offered management position no exp. HELP!!

[workerbee222]

A woman who works with me is just stepping down from her management position. I think there were a lot of factors why it didn't work out.

She was personal friends with some of the people who reported to her. I don't know if she actually showed favoritism toward them, but it was perceived that she did, so the effect was the same. The ones who weren't her personal friends griped about it. Sometimes to me.

She didn't have the heart to discipline anybody. I was there when an employee told her he wouldn't do certain things (fold laundry--one of the services the company offers is wash/dry/fold by the pound) Uhhh, since he only came on this summer, I'm pretty sure he didn't write the job descriptions, but she never said a word. Whoever comes in the shift after his has to pick up the slack, even if s/he's very busy, those orders are due 24 hours from when they're dropped off.

Another young man alienates two or three customers every time he does a shift at our store. In general, he's lazy, and he has a chip on his shoulder, and acts as if every customer is trying to cheat or steal. She hasn't said anything of consequence to him In fact, she told me that any time she did have to correct an employee, she'd spend half the evening on the phone trying to make sure he or she wasn't mad at her.

While of course you should be polite and compassionate, I humbly suggest you find "friends" elsewhere. It will keep your work relationships...tidier, I guess.

[NightAngel]

I disagree.

Frankly, it all depends on when the schedule is being done.

Well, no. Not really. Sure, if it's some kind of emergency or one time thing like what you describe- okay.

BUT here's what happens when you don't ask for plenty of advance notice:

Monday: Schedule done for the next week.
Tuesday: CSR #1 tells you that they forgot they had to have a toe removed on the next Tuesday. Rework schedule.
Wednesday: CSR #2 tells you that they forgot to tell you that their dog has to go to the vet on Friday. Rework schedule.
Thursday: CSR #3 suddenly has become a college student and needs every Wednesday off for a class. Rework schedule.
Friday: CSR #@#!$#$@#$ tells you that they forgot to tell you that they have to pick up their mail order bride from the airport on Sunday. Rework schedule.

It's not necessarily that any one employee may be trying to walk on you. But when you have a whole horde of employees who are not required to submit proper notice YOU, the manager, wind up paying the price.

[jnd4rusty]

!. As other posts have commented...do not make "friends", be friendly, compassionate, learn a bit about them. Knowing little personal things helps you to learn to deal with each one. I don't recommend going out and having a drink after work or becoming buddy, buddy but have a good ear.
2. Listen! A caring compassionate manager listens to her employees, many times they have some real interesting and valuable ideas and thoughts. I work with teens and many times they need to vent about different things. I have learned to listen, not really give advice but to let them know that I do care about them.
3. Let the employees teach you. You are not only their teacher but they can be your teacher.
4. Delegate duties and delegate responsibility. Let the employees know what the rules are, what the consequences are if they are broken and follow through. If you delegate a job to be done then double check to make sure that it is done properly. When you do this enough times the employee will know what you expect and what you will find and will do it correctly the first time. I double check and they know I will, sometimes I will trust that they did a good job and not check as often, but if I receive a complaint they definitely hear about it and I go and double check them more often.
5. Set a firm time for request offs. Of course be flexible because of unexpected emergencies. If someone wants to go to a concert and they did not get the request in on time then that does not constitute an emergency, but if someones child is ill or there is a death then you can bend the rules. You decide what constitutes an emergency and stick by those rules. The fairest way to make sure that those who follow the rules get the time off is to go by first come first serve, but your main concern is to staff the store and they need to realize and respect that.
6. Have fun but not at the expense of excellent customer service. Back up the employees when they make a customer decision. Constructively criticize. If you must discipline do so in private and expect the same from your employees, if they disagree with a decision under no circumstances should it be talked about publicly. Any discipline or disagreements should happen behind closed doors.
7. DON"T GOSSIP!! Nothing will discredit you more than if you gossip about another employee or put down another member of management.

[Jester]

It's not necessarily that any one employee may be trying to walk on you. But when you have a whole horde of employees who are not required to submit proper notice YOU, the manager, wind up paying the price.

NA, I wasn't disagreeing with what you were saying about having a firm time frame for having schedule requests in. I was merely disagreeing that it should be two weeks or more.

Frankly, the actual time frame depends entirely on the specifics of the business. Some places do require two weeks notice, but in a lot of cases, that is not tenable. A lot of restaurants just ask that you have it reasonably before the manager begins the schedule. For example, at The Bar where RW and I work, the service manager writes and posts the schedule that goes Monday-Sunday on the Friday previous to the beginning of the schedule. However, schedule requests for that schedule need to be in the Wednesday before that, i.e, two days before she writes it, five days before it begins. And in this flakey town with flakey people, that seems to work.

