Tips for being a good manager?

Classof2015 · June 3, 2011, 9:33pm

My role is not a traditional manager – I co-own my business, and since me and my partner each wear many hats, it has fallen to me to be the “ops manager”. I have tried to be up on all the issues facing the people I manage, but I can’t help being irritated and astonished when they make mistakes that are completely avoidable. I guess perhaps I should just build in the expectation that people are human and mistakes will be made, but I feel like after I spend time and money training them, after asking if they have any questions, after proofing their work the first 5 times they do a new task and they still make mistakes – which are very very expensive – I’m frustrated. Especially when I hear all this bad news about the job market and I’m paying $70K+/year plus medical and they can’t do the job right.

I realize I may sound intolerant and impatient, which I’m trying to acknowledge and overcome, but I feel like if I sit down with someone and explain how to do something, then I follow up with an email (realizing that some people absorb info better if it’s written down vs. spoken), and I offer assistance, I have a hard time understanding why they could get this same thing wrong multiples times and not realize or care.

I think part of the disconnect is that, since I’m an owner, their mistakes mean lost revenue, whereas for them, it’s probably just part of doing the job – sometimes, you get it right, sometimes you don’t, and you go home at 5 o’clock no matter what. I have really tried to be very accomodating to one new hire – she wants to leave at 3 for her daughter’s birthday? no problem. She needs to come in late for a dr’s appt? No problem. She needs to go, mid-day, to see the dr again (missing 2 hours of work) and is not willing to stay late to make up the lost hours – no problem. I even asked her, sincerely, with caring, if everything went ok. And she said yes and seemed to appreciate me asking.

But she screwed up majorly on a big ticket item ($6K) and is upset that I found the error and asked her about it. I am brainstorming about ways to handle this next time – “let’s figure out ways we can avoid this happening again.”

Part of me wonders if she would have a problem if I was male. Do people just automatically assume that a woman with standards is a b*****?

Appreciate constructive criticism and/or suggestions.

intparent · June 3, 2011, 9:48pm

A lot of times small companies do not have well documented procedures and policies. It takes some time to do that, but it could save you some headaches. Rather than showing someone how to do something 5 times, having a manual that goes through the steps and emphasizing that they need to use the manual could be better. You still probably need to show them a couple of times, but it could help you clarify your expectations. You do need to keep it up to date (but you could make that a responsibility of an employee who works on the tasks regularly).

Same with things like leave time. If the company does not have a written policy on how to handle time out of the office outside regular working hours, then maybe you need to have one. It can feel kind of stifling for a start up/small business, but if you are concerned that employees are abusing their leave time, it can help. You could just say that employees are expected to work X hours per week, and either make up any time they are out of the office or use vacation/sick time for it. If your business needs people on site during some core hours of the day, you need to make expectations clear about how employees should communicate if they need to be gone during that time (who do they tell, how far ahead of time).

It is best to have a “we are where we are, how can we make this better next time?” attitude when issues come up, which it sounds like you are trying to do.

Another thing you can do is have regular (and I mean more than once a year, at least twice a year) meetings with each employee to discuss their goals, progress on previous goals, what they are doing well, and areas for improvement. That gives you a chance to discuss patterns of good and bad behavior. Try hard to recognize the good things they do as well as the areas for improvement; they will work a LOT harder for you if they feel valued. One way to make sure this happens is ask them for their input on their accomplishments and successes at the beginning of those review sessions – nothing sucks the morale out of an employee faster than realizing that their boss doesn’t even know the good stuff they have done for the company.

oldfort · June 3, 2011, 9:55pm

I started manging 10 people to hundreds now at work, and I also have household staff. I try to tell them up front of my policy about their working hours (I have a pet peeve about people taking more than 2 weeks vacation at a time), my expectation of their behavior at work, and I apply the same policy to everyone. I do not manage by exceptions.

I would ask your employee to make up the time missed, or deduct pay from the employee. If you never told your employee of your policy, then I would tell her once, and not pay her for hours missed next time.

6K loss - I would go over with the employee about what happened (root cause), if it was her mistake, then I would let her know next time if it were to happen again then she would be gone. You should handle it now and not wait for the next screw up.

I find managing staff is like managing your kids - be clear about your expectations, be consistent, reward good behavior, punish bad behavior, avoid exceptions, make sure my senior managers support my decisons (so we act like a team).

Schmaltz · June 3, 2011, 10:01pm

There are 2 types of workers:

<ol>
<li>The kind that think it’s their job to make the boss happy.</li>
<li>The kind that think it’s the boss’s job to make the workers happy.</li>
</ol>

Unfortunately there are plenty of management gurus who support #2. I can’t recall ever seeing anyone go from being a #2 to a #1.

I guess the best thing is to have very clear and direct 1-on-1 meetings, and have your expectations written down on paper and have the person sign it.

turbo93 · June 3, 2011, 10:21pm

As a Human Factors Engineer I can’t help but wonder if the instructions you provide are adequate for the workers, or if the tasks are too complicated for the workers given their level of experience, education, and training.

Obviously not all of this is covered - leaving at 3:00 PM and not making the time up later was not in our lecture materials - but my feeling is that if you’re paying $70k + benefits then we are not talking about ‘insert peg A into hole B’ type work, but rather, some sophisticated workflows that you can do flawlessly after X amount of time.

