The veteran processor who has gone quiet
Meridian Council's revenues and benefits team (42 staff) must move from a 20-year-old green-screen system to a cloud case-management platform in 11 weeks. Training is two half-days, with a four-week hypercare budget and a statutory deadline that cannot move. Priya, a 16-year veteran and the team's most accurate processor, has stopped attending drop-ins, files cases late, and tells colleagues 'this will be a disaster'. Her supervisor wants to start formal capability proceedings. Demo attendance is 61%; the union has asked one neutral question. The service manager asks for advice before Priya's one-to-one. Accurate processing of 300 cases a day depends on tacit knowledge held by a small number of long-serving staff.
1. What is the most defensible diagnosis of Priya's behaviour, and what should the service manager do in the next one-to-one? Justify your answer using at least two individual-change concepts.
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Diagnosis: Treat 'resistance' as a description of behaviour, not a cause. Priya's accuracy record argues against a simple capability problem. Her behaviour fits loss of expertise and status, plus learning anxiety: the new system threatens the tacit knowledge that has made her credible. It also fits the ending phase of a transition, where people grieve familiar routines before they can invest in the new ones. Formal capability proceedings would mislabel a transition reaction as misconduct, increase defensiveness, and risk losing the knowledge the service depends on.
In the one-to-one:
- State observed facts and impact: missed drop-ins, late cases, effect on the team.
- Ask open questions about what she believes will break and what she stands to lose.
- Separate legitimate system concerns from unacceptable behaviour; route defects through a named channel.
- Agree a short, specific plan: attend one session, pair with an analyst, review in two weeks.
- Set clear performance expectations and keep normal performance management available if behaviour does not change.
Judgement: Do not promise exemption from the system or confidentiality you cannot keep. Check whether the 61% attendance and late cases are systemic, not solely individual. The aim is to lower learning anxiety while keeping the performance boundary intact.
2. The programme lead proposes making Priya a super-user to 'bring her on side'. Assess this proposal and state the conditions under which it would work.
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Potential value: The role could restore status, use her expertise, and give her a legitimate route to raise defects. That directly addresses the loss and learning-anxiety diagnosis.
Risks: It can look like a reward for public resistance, breed cynicism among staff who complied, and set Priya up to fail if she is not yet competent on the system. A vague role also lets concerns travel through corridors rather than through the programme.
Conditions that would make it work:
- A written role: peer coaching, defect triage, floor-walking, time allowance.
- Training and system access before the role starts.
- Selection against criteria, with Priya's agreement, not solely to neutralise her.
- Visible programme sponsorship and a named technical escalation route.
- Clear expectations that concerns are raised through the channel, not as resistance in team meetings.
- Review after four weeks against attendance, defect quality and colleague feedback.
Judgement: If she declines, still address the behaviour through the performance route. The role is a reasonable intervention only if it is a real job, not a peace offering.