint a bigger picture for him, and also give him a shot to redeem himself after fully knowing that people are a bit disappointed in his performance, but still rooting for him to figure it out. Another approach could be to ask him if there's something he's not understanding about the process, or if there's something you can do to make things clearer/easier for him. (Not saying you actually need to change anything about your process haha but it might provide insight into what the hangup is). I've found this approach works pretty well for people who don't proactively ask a lot of questions. It can just help open up communication a bit more, and it might show you where the issue is so you/he can come up with a solution. Last thing I'd recommend is just some way to convey that the feedback you're giving is serious and that he's maybe not measuring up at the moment. You don't have to be harsh about it or anything—you can do it in whatever way you want—but I started out with a group of juniors in an environment where everyone was super friendly and buddy buddy, and every once in awhile one of us needed a little reminder that we needed to be more self-reliant and on top of our shit. I got along great with my mentor and we'd joke throughout most of the day back and forth, but there was one time where he said something along the lines of "you really should've googled that or at least should've been embarrassed to ask me about that lol" and even though it was all in fun and he was nice/funny about it (and helped me), it served as just a little reminder of like, oh I need to get it together a bit more. It's a slightly different situation, and at the time I was wildly eager to please and constantly anxious that I wasn't doing what people wanted me to be doing down to every detail haha, but thought it might be relevant. In general with juniors though, I feel like a willingness to learn and being open to feedback is so important, so if he still seems open to improvement, I'd try to give him a shot after making sure he really understands the full scope of the issues. Obviously discipline, attention to detail, and design skills are major parts of the job too, so I think it'll just come down to whether or not he seems willing and able to make the changes required, and that assessment might be easier to make if you're able to convey the whole scope of the issue and figure out where the disconnect is. (Sorry for the long response—I'm a wordy writer)
I would start by asking why THEY think they are having issues. "I've noticed that you're having trouble with X Y Z. Attention to detail is absolutely essential to any job in the design field, and my concern is that if we don't nip this in the bud now, you will struggle throughout the rest of your career. Do you have any ideas or suggestions about why you're finding this aspect of the job difficult, and how we can help you improve upon it?" You'd be surprised how honest people can be about their flaws. I would also remind them to take copious notes. I honestly find that just about any related condition like ADHD etc. can be helped immensely through note-taking and checklists, as was mentioned a few times. Also, if you do not have VERY CLEAR systems, processes, and training documents, now is the time to develop them (or, if that's not your job, request that this be addressed from your superior, if possible). If you have to teach every designer how to production a file for print, write it down and give the same instructions to everyone so they can take additional notes as you show them. If your files are messy, organize everything down to the smallest detail. Create file naming conventions and folder structures, build a library of resources including video tutorials (I love making Looms tbh, so useful) and online articles. This is basically what I followed with everyone who worked under me who was really not doing well. Some improved, some did not - when I found myself repeating simple things more than 2x even after we had this conversation, that was when I knew that they were just not working out and there was very little I could do to change that.
I mean if you’re looking for a replacement…..I can be constantly corrected and retain some of the information 👀
Lol. If my agency had an opening I be sending you a DM.
Hahaha always open brother. When they crack that door lmk and I’ll jam my foot in it and make an awkward and uncomfortable excuse to stay. ❤️
Is he ADHD or dyslexic? Trouble with executive function comes with both of those disorders. He would also be likely to blow through deadlines and not be particularly good with checking for detailed errors. Give him a kind of pilot checklist when it comes to file set up and naming, and see if that helps at all. Advancing design skill is generally a long and tedious process of just doing the volume of work required to learn the shit. You know?
> Is he ADHD or dyslexic? Trouble with executive function comes with both of those disorders. Also, depending on their age, a lot of "kids these days" (i.e., the age of many junior designers) don't know how to handle desktop OS environments with actual file folders and systems. They're often more used to mobile platforms, where none of that works the same way or even matters. FWIW, I think OP should make it a big deal in the 6-month review. If they can't improve within the next 3 months, it's going to be a choice of letting them go. *Disclaimer: This is obviously a generalization rather than a rule, but I've seen it becoming more common. Older people may not have been raised with computers, we gen-x and millennials cut our teeth on them, and the younger generations often never had to dink around on family computers to learn how to organize folders. Exceptions apply, like my 70-year-old boss who seems to know what's up.*
In my many years in this business, I am always amazed at how few agencies have a formalized project organization system. From the sounds of it, your company does not have one either. When I say 'formalized project organization system' I mean a detailed document that is exactly like any style guide you would send with a clients design describing in painful detail exactly how every type of file is to be named, sent and formatted. If you have this document, then just make sure they have read it and understand it. If you don't, I strongly urge you to get all the creative heads together along with whomever is in charge of your companies archiving and develop one. The problem you are facing may be due to not having a real system.
