Greg knew he had made a blunder and a big blunder at that. He just didn’t know how his supervisor and unit manager were going to take it. One thing was for sure: Greg was going to fess up to it, immediately. Only for a fleeting moment did he consider whether he might just cover it up and move on. But he knew there was no covering up his mistake. And it didn’t matter to him whether he could get away with it or not. He didn’t want that burden. He was instead going straight to his supervisor. Greg took a deep breath before making straight for the office, hoping to find his supervisor in a good mood.
Errors
No employee is perfect. Every worker makes mistakes. How you respond to your own errors may contribute greatly to your job success. Mistakes are often how we learn, by trial and error. Your supervisor and other employer representatives may expect you to make errors, the same errors they made when starting out in a new job to learn their way. Of course, avoid errors if you can. Follow instructions and protocols. Practice and perfect skills before applying them to job tasks, if you can. Ask for direction when you’re uncertain over how to proceed. Watch your co-workers perform tasks, and ask them what to watch for so as not to make a rookie mistake. But at some point, you’re bound to make a mistake here and there. Expect it. Indeed, prepare for it. Build up a well of confidence among your supervisors and co-workers, so that when your mistakes happen, they can help you get right back on the horse and ride.
Examples
Most workplaces have at least some history of errors. Indeed, some workers can recall legendary errors having occurred, remembered for their utter stupidity or for their spectacular if disastrous results. Ask around among your co-workers, and you’ll probably hear a story or two that begins with remember the time when and continues by naming the rued if hilarious or preposterous event. Most trades, professions, or industries likewise have accident, error, and mistake patterns. Indeed, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration collects and publishes accident data by field and sector. In law, the mistakes might be missed deadlines, claims or defenses not pled, documentary evidence not requested and presented, and witnesses not identified and called. In medicine, the mistakes might involve physician orders not followed, medications misprescribed or mis-administered, tests not ordered or interpreted correctly, equipment not sterilized or calibrated, and even slips of the surgeon’s scalpel. In engineering, the errors might be in material choices or mathematical calculations. In accounting, the errors might be in accounts misidentified, entries mistakenly recorded, or records and receipts not sampled. Familiarize yourself with the pattern of errors in your own field, and you’ll have taken a significant step toward safeguarding yourself from those errors.
Degrees
If you’re going to make a mistake, just hope that it’s a small and common error that just about anyone could make, rather than a gross error that no one could imagine any competent person making. Errors come in degrees. Some barely register on the spectrum of reprehensibility. Indeed, some workplace accidents are entirely without fault. Circumstances may just conspire to bring about a large or small loss, where everyone performed to standards. More commonly, though, a workplace interruption or loss follows someone’s error, to a large or small degree. Small errors may be things like making a single error in a string of quickly repeated actions. Maybe you make hundreds of data entries correctly but one incorrectly. Or maybe you splice and solder dozens of wires correctly but one incorrectly. Or maybe you write dozens of lines of code correctly but make one tiny code error. Oh well, may be the appropriate response, everyone makes mistakes. On the other hand, maybe you use the completely wrong adhesive when securing a panel to the wall, mistakenly leave your security firearm loaded and off safety when putting it away in the workplace safe, or add the completely wrong chemical as a drying agent to the paint with which you spray refurbished equipment, where when anyone in the workplace hears about it, they slap their forehead in disbelief. Some mistakes are not especially surprising or disappointing, while other mistakes can leave a supervisor incredulous at the stupidity. If you’re going to err, then aim for common and small mistakes, not the one-offs that leave everyone in shock.
Effects
When you err in the workplace, also just hope that your errors don’t cause substantial loss or injury. As strange as it may seem, the consequences you bear for your mistakes may have more to do with their results than with the degree and reprehensibility of your error. You might not catch any discipline for a ridiculous error if it causes zero harm. On the other hand, you may face job termination for the tiniest and most-common and most-understandable of errors if it causes serious harm. Some workplaces necessarily leave little or no room for error. Think surgical suites and nuclear plants. In other workplaces, errors don’t matter much, as long as you’re willing to clean it up. Think landscaping and cleaning out barns. The point is to take greater pains over your work, the greater the potential consequences of errors. Don’t rush through a critical surgical procedure or machine repair, if the consequence of an error is a patient death or the destruction of a million-dollar machine. The subsidiary point is to take faster and more comprehensive remedial action, the greater the developing consequences of errors. If you inadvertently knick a patient’s artery with your scalpel, or if you pour the wrong fuel into the plant’s emergency generator, jump on fixing it, with all possible urgency, before full disaster strikes.
