When someone in our small department of people (incidentally spread out over 6 locations in various cities) does something that needs to be addressed, rather than address the issue to that individual, he brings it up to the whole group in our staff meeting. In the years that I’ve worked for him he’s talked to us about coming in late, being on call on weekends, excessive non-business related internet useage, dress code, and the importance of getting our Monthly reports in on time. Since I’m not in the same location as my boss but others are, I usually find out via the dept. grape vine who was being indirectly taken to task. There have been times when the offender jumped in to defend their position so that’s how the rest of us found out.
I understand the value of reminding everyone of the company policy on certain things but it always leaves us all asking each other “who’s he talking about” and “did I do something wrong”.
Is this something that’s taught in middle manager’s school? Personally I’d rather be told directly if I screw up rather than have the comments directed at the whole group.
(I’m posting this on my lunch hour btw, from my personal laptop, no violation of company guidelines for me, no sirree)
Because he doesn’t have the stones to talk to the person directly reeponsible for whatever it is he feels he needs to address.
This happens in the Wife’s office too - one or two people are constantly late and/or leaving early. Instead of having a sit-down with the people he should, he sends blanket e-mails or holds meetings, so everyone gets to feel stupid and uninformed.
Maybe the boss believes he isn’t seeing all the violations and assumes if there is one he is aware of there are many he is not aware of? That way the ones he didn’t observe will get the same message and think it is about them?
He could be covering his butt when (and if) he addresses the offender on individual basis, he can say, “I mentioned this issue in the staff meeting on May xx, and you’re still doing/not doing it. What gives?”
Why do drones think we management types are afraid of them? Afraid of what? That they’ll somehow convince me I’m wrong about having turning in their TPS report late? That they will freak out and try to physically attack me for asking them to show up on time?
Here’s the deal. When I notice some sort of performance issue, I have a meeting with the group. I tell ALL of them what the issue is and how I expect it to be fixed. There are several reasons for this:
The assumption is that you are all professionals and not the fucking lazy half-wit retards I know you to be. In other words, I’m going you the chance to correct the issue yourself so no individual feels bad about themself and spends the rest of the day sulking.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you either didn’t know or forgot company policy (like you should need to be reminded to show up on time or not take a two hour lunch). So I am going to let EVERYONE know what policy is so that later on, you can’t be like “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that”.
It might be a lot of people doing whatever it is I don’t want them to do. It’s simpler for me to address everyone instead of ten people one at a time.
Sometimes letting people know I am on to their bullshit is enough for them to straighten up and fly right.
So the next step if the behavior continues is to single those individuals out. I give them the “this is what we talked about in the meeting” speech. If there’s extenuating circumstances, we can talk about that.
Finally, if it still continues, then it is officially “on”. The persons performance manager is contacted. It may affect their ability to get raises or promotions. In some instances, the individual is fired.
msmith537 must be mates with my boss, because that’s how it works with him. We have the best team environment I have ever worked in and part of it is just that attitude. Every few weeks he takes us out to a cafe for a coffee and once in a while he lays down the law. He doesn’t name names but we all know who is at fault in this particular instance, he tells us how it hinders us, why he wants it to stop and that’s that.
As far as I recall he has never had to progress to individual discussions or repeat talks to the troops. After all we are all adults.
Well, the assumption that we drones are half wit retards is a great place to begin your human relationships. If you had clear cut guidelines, and were even half assed involved with the product of your department, who is and who is not actually a good employee might not be such a complete mystery. Then, you could use positive recognition as a tool to influence the behavior of less productive employees.
And that way, you don’t have to even acknowledge the fact that knowing who is and who is not aware of company policy is your job.
Yes, and making your life simple is so much more important that being involved enough with your job that ham handed group think isn’t your favorite tool.
You just proved to me that you are not “on to” anything, especially how to motivate people, create team strength, or pretty much do anything other than warm the cushion of your chair. Yeah, I am sure you are not “afraid” of your subordinates. Power is the whole point, isn’t it. And a company that encourages your attitude is pretty much a prerequisite for you to become a manager.
Not a drone. I run a department of 165 employees - in the past I’ve managed branches of a national company with up to 300 employees.
My take on the OP was that the manager was having meetings and memos to enforce things that are probably spelled out already in some sort of company handbook, or procedure manual.
If there is some issue or pattern that is already in writing, or has been covered in an orientation or meeting or what have you, and there is someone not adhering to said policy/procedure/rule, then the right way to deal with that is directly with the person that needs correction.