As with anything, individual results may vary. I was merely saying it doesn't always have to be two weeks. But I absolutely agree with you (and others) in that there should be a firm time deadline for schedule requests to be in, and it should be known to the employees quite clearly that this is when it is, this is how you submit requests, etc., etc.

[NightAngel]

Sorry, dude. I guess I misunderstood.

My place requires a schedule a week in advance.
So, if I make next weeks schedule Monday of this week (which I did) then I needed notice one week prior to the making of the schedule (2 weeks before event). Basically, it just makes it easier for me because then I can see what's coming up and formulate a plan before I get started. If everyone dumped a time off request on me Sunday and I made the schedule Monday then I'd be a wreck.

Been there... done that...

Of course, it does depend on the type of business and the nature of the request. I had one guy ask me for a day off in the middle of the work week because his Dad showed up for a surprise visit. I did my best to cover him but couldn't and he worked the shift. He told his Dad that surprise visits really aren't the best way to go. At that, if I'd even had 24-48 hours I MIGHT have been able to do something.

That's another thing though- if a person makes a surprise request it's nice to do your best to try and help them out but you also can't kick yourself if it's just not possible.

[Emrld]

If there is a situation where an employee needs to take scheduled time off due to a death in the imediate family (like Grandma) be the nice person and approach the other employee to ask if they can come in even though they were scheduled off . . and yes, explain why. The person with the death in the family already has enough to deal with and shouldn't be approaching a co-worker to cover the shift in that type circumstance.

Offer a way for employees to make suggestions/ requests without giving their name and take it seriously.
I have seen it before where a new person comes in as manager and if they could have been given a little bit of inside info - and not have taken it personally - things would have been great.

Learn the company rules and guidelines . . .stand firm with those . . .as for the rest - ask other managers, employees, you don't want to rock the boat.

Most importantly breathe and enjoy - you were found to be worthy of being offered the position . . . .now prove that person right.

[Gurndigarn]

My approach to days off was always "Get the request in before the schedule is made. I will try to make the schedule up X days in advance. Once the schedule is made, it's your responsibility to find a substitute. I need to approve your substitution, too." This doesn't count emergencies, of course, though anyone with frequent emergencies usually found their hours cut. Hey, they've got problems elsewhere. They need time to solve them, obviously.

Try to alternate who gets holidays off. Take some off yourself, but work some, too.

You're going to get some employees who don't like you. Live with that fact. Try to make it be the lazy or incompetent ones who don't like the fact that you make them work rather than the good ones who want a stable, sane working environment. Be a boss first and a friend— well, maybe, after they've proven themselves. But even with friends, the boss part comes first.


Perhaps a bit of a philisophical aside here. I've found that fair-weather friends are a damn nuisance. I'm not expecting people to do my work, but if I show up at a friend's house and he's wrapping up a project, I'll lend a hand. I hope that most of the people I consider friends will do the same for me. Again, I'm not going to start projects expecting help (most of the time, and never without asking first), but someone who says "Oh, I see you're busy" and takes off... ehhh. You could at least stay and talk while I work. Well, an employee who uses friendship with you to slack off isn't a friend. They're an acquaintance. Possibly an amusing one, one that's fun to be around... but not a friend. The best your relationship will be is mutually parasitic— both of you needing something from the other person, but hurting them in the process of getting it, whether that pain is immediate or something that builds up over time. (Usually it builds up over time, otherwise you'ld be more likely to get out of the situation. In the case of managers, that cost is in either work overload on the non-"friends", work overload on themselves, or stress from work not getting done. In the first case, they may never realize the cost, though it will manifest itself to them in the form of a long parade of resignations from good employees.)


Sadly, too many people never grasp that you can have a relationship beyond "mutually parasitic". It leads to a large number of societal problems— including a bunch that end up on this board. (And a whole bunch of nutjobs that end up on Jerry Springer, too... gah.)


Now, moving back on topic: a friend at work who works under you will take occasional work-related nudging reasonably well— and usually doesn't need more than an occasional nudge.

Moving on: don't correct employees' errors in front of the customers except for emergencies. At least not the customers they were interacting with, and ideally none of the rest, unless the remainder of the customers were also annoyed by the one that was just served.

As much as possible, act as a buffer between the employees and corporate. When you can't be a buffer, explain as much as you can to the employees so they understand why they're doing the boneheaded things corporate expects.