Responding
When you do make a mistake or error, don’t unnecessarily condemn yourself. In the big picture, mistakes are less about you and more about the consequences. Remain calm, cool, and collected enough to respond appropriately. Losing your head after a mistake helps no one and may increase the harm. As just indicated, take prompt remedial action to minimize the impact of your mistakes. With swift action, you may be able to head off most or all of the potential harm. Enlist co-workers and supervisors immediately if their remedial help will further minimize the risk of harm. Don’t try to get out of the jam on your own, just to keep things under wraps. Any action you take, including a delay in asking for help, may look like a coverup and be worse than your initial error. Do not conceal or destroy evidence of your error in an effort to make things look better than they were. Destroying evidence is another coverup act that may prove worse than the initial wrong. Respond to your own errors promptly, appropriately, honestly, and openly, first to remediate the wrong and second to reveal its nature. Show that you want to learn from your mistake, not hide it.
Responsibility
Taking responsibility for your errors is another key response. Employers generally appreciate employees who take responsibility rather than shirk it. If you were the sole cause of the error, then admit it. Do not try to shift blame, especially if others are not blameworthy. If you were mostly to blame or to blame in substantial part, and others were also to blame, focus on your own responsibility. You may and probably should share the fact that others were involved and may likewise have erred, especially if the employer is under a misimpression that could affect its interests. But holding others accountable generally isn’t your job. Holding yourself accountable is your job. Your employer may have sound reasons for focusing on your responsibility rather than, or more so than, the responsibility of others. If it comforts you, remember the proverb that the father disciplines the son, not the servant. Your employer may value your reform more so than the reform of others, whom your employer may already regard as expendable or incorrigible. Take responsibility, learn from it, and move on, you hope with your employer’s continuing trust and confidence.
Blame
On the other hand, you don’t have to take the fall when others are solely or mostly to blame. Doing so may not help anyone, not you, your employer, or the wrongdoer. If you did not do what others blame you for doing, then stand by the facts, identifying, securing, and presenting appropriate exculpatory evidence, even if that evidence reveals that others committed the errors for which you are facing the blame. Generally, you don’t want to be your co-workers’ accuser. But you may have natural or professional obligations to report the unfitness of co-workers, especially if that unfitness threatens safety or security. If your employer blames you anyway for an error you did not make, then move on as best you can, accepting the decision without falsely admitting to things you did not do. The facts may come to light later, exonerating you and even gaining you greater respect for your having moved forward with equanimity.
Apologies
Apologies can be appropriate. A proper apology is a simple but sincere expression of regret for your inappropriate actions and for the adverse consequences those actions caused. In making your apology, do not include justifications or excuses for your actions. Doing so ruins the point of the apology, inviting argument. Likewise, do not minimize the adverse consequences. Keep your apology short, sweet, and sincere, but also without admitting to things that you did not do. Also don’t expect your sincere apology to change any results. It may do so, but it may not. If your apology does not relieve you of discipline in the way that you expected, don’t redouble your efforts to apologize. Groveling for mercy isn’t generally helpful and may instead make impressions worse. One sincere apology, conveyed to the appropriate individual or individuals, in an appropriate form, is generally enough, unless your employer asks you to reach out with an apology to others such as a customer or client. One caution, though, with respect to apologies: if anyone other than your employer, such as a client, customer, or patient, suffered loss because of your fault, your apology and admissions that you make along with it could potentially contribute to your liability for that loss. Confirm your employer’s indemnity on your behalf, and consult a qualified attorney, before apologizing to someone to whom you may owe liability.