My experience has been that if you see a problem and hold that meeting you talked about in #1 - everyone there thinks it’s for someone else’s benefit, and either resents having their time wasted to correct someone else, OR the person(s) you are trying to reach think “not me”.
I personally don’t care if someone spends the day sulking because I’ve pointed out a deficiency or problem, I’m enough of a pro to do that without making it sound like a scolding, in fact done right - it IS that reminder you talked about there. Maybe they did or didn’t realize they were crossing a line, maybe they did. Either way, that first meeting needs to be one on one.
If I have a problem to correct with a few people, I’d just as soon not waste everyone else’s time to air it out.
I don’t mind the shotgun approach of announcing infractions to the group when it comes to light from an individual. What I do mind are shotgun solutions that affect everyone after one dumbass does something stupid. Two cases in point:
We had a rookie developer mess up his registry on his computer. It took Tech Support a few hours to restore his machine. The next day an edict goes forth, “No developers shall henceforth edit their registry.” Um…
For years, nay decades, we had a toaster beside the coffee maker. One day a slice of bread got stuck and burned, releasing smoke and setting off the smoke alarm. The building was evacuated. The next day all toasters in all offices across the country were removed.
If it’s a very basic workplace issue like punctuality it could be addressed to the group, IMO. But if it’s a serious performance issue it should not be. The same goes if it’s a matter of policy that is open to interpretation. If the Internet usage policy allows some personal use, than to tell the group “You’re using the Internet too much for non-work-related purposes” isn’t very helpful. How much is too much? The same can be true for dress-code issues. After all, we do have email and phones for contacting people individually.
I have to go against you on this one. Fire alarms are extremely annoying to everyone who has to stop what they’re doing, go outside, and mill around for a half hour, and the expense of interrupted and delayed work, especially in a big company, has got to be substantial. They were right to ban toasters.
(posted from my office right across the hall from the kitchen)
I assume they are dedicated professionals. Sometimes I am proven wrong and I need to treat them like children.
I work in a consulting firm, not a widget factory. I also generally know EXACTLY where everyone is and what they’re supposed to be doing.
The performance issues I am talking about are behavioral, not product related. Coming in late, failing to submit timesheets, excessive lunch breaks, leaving early, skipping work, etc. These are things that pretty much standard everywhere. Most places prefer you not come in three hours late.
The challenge is we are not really all that strict with certain things. You can work from home. No one cares really if you’re 20 minutes late. We don’t want to be the kind of environment where people punch a clock because quite often our work does require we work really late or weekends.
The problem is that some people take advantage. They come in 3 hours late or take ridiculously long lunches. Talking to the group works because we can let them know they are stretching the limits without picking on particular individuals.
Other issues, like gross insubordiantion or incompetance are dealt with on a one on one basis.
As I mentioned, it’s not an issue of productivity. Things like sloppy reports or whatever, I can correct the individual and help them learn what’s expected. I may demonstrate to the group examples of what we consider to be the standard for a report.
That’s not my job. Management’s job is to present the policy and standards and make it available for anyone who wants to see it. It isn’t my job to figure out who’s too lazy and stupid to follow it until it starts to interfere with the job.
My job is not to be a babysitter to fuckups. It’s to coach motivated professionals into how to be successful at my company. As I said, the assumption is you want to do a good job, you just need someone to tell you how. At worst, you just need a reminder of what’s expected, just in case you misinterpret a laid back fun culture to equate to tolerating negligent incompetance or willfull insubordination.
The point is to do a job successfully for our clients who pay us a lot of money to help them with very serious (as in potentially expensive) problems. My power is to reward those who help us achieve that end, provide coaching to those who want to achieve but
Well, in my experience, handbooks and manuals are often ignored, forgotten or used to fix wobbly desks. People place closer attention when their boss tells them something. It tells them it’s a serious enough concern to him/her that he’s taking time out of his busy day to drive the point home.
As someone in the higher levels of management–this is all very bad advice and speaks of someone a few years or days out of school. I would give someone like you about 6 months before I relieved you of your duty if you continued down this path.
1- I expect my middle managers to show proper respect to ALL employees. Actions like this speak to me of some snot nosed kid right out of school who thinks he or she is going to boss respected professionals around–it doesn’t work, and all that happens is that snot nosed kid ends up looking very ineffectual. I have seen it often enough that I will pull the kid aside and give him some advice if he wants to survive. I don’t want to hear your excuses that it is the fucking lazy half wits issue–it is YOUR issue, or you shouldn’t be where you are at. Simple as that.
2-Broadcasting and repeating generic company policy has zero effect on behavior. As noted by others all this does is give the person the ability to think ‘they aren’t talking about me’. Address concerns directly with the person you have issues with.
