Hi HN, throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm newly* in a people-management role and struggling with how to handle this situation.
* For context I'm not technically a manager which makes this harder, I've been put in a position where I'm managing people without a title change or any specific mandate, though management has been running everything through me and asking me for updates on the project I'm "managing". I'm essentially a manager in all but name? That muddies the waters a lot for me.
We have a semi-new hire (3-4 months) who I've been managing for most of his time here so far. For the first 2 months or so I was so busy I didn't have time to really notice this but looking back it's been going on for the whole time. Regularly I reach out to him on Slack (we are all remote) and I won't get reply for a hour or more, sometimes I don't get a reply at all unless I reach out again.
On top of this his work has always been a bit slow. I know I can't compare his speed to mine, I've been here longer, I know the stack/code better, etc but I'm talking about 1-2 hours to change padding or something equally simple. I've told him to time box certain things and to come to me if he has any questions or gets stuck and then he will go quiet for 2-3 hours and "still be working on it" when I check in with him.
I do not expect 8 hours out of the people working under me. I know most people aren't productive for the full 8 hours and I don't expect people to be chained to their desks. I'll also add that he does sometimes ping the group that he has to run out for an errand (of which he has many and I'm relatively fine with that), but that's not when I'm getting no response, it's the other times. If I combine the time he says he has to step out with the time I can't reach him I quickly get to 4-6+ hours out of the work day.
I have no desire to micromanage and I'm not to the point that I want to take my concerns up the chain. If I was actually a "manager" I would probably consider talking to this employee directly and telling him that I need him to be more responsive and raise issues sooner rather than spending half the day working on something I told him to time box to 10-30min (I'm finding it harder and harder to believe he even is working during those times). But I'm not a "manager" and I don't want to step outside my lane.
I could really use some suggestions/help on how HN would handle something like this. I want to be flexible and I want this to be a good place to work but I'm increasingly feeling taken advantage of.
Sound like you're the one who needs to have a talk with your manager. Either offer you support and more money or don't pretend to have a manager job.