Indemnity
Your employer may indeed owe you indemnity for any harm or loss you cause another because of actions you take in good faith within the scope and course of your employment. Employer indemnity means that the employer or its insurer would pay for any such harm or loss legally owed because of your employment actions. The law of indemnity can be highly fact specific and complex, and can differ from state to state. If you are aware of any harm, loss, or injury arising out of your actions, consult your employer, or retain a qualified attorney to do so on your behalf, regarding your potential liability and the employer’s obligation of indemnity. If a co-worker suffered unintentional harm from your workplace actions, state law may limit your co-worker to worker’s compensation recoveries from your employer or its insurer. But you could potentially face tort liability to a customer, client, or other individual outside of your employment, again on proof of your carelessness or fault. Your employer would likely have vicarious liability for your wrong, meaning that your employer would likely pay that liability through its insurance. Just be aware of the potential for liability when discerning appropriate responses. Your employer should guide you. If not, consider consulting your own qualified attorney.
Correction
When you have made a consequential error or series of errors, your employer’s primary concern may be in your additional training or rehabilitation to correct your performance and prevent continuing errors. Your employer likely has a substantial amount invested in you. Your employer may far prefer to correct your error-prone work than to terminate your employment and replace you in the hope of retaining a less-error-prone new employee. Assume so, and make your best effort to fully cooperate in your correction. If your employer offers training, accept it. If your employer assigns additional supervision, welcome it. If your employer restricts your assignments, respect the restriction. If your employer requires you to report on your progress, then do so without complaint. How you carry yourself as you go about ensuring that you can work competently without significant errors may prove your capability to grow while at work, even through errors and failures. Your response to correction, and your willingness to undertake your own reforms, may be the key to your job success in the face or under the burden of your own errors.
Improvement
Everyone knows that we learn from mistakes. But what does that platitude mean? It first means not to repeat the mistake. Study what you did that led to the mistake, change that practice, and control for (monitor for) the change. Don’t just trust that you won’t do something again. Instead, discern and adhere to a new protocol that removes the possibility of repeating the error. Yet to learn from a mistake doesn’t just mean avoiding repeating the very same error. It can also mean avoiding similar errors that your prior practice produced. So, don’t just change the one thing that caused your error. Modify the larger practice or approach that led to the conditions that resulted in the error. If, for instance, you routinely trust your intuitive judgment rather than referring to instrument readings and test results, and trusting your judgment produced an error of one kind, then consider referring to readings and results routinely under all conditions, and limiting your reliance on intuition, if doing so would likely reduce or eliminate other errors. Be smart. Use your small failures to make big improvements, rather than using big failures to make small improvements.
Records
You might also be wise to ensure that your personnel records relating to your errors or mistakes are accurate. Your personnel file may, for instance, include false or exaggerated notes, comments, and reports regarding your alleged wrongs. Personnel managers tend to put negative information in personnel files for future use, when not knowing what else to do with it. If you wonder what records your employer made regarding an incident involving your alleged errors, you may be able to do something about it. State laws generally afford employees the right to inspect their personnel file. Consider asking your employer’s personnel department to let you see your personnel file. The same state laws may also afford employees the right to make a written entry in their own personnel file contesting any false negative factual information the file contains. If you find inaccurate information in your file, ask the personnel manager to remove it or to allow you to file a writing correcting the inaccuracy. State law may also require your employer to remove negative information from your personnel file after a certain period. Consult your state laws or a qualified attorney if your employer’s personnel manager will not cooperate with your attempt to rely on these legal rights.
Reflection
What significant errors have you made at work, and how did your employer respond? Do you have anything further you can or should do to make amends? Evaluate your response to your own errors. Did you accept responsibility appropriately? Did you correct your practices that led to the errors? Did you cooperate with your employer’s investigation and correction? Did you apologize appropriately? Have you sufficiently improved your work practices to avoid not only a repeat of your specific prior errors but also other, similar errors? Do you have anything else you can learn from your mistakes, in the way of improved work practices? If some time ago you committed a work error that resulted in an employer investigation, consider asking to see your personnel file to review whether it accurately reflects your conduct relating to that incident and whether enough time has passed to ask that the employer remove the record.
Key Points
Errors at work may be common and natural but can affect job success.
Your employer’s response to your errors depends on degree and effects.
Your response to your errors should be transparent and appropriate.
Take responsibility for your errors without shifting blame.
Swiftly seek to minimize harm or loss from your errors, with help.
Apologize for your errors appropriately without excuse.
Seek your employer’s indemnity for errors causing outside harm.
Accept correction of your practices meant to eliminate errors.
Learn from your mistakes by improving practices.
Ensure that personnel records do not exaggerate your errors.