Tough management is not the same thing as rudeness. Managers often have to make unpopular or unpleasent decisions. They often have to be forcefull with employees who take advantage of their good nature. Rudeness, on the other hand, never benefits the company.
Example:
Lumberg in Office Space is a demanding (and often unreasonible) manager. He is not, however rude. He does not scream at Peter or make off colored jokes.
Michale Scott in The Office is a rude boss. He makes belittling and offensive comments that have no bearing on the actual job.
Most large companies I’ve been at don’t tolerate rudeness. In one firm I worked at, one of the partners almost removed a senior manager from out project because of his condescending and obnoxious behavior.
Small mom and pop companies, however, tend to get away with a lot more.
Well, at the time, the plant I ran had about 600 employees (about 400 shop and 200 office) and sales of around $100 million: certainly not a monstrous organization. It was fairly common for me to receive these kind of notes and I never ignored them, I always had HR look into them, and I wound up seriously hurting some managers that were seriously hurting their employees.
This didn’t happen without significant amounts of counseling and warnings, but some people just can’t seem to change their ways. I didn’t feel bad about any of these disciplinary actions. Managers that stomp on their employees for no good reason tend to be martinets and I’ve never seen an abusive person who otherwise was an effective manager.
At the last place I worked (12 years in HR), the upper level managers were extremely abusive and rude, and corporate (based in Sweden) was fine with it, because profits were up for the first time in years, for our division.
Those of us who were the recipients of management abuse wondered how high profits would have been if the atmosphere were congenial. There’s no pleasing those people. Positive feedback is nonexistent – nothing is ever good enough.
Line workers are union and protected, so most of the stress is felt by the salaried staff. Turnover has been extremely high, and the ones who are left are in bad shape. We’re in a rural area and the company pays well. More people would be leaving if it didn’t mean relocating.
Complaints to corporate (not anonymous) have resulted in the complainers being demoted and/or fired, and the “nice” managers don’t get bonuses or raises.
It’s trickled down to vendors, who are also abused. Some of them have even stopped supplying the company.
It seems to be okay that problems don’t get solved, as long as someone gets yelled at.
I’d say that a company with 600 employees is pretty darned large. Just trying using that tactic in a company with 30-40 employees, though. I think it would be asking for trouble.
That’s very interesting. The second job I had as a plant manager was in a town where one of the major plants was a non-union, Swedish (maybe Swiss, but I don’t think so) outfit. After I’d been in the job about a year the local chamber of commerce started a plant manager’s association, and one of the meetings was held at the Swedish facility.
These guys were something else. They made it very clear that they expected their employees to work their asses off. They even said that the majority of new hires couldn’t hack the work requirements and either quit or were forced out.
I had a brief conversation with the local top guy and it was like talking to a robot. He was without a doubt the hardest, no nonsense individual I’ve ever talked to. I remember thinking; I’ve got to get out of here before these guys chain me to a work bench.
Some of their ex employees wound up working for us and their tales improved the morale in our plant considerably. As I remember it both OSHA and the EEOC finally nailed them.
Ain’t this the truth. When you have an abusive manager in a large corporation, you usually have some avenues of recourse. When you have an abusive co-owner in a small business, you look for another job.
Yep, that’s our guy. Shop floor managers routinely work 12 hour days and weekends, and have been called back from scheduled vacations. Salaried staff healing from broken bones have been forced to work, on crutches, even though the plant is barely handicapped accessible.
People who talk about moving on tell themselves that it must be the same everywhere, and they don’t leave until they’re on the verge of a breakdown.
Is my location is familiar to you? We might be talking about the same place.
It sounds identical. But, looking at your location, I don’t think it could be the same place. The one I’m talking about is in South Carolina. At least it used to be. I no longer live in that area, so for all I know they’re gerschtunk.
Shop floor managers routinely work 12 hour days and weekends, and have been called back from scheduled vacations. Salaried staff healing from broken bones have been forced to work, on crutches, even though the plant is barely handicapped accessible.