my anxious employee wants daily reassurance

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I manage a small team, including one employee who joined us somewhat recently.

This is her first time doing the kind of work that we do, and training from afar isn’t ideal (we work remotely), but she’s learning and progressing well. I give her positive feedback on her work, along with corrections and edits when needed, and I try to be as reassuring as possible about her progress, but nearly every day she calls me to apologize for not knowing something she hasn’t been taught yet, or feeling as if she’s not working fast enough, or not progressing as she thinks she should be. Each time, I tell her that I’m not concerned with her pace and that I haven’t found any fault with the work she’s doing while she learns and that she really does not need to apologize for still learning her very new job, but that only seems to help her for a little while, because she brings it all up again the next day.

I know that this new job anxiety is probably made worse by the fact we aren’t in the same office, but how can I make her see that the daily apology calls aren’t necessary?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.