3-The job isn’t about what is easier for ‘you’. It is about being able to do your job efficiently and correctly. Even if it is easier to address this in that sort of a meeting–you still should address this individually with each person that you are concerned about. I am not paying you to make your life easier–I am paying you to make my life easier. Get to work.
4-You haven’t let anyone know shit. You haven’t even fucking addressed the issue. Does Bob know he is the culprit? Or have you just left 20 other people think there is some issue with the when there isn’t? All you have done is create confusion. Are you even sure you are in management? You don’t seem to be managing anything but confusion it appears to me.
I’m kinda with Hakuna Matada here, but in 20+ years of corporate experience, I’ve largely seen the usual crap.
When I last worked IT, as a Project Leader, I had a person who was continually fucking things up and blaming everyone else. I was advised to try to work with her to train her in better, to get her to understand how to do her job properly, and to send e-mails documenting the correct procedures so that it was in writing.
When she completely fubar’d the second monthly production run in a row and tried to blame it on me (I managed the disk space. I wasn’t there. She didn’t bother to manage the space as she was instructed. The computer ran out of disk space. The jobs crashed. Gee. Wonder what happened. Must be the drive space manager’s fault, eh?); I sent out a general “this was the cause of the problem, this is how it needs to be corrected” e-mail to my people, never once mentioning the person’s name or that she specifically had done anything wrong.
I was called in to my Director’s office at 5pm on the Friday before New Years and read the riot act, because she had embarassed him at the Christmas dinner table (being a family friend of his) by whining about how I had “humiliated” her.
A few months ago, my sister (a Director at a large company) was talking about how one of her reports keeps mucking things up and how she addressed it in a staff meeting. When I suggested that she address it directly with the individual in question, she, my older sister, and my mother all chimed in to yell at me that this was a no-no, because it would humiliate the person.
My response was: But everyone knows she’s messing up. All you’re doing is humiliating her in front of the group.
Nah…I’m actually not that mean. I was just thinking about a couple problem employees when I was typing.
Ok, so what’s your advice for dealing with employee issues?
I don’t think I fundamentally disagree with anything you’ve said (except perhaps your inappropriate personal attacks). All I’m saying is you make the expectations known to everyone publically and when those expectations aren’t met, you deal with the individual privately on a one on one basis. You tell the whole group “we start at 9:00” every day. The guy who comes in at 9:45 every day you deal with personally.
My boss is a public announcement guy. I don’t particularly think it’s effective. That’s fine for letting people know what’s going on, but someone has to actually go around and make sure stuff gets done. And I will be the first one to admit it is not effective in resolving any issues or getting anything done.
yea well sorry for that But when you call your employees ‘lazy half wit retards’ it sort of got my ire up! I don’t have any issue with publicly stating the policy, but it has to be followed up with private individual time.
I have a couple of guys that I understand your frustration over. One guy though I finally got placed correctly. Just took a bit, but the team he is with now loves him. I had other teams who swore they would quit if they had to work with him again.
Look I don’t have the answers here. I just think you have to treat employees like people and not children. You stated that in another posting. People respond to how you treat them. You want them to respect you–you have to treat them with respect in my opinion.
Unfortunately it is Friday and I am out of here to grab a drink with a good friend I haven’t seen for awhile. I will try and come back and respond further to you.
I can understand msmith537’s point but I’m going to have to agree with Mr Bus Guy on this. This particular issue was about internet useage. We get regular e-mails from corporate with regard to what is and is not acceptable useage. This person was using one of the tools available to the tech support staff to get around one of the corporate rules. He got caught. Certainly I thought about doing exactly what he’s doing but knowing that all of our internet access going through the company’s firewall is monitored to some extent, I didn’t.
What happened, as I understand it, is that this person’s inappropriate internet useage raised a red flag with whomever is monitoring the stuff. They figured out who it was and the report went to the corporate boss, to my boss’ boss and then down to my boss who panicked and called an “emergency staff meeting”. I think boss man should have just talked to the person in question.
I suppose, in this case, I can understand why he addressed the whole group but the last time he did this he talked to us about dress code issues. Now, I’ve been with the company for 12 years. I know the freaking dress code. It’s not rocket science. Talk to the person who’s having the issue, the rest of us didn’t really need to hear that. (and really, talking to me about the dress code seems so…I don’t know…makes me feel like I’m being treated like a child)
But when you call your employees ‘lazy half wit retards’ it sort of got my ire up! I don’t have any issue with publicly stating the policy, but it has to be followed up with private individual time.