Yeah, that’s pretty much what I tell them. It’s still a struggle, though, because the attitude is automatic and immediate, regardless of the whippersnappers’ initial or eventual competence, personality, mindset, etc.
But it seems that you have an endless supply of new P’s but a limited supply of NP’s. How much you make isn’t indicative of how much you’re actually worth, especially if you’re not going to listen. Go along to get along or get out and be replaced by someone who can. I suspect that your NP’s don’t feel important enough and the reaction is due to insecurity. Change the culture to respect them and it’ll go away.
Since you are not there, and I am, allow me to re-phrase your remarks in order for them to be accurate:
Inexperienced but educated younger workers of varying levels of maturity are appropriately delegating work to some lazy-ass, unmotivated, unskilled long-term employees who go out of their way to intimidate whomever they can in order to avoid actually doing the work for which they are appropriately compensated.
Thanks, Joey, but there is a process (and forms) in place. The problem, as I outlined previously, is getting people to document the issues (for a variety of reasons).
By the way, I don’t mean to imply that every NP is poisoning the environment. Some are outstanding (and are frequently praised and occasionally rewarded). The toxic element is maybe 25% of the total.
So why aren’t they being fired? I hear there’s lots of people who need jobs - I doubt the position will go unfilled.
There is no way to fix the problem without firings. People who don’t want to work can’t be turned into people that do. It would help to diversify the pool of professionals to work towards a long term cultural change as well.
If that’s a fair and honest assessment of what’s going on then you fire them. End of story.
I can see how this would be a problem in a tight labor market. However, right now this is not a problem. But let’s assume you’ve already lobbied HR for a more liberal firing policy and they’ve shot you down.
I guess I don’t understand why the whippersnappers are afraid to complain about the NPs. Didn’t you say the young folks cycle in and out constantly? How bad can the retaliation be if they’re not going to be there longer than a year or two? If you catch a P doing an NPs work, write up the P. When it’s their own ass on the line, then they’ll find a way to get the NP to do it or complain when they don’t.
Honestly, I don’t know that you’re ever going to get the percentage of NPs who shirk work lower than 10 or 15%. That’s just the price of employing low-paid people who (somewhat understandably) aren’t going to be super-motivated. You should try to improve the career track and incentives for the NPs, but there is a certain percentage that you’ll never reach.
It’s a problem of incentives. What incentivizes the np’s? Most likely compensation, as most people in the workforce are incented by compensation.
Does your smallish (100 people) firm have a bonus program? Are the np’s entitlted to participate in the bonus program? It doesn’t have to be at the same level as the P’s, but having a bonus program that np’s can participate in based upon their individual contributions, etc. can go along way to incentivize behavior.
Start with the basic issue of WHO IS RIGHT. The NP’s have done the job for many years you say, so sounds like new stupid manager just comes in and tries to say stuff is all wrong when it obviously has not been before, so sure they think he is a fool. Question is are they right? Check into that first thing, and as for some of the pros actually doing work, man that is wonderful, getting some productive work out of kids who think they are everyones boss is wonderful, I would try to keep them doing that and producing instead of being dead wood.
Sounds to me that the NP’s are getting more productivity out of employees to me, a great thing. So find out WHY the new bosses are disliked and I bet you will find it has to do with them being stupid about operations. They are probably suggesting things already tried long ago and known not to help, or even hurt, productivity.
Because I suspect they’re afraid of being professionally tarred with the racist label. It happens.
You would only have to fire one or two insubordinates before the message was clear.
Does it usually make sense for paralegal work to be done by an attorney? Yes, it’s ‘more productivity,’ but the attorney’s comparative advantage isn’t in doing that type of work. It’s actually quite inefficient.
What’s the reporting system for Ps to inform you of a shitty NP? Seems like it should be beefed up so that either (i) Ps report anonymously or (ii) Ps have more assurance of the confidentiality of each report.
Tell the professionals to get a spine, and tell the non-pros they are easily replaceable (really, they are). I think you’re going to just have to be a hardass for a few months and definitely some firings.
Maybe you don’t have to fire them. If you can find a way to direct the work to just those NPs who are functioning well and leave the difficult ones with nothing to do you could lay them off for lack of work.
My opinion of this issue changed when you mentioned that it’s really just a few of the NPs causing a problem. This makes me think it’s probably not badly behaving Ps who are creating discord, but NPs who have been in a sub role for too long and feel they deserve some deference because of their long term status -you may have a college degree, but I’ve been here for ten years so I know more than you-.
That attitude is a hard nut to crack, probably your energy is better spent finding a way to move them out. Is the paper trail for a layoff different than for termination?
I understand how this works. But I don’t have the time to explain it to someone who can’t tell the difference between a diploma and an education. I can sum up my refutation of your claims simply by pointing out that because a job is necessary, it is by definition important.
I expect your problem to continue so long as you maintain this attitude. You can easily determine the quality of your workers by who intimidates who.
Apparently you and others think that maintaining the imagined superiority of college graduates is more important than productivity. I offered you a solution to your problem that has worked for others, and will work for you. Perhaps you could apply your superior education to comprehending it.
This may be the most bullshit-laden sentence I’ve ever read here.
IMHO, even though Tripolar has an obvious chip on his shoulder and bug up his ass, his suggestion could definitely work in the right environment (and is consistent with msmith’s “service org within a service org” idea).