And if you have more questions, there's a help sub-forum in the Morons in Management forum. Feel free to ask specific questions there.

[jnd4rusty]

continued from previous post....
8. Give praise when praise is due but don't overly praise. It will ruin your credibility if you overly praise because employees will think that you are just "sucking up" to them.

You are coming into the job off the street and that may make for some resentment among the employees that are already employed especially if there are one or two who think they should be a manager. That is why it is important that you go in acting confident but not overly confident. If that makes sense. Don't go in to the job with the attitude "me boss, you underling". It is okay to be a bit nervous and that is where asking the employees for their input comes into play. Make them feel important and part of the overall team. Management can be scary and sometimes overwhelming but if you can build solid relationships with your staff, show compassion while being firm and fair then you should not have any problems.

[Seshat]

Try to alternate who gets holidays off. Take some off yourself, but work some, too.

Holidays off can be a source of friction. It's very important to try to come up with a fair and reasonable way to handle them, and let everyone know what method you're using.

One way is to find out which days are important to people and which days they don't mind working, and try to make the year's holiday roster based on that.
Don't forget the holidays that aren't on the Christianised calender - let any Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, or even Atheist people get a fair chance at their holy (or special) days off. With a sufficiently religiously diverse staff, you might even be able to give everyone their holy days (or party days) off.

[Jester]

Holidays off can be a source of friction.

One way is to find out which days are important to people and which days they don't mind working, and try to make the year's holiday roster based on that.

As an employee, I have found that volunteering to work on days that other people want off make it MUCH easier to get off days that I want.

For instance, every year I volunteer to work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day, and even volunteer to work DOUBLES on those days.

Why?

Because there is no way on the gods' green earth that I am working New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, or the day after Thanksgiving (Arizona State-Arizona game, though this year it is a week later). Those are the days important to ME, and I have rarely had a problem making that work with most employers. Since most people want to somehow weasel out of working either of the Christmas days OR either of the New Year's Day, I look good. And since the Christmas days tend to be more important to other people, I get my way.

As for the day after Thanksgiving thing, remember, I am not in retail. In restaurants, Black Friday is not a big deal, and I have never had a manager who had any problem with me taking that day off, especially when I seem all too willing to work Turkey Day.

You pick your battles, kids!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If someone doesn't get requested time off, have a reason
Nothing will infuriate people more than not getting time off without a reason.

Now wouldn't "Too many people got their time-off requests in before you did" be an acceptable reason?

Here's why I ask: Our dimbo of a softlines manager approved every single time-off request she got for this week. This left her unable to fill 4 shifts in jewelry or the fitting rooms. So she posted a note by the schedule listing the shifts she was unable to fill asking people to come in if they'd like the extra hours.

Now what's going to happen if nobody volunteers to fill these shifts? Manager won't do it; she's generally too good to do dirty work like put away freight and straighten up the department. I see her hanging out by the service desk more often than I see her putting away freight.

I swear our policy regarding time off is "Approve any and all requests for time off you get, even if this leaves you with an inadequate staff. except for certain blackout periods when no time off is to be granted."

[draftermatt]

Now wouldn't "Too many people got their time-off requests in before you did" be an acceptable reason?

Yes it would. I would give people that reason for why they can't have off.

[Jester]

I swear our policy regarding time off is "Approve any and all requests for time off you get, even if this leaves you with an inadequate staff. except for certain blackout periods when no time off is to be granted."

Ooooh, I LIKE that policy! I wanna work there! I do, I do! Or at least, I wanna work some place that has that policy. (Putting away freight doesn't sound like my kind of job, frankly....)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Ooooh, I LIKE that policy! I wanna work there! I do, I do! Or at least, I wanna work some place that has that policy. (Putting away freight doesn't sound like my kind of job, frankly....)

You would be putting away clothes. You could walk around with bras and panties in your hands!

[Seshat]

Yes it would. I would give people that reason for why they can't have off.

However, if there's a particular day when you start accepting time-off requests for Thanksgiving or Christmas or other popular days, those who are rostered on when it starts get an 'unfair' headstart.

If you're going to have a specific time when it starts, make a grace period that covers at least one shift for everyone, and that counts as 'all at the same time'. If you get too many requests off during that grace period, make it a draw or a lottery or something; or ask those who've asked for it off if they're willing to trade working Day X for being off on Day Y.

But it is totally unfair to those working the important days to leave them short-staffed. Ensure everyone knows how you're rostering holidays, and stick to it without leaving the business short-staffed on the holidays.