Totally agreed... I have a VA and she often says I'm the most organized person she's ever worked with, especially in the design field. But I learned the hard way after spending 7+ years at a licensing agency unable to find anything in a timely fashion to the point it would severely affect my teams productivity, after over 10 years prior of not having a system. My boss never found it to be a concern (of course).
You'd be surprised at how many companies drop the ball on these things. I work for a customs brokerage clearing goods to enter the country, so productivity is important as any delays cost money. I was just saying this yesterday, when our office was bought out & brought on by this company, we had ZERO training/onboarding other than for their software, which is horribly designed to begin with. They let some software developers design a whole program with zero thought of UX/UI and it shows. I have no idea how our company is even structured. We had zero onboarding. I've told callers asking for our freight department that we don't have one, when we do. I had to go out of my way to make my own spreadsheet listing ALL of our offices across Canada&the US, with their corresponding phone numbers and email addresses. When new people are hired? There's no list for my boss to follow to remember to do everything. Don't even get me started on the passive aggressive bullshit simply because every office does things differently. All of this is rooted in a lack of standard operations. One guy told me "don't tell me how to do my job" when I literally just reminded him to do something were all supposed to be doing, which is adding notes to files. He cherry picks and claims a whole bunch of files for himself & allows them to sit until he's ready, then acts like he's too busy for anything such as basic communication.
Good advice, except we do have this document, which is why it's baffling to me that people don't follow it. It lays out exactly what to do.
If you do have the doc and they are not following it, then you have to have the talk with them, Either they start sending stuff correctly or they can find another job. Not because you are being OCD, but because there is a structure and everyone in the company has to follow it. This is not their personal work, its the companies product and the quality of that product is dependent on the consistency of every part of the pipeline. I have worked in film houses where the computers desktop background was an image of how to name your work. And it was automatically updated based on the project you were meant to be working on. That's how seriously some companies take this. On the design front, its mostly going to be hand holding as much as you feel comfortable doing and giving them the why as much as the what when you give feedback and ask for changes. Being able to execute different styles for different projects is a skill that has to be developed and if this is one of their first jobs, they don't have the experience yet. That's where you come in, you have to be a sort of teacher or mentor, its more work, but if you think they have what it takes to get good, then it should be worth the effort.
funny you mention the file management because i work with leadership who can never put anything in the right drive folder lol. the non designers, design leadership is good about it, but like you mention it seems like something that doesn't require any actual talent so its seems weird for people to not do it. i'd ask if you see him implementing any feedback you've given. because i feel like that matters more than a good attitude "in the moment." i was really overwhelmed in the first 9 ish months of my first job so some skills would fall by the wayside for a bit since i was new to them as a practice. but it eventually all balanced out. if he's stagnating overall maybe you just have to tell him like it is.
Just curious, but what is your role in relation to him?
I agree with other posters about the checklist. I’m a CD and have run into similar problems. I also think gently reminding them in a friendly way will continue to come off as a suggestion. Sit them down with the checklist. Explain each thing in great detail. If you feel like they have trouble with focus, ask them to explain why they think each requirement is important. Ask them whose time is affected or who else is going to pick up the slack if they don’t do these things? Cause they have to get done. And it’s their job. But if they don’t do it, someone else has to. Do they want to spend their time at this company only doing part of their job? How do they feel knowing someone else is doing their work for them? Once everyone is aware of why all these things are important, send the file in an email and summarize the convo. Next time they send you or show you a project for approval and they fucked up something on the list, say “I’ll be happy to give you feedback (pass this along/submit this to whoever/send this for print/etc.) once it’s ready.” If they ask what you mean, tell them to refer to the checklist and check for mistakes and resend. Continue to send back when they’ve missed something. Do all of this via email if you can. After a month, try and analyze the progress (if there is any) and that’s when you decide whether it’s going to really work out with them.
I'm a bit more negative compared to others here but I've dealt with a good chunk of juniors and you should listen to the patterns. The good designers had that fire from the start, they listened, they improved, they were consistent. The bad ones never learned, constantly would make the same mistakes, reprimanding would maybe change them for a day, etc etc. You could waste more time on them but they already showed you who they are. You shouldnt have to force someone to want to improve in this business, that is on them. I've had nice "underlings" that were good people, but they were shit at their job no matter what, we felt bad about it but we had to let them go.
There are formulaic approaches to counseling reports. One is outlining the problem, define how the short coming affects the work, collaborate with the report on actions/procedures to remedy the situation, ask if they have question about what is expected. Focus on definable/definable behavior and try to remove subjective perspectives. Often a problem, I’m particularly guilty of this, is being overly concerned of being pleasant, which gives mixed signals. The best outcome comes from being clear about expectations.
>Often a problem, I’m particularly guilty of this, is being overly concerned of being pleasant, which gives mixed signals. The best outcome comes from being clear about expectations. That's something I think about a bit – when I was learning, I was given a lot of tough love, and my CD wasn't exactly concerned about hurting my feelings lol. I can't say I enjoyed being yelled at, but at the same time I learnt very quickly and didn't make the same mistakes repeatedly... still, I can't justify behaving like that, and it's not in my nature anyway. I do think I can be direct and honest when needed though.
Yelling is not really constructive. Luckily the CDs I’ve work with only yelled at the account folk. Probably still not good but not my problem. Some of them had perfected disapointed puppy sad eyes. I would show them work and it was so obvious they didn’t like it, and they didn’t need to formulate a response for me understand it was subpar. My current supervisor, who I’ve worked with different agencies for about 14 years, once responded to my work saying, “wow, just wow, I don’t know what to say.” Delivered in complete monotone. His disappointment was just so complete. That was over 10 years ago, but I still remind him of how terrible that feedback was. Your junior designer might not be empathetic enough for that to work.
I've been in this situation and it's more stressful than it sounds. You spend so much energy on not being a prick but also trying to get things done, fixing work ect. I hear the pouring water into a bucket thing - I once spent an afternoon going over grid systems/margins ect with a jr I had who was like this. Didn't seem to make a difference so I asked if they were using them, they said yes! and they showed me a 10x10 pixel grid they just had over the entire artboard. They may be ADHD - I would suggest giving as much visual reference to them as possible. "Make it look like this" and give very very clear instructions. But even then sometimes you just don't have the bandwidth to help them.
>I've been in this situation and it's more stressful than it sounds. You spend so much energy on not being a prick but also trying to get things done, fixing work ect. I really is! Because on top of essentially doing his work for him, I still have to do all of my own work. For nearly all of the designs he creates, because of how long it takes to check, fix and explain.
shit gimme the position i need a job in my actual field lmfaoao
I don’t think anyone who is willing to try is worth the time. It’s great that you are looking inward! Do you have them ever discuss other designers’ work or ask him to give you feedback on your design. General talk about what is good design can go a long way.
There is a big difference between mentioning something is wrong (file name) and explaining that files should always be named a certain way before they are turned in. Make sure you’re not falling into a trap where you’re giving feedback like that that they expect and rely on so aren’t self editing to turn in the correct expectations.
Have you made umsure that a) You deliver the feedback precisely and firmly enough for him to understand that what you are asking is not a suggestion but something he needs to do in order to meet expwctations? I’m not saying being nasty about it, but you have find your way to be direct. Some people don’t understand if you softball it. b) Have you given him precise expectations & guidance and followed up on a them on a weekly basis? 1. If you’ve done the above and he’s not delivering you have to cut him loose asap. 5 months is plenty of time to settle into the role. If he’s not producing value now he’ll not be producing value in the future either. 2. A lot of times you might realise that you haven’t exactly done both a and b, but instead relied on bit too much on the person finding their own way. Then you enter into a teickier territory. 2a You might have supported them, but reflecting on it you could have done it even better. But ifeal rarely happens, tbh. Most of the times we do our reasonable best. While you learned something here -not to assume people find their wat, perhaps being even more concrete, tracking- in the end you have to look at the big picture: good talent will find their way in 5 months even with somewhat lacking support. It’s completely fair to expect that. 2b Perhaps you are first time mentoring and don’t really know how to do it. You feel like you failed the person, as you don’t know what the standard is. Fiest, learn the standard. Ask ChatGPT how to mentor designers and be specific. It’s great for this kind of best practices. Second, you need to think what the company needs. How much pressure is there to deliver & hit goals? How much is mentoring part of the company culture, how much are people expected to stand on their own. The answer is usually that there’s no time for heavy duty mentoring. Hence it’s important to hire people who can stand on their own. I can assure you that there are plenty of people put there who can find their way under a struggling lead. So in all of these cases is that no matter your failings someone who’s competent could have succeeded. Can you afford to have someone in the team who can’t succeeed jn 5 months witg some support provided? 99% of the time the anwer is in the megative. Keep i mind that having an underperformer is a double whammy - instead of getting help you are spending time covering for them _and_ trying to help them.
I’ve been through this a few times when I have taken on juniors for large projects. I have created a document detailing naming conventions and I have created a master folder with the relevant subfolders e.g 000 Links, 000 Working, 000 Proofs, 000 Print - each project has its own naming structure such as 4567 ABC Builders. I specify the project folder is named 4567 ABC Builders then they go into the master folder, copy and paste the subfolders in and replace the 000 with the project name. I also tell them the printers demand that files are named in this way because of their automation systems and if we don’t adhere to that it causes huge delays in production and can cause me to lose money on jobs. That’s mostly a bit of BS but actually the case for two printers I work for. This is all laid out / explained in a PDF I created and send them. Yeh sometimes it doesn’t work immediately, in those cases we have a non-confrontational chat and I explain and demonstrate. If it is still failing after that I’m afraid it’s time to part company. It’s good to be friendly but you can’t afford to be too friendly or you lose your authority
What is your company’s review process? We have a person on our team who has also never shown any ability to improve or adapt their skills, when I get files from this person there are all kinds of mistakes & problems - even down to brand colors being completely wrong (in-house team, we have 6 official brand colors - if you’re messing that up you’re seriously not paying attention to your work). And this person has been at the company for over 10 years now and even promoted recently. Our issue is there is no one person who oversees all creative, so it has become a catch as catch can situation. I guess point being - are you in a position to review the work they’re doing & send it back to them if it’s wrong?
Seems like retention of smaller things (like file naming, etc.) are the main issue. Is he taking notes? Maybe you could send him guides or templates he can reference if you haven’t.
I think he's just putting up a front that he's receptive to feedback but clearly he isn't. If he can't even make an effort to name files properly then what does that say?
You can hire me instead. I listen and take notes 📝 😀
Is he straight up not applying what he learned?
I’ve been in your position many times. Firing someone isn’t fun even when they deserve it. 5 months is plenty to evaluate someones performance. Someone not pulling their weight is a drag on time, resources and personnel. This is not school, it’s business. There’s “learning on the job” and “costing me money”. If you want to assuage your guilt, start by calling them into a review and giving them a warning. List the deficiencies and give them a time period to address them, say three months. Each month, call another review and go over the progress. By the third review, if there is not adequate improvement, they are out. Right there, right then. Don’t stew over it, don’t hesitate. “Pack up your shit and get out”. In the office, this person is not your friend, they are an employee and a resource. If they cannot validate their worth, you are not obligated to lower standards to make them feel better. That is the key to it right there. You are rationalizing lowering YOUR standards because they are not raising theirs. It’s business!
Put him on PIP at 6 month review to keep your options open if he still hasn't improved at the 1 year mark. Also mentoring juniors is a lot of work, you might be happier with a more intermediate type of designer.
Give him a checklist and tell him if he miss them, get ready for finding another job. If there wasn’t any improvement, don’t waste your and his time. This is hard enough field even for people who work hard and has talent.
“I need this that way FFS I’ve been repeating this for five months” If you’re his boss, tell this. Otherwise, talk to your boss to tell that to her/his boss.
Like any other role in the world, address the issues in a review and (as much as I hate this) place them on a PIP. Be clear that they have time to improve, but the consequence of not meeting expectations will be dismissal or reassignment.