Start with a baseline ‘good’ worker with low error rate and see how well they do. If a reliable worker can do the task with no errors and no superhuman or supernatural abilities, then your tasks are likely OK as is your training. But if the average worker has no more chance of completing the task without a bunch of errors than I do passing on a Krispy Kreme, then the task may be too complicated.

Also keep metrics by worker and by type of error - if everyone gets a specific step wrong consistently this should tell you the step needs improvement, not that everyone is doing it is brainless.Do it for a period of a week - keep accurate and objective records and see where it takes you.

Finally, ask them how would they do it or how they would improve the process.

Classof2015 · June 3, 2011, 10:48pm

Wow – I am amazed and impressed by all the thoughtful, intelligent, helpful comments!

Intparent – you hit the nail on the head – my firm should really have an “ops manual” with step by step instructions so new hires can refer to it as a baseline info guide vs me sitting down with them (which can be off putting or not the best way to learn). And you’re right with the leave time policy. We have people sign the anti-sexual harrassment form along with filling out a W9; why not hand it to them then? Lay it out in writing, up front.

Oldfort – you’re right about the $6K loss. I am honestly already thinking about replacing this person, but I will make it very clear what the error was, how to avoid it, steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and if it does, what the consequences are.

Schmaltz – #2 describes my employee. How did you know?

Turbo – another good point. It’s not that the task is so difficult, but what’s we’re trying to do (the premise is flawed) is take people who are used to doing a task from point B to point C and asking them to also do A to B. In bigger shops, A to B is done by an entirely different person. And the people who do B to C have historically viewed themselves as superior to the people who do A to B. (I feel like there is a Dr. Seuss book here somewhere).

Problem is, if we had one A to B person and one B to C person, if the B to C person is out or quits, our shop comes to a halt. Thus we have decided it’s better for overall productivity to have two A to C people. In the future, when we can afford it, the ideal combo would be 1 A to B person and two B to C people.

We are perhaps creating the problem by asking people to do a task they are not willing or able to do. Since the cost repercussions are so great, I may take on the A to B role for a while and let them do the B to C role. But I keep thinking – work is work. Times are tough. For $70K, don’t you think you would willingly take on an additional task/role?

turbo93 · June 3, 2011, 11:07pm

Perhaps you can explain in very broad terms what we’re talking about here. Let’s say A to B is computer hardware or interfaces to computer hardware, while B to C is computer software and physical layout like buttons, knobs, the screen menus, etc. I can do the B to C pretty well, having done it for 26 years. Yet the A to B part, saludos amigos, exit stage left, so long. Most people would look at the two task sets and wonder why I can’t do A to B, or why my buddy next cube who does the A to B can’t do B to C to save their life. Like Dr. Seuss, the A to B crowd (hardware designers and firmware people) consider themselves superior :-)

It’s not the question whether I can do hardware or firmware - I can’t (Darn it Jim. I am a Coder, not an Electrical Engineer). The most complex piece of hardware I designed was a printer interface card in 1985. But I can code apps usable by the Hoi Polloi like few others. Likewise, my EE buddy can design iPhone-complexity hardware but his coding is limited to board support and diagnostics and the such. What helps us is that we can communicate extremely well, and that our skills and experience complement each other. So, the end result is Gestalt. You get the idea.

So, if you want A to C people, you need people whose skills are somewhere in between. In our case that would be computer engineers. Maybe. Those who are as good as I am in software and human factors AND as good as my buddy in hardware design and firmware coding won’t work for $70k a year, economy be darned.

Again, without specifics of what skill sets are involved, it’s hard to know.

ebeeeee · June 3, 2011, 11:22pm

I would suggest you put together an employee handbook which outlines all policies including stating that you are an at will employer, your leave policy, anti harassment, equal op employer, etc, etc. A good employment lawyer can give you a draft or pm me and I’ll send you mine. As far as the mistake you need to document a coaching and counseling session and have the employee sign it. If it happens again and you choose to terminate the employee you will want the paperwork in their file.

college_query · June 3, 2011, 11:56pm

I do a lot of employee training where I work. I find there are some employees who don’t want to understand what they are doing, they just want to know enough so they can do the task at hand. Others want to have an understanding of what they are doing (the bigger picture) as well as how to do it. Depending on the duties of the employee, some can get away without really understanding the bigger picture, while others can really mess things up if they don’t understand how it all fits together.

I try to create training documents with both words and pictures. I’m also aware that just because it’s in their training document doesn’t mean they’ll ever remember to look at it again.

On another CC discussion the book “The Checklist Manifesto” was mentioned. I read the book (well, most of it) and it talked about using checklists to make sure tasks are completed. These aren’t just menial type tasks - doctors, pilots, etc. It makes me wonder if there could be some type of checklist created for your employees to ensure they have not overlooked a step?

Regarding personal leave: where I work we do have a written policy manual, but unfortunately depending on which division you are in the rules are interpreted and enforced differently. As an employee I appreciate compassion and some occasional flexibility, but in return I will work into the evening, or go in early, or on the weekend. When I see co-workers who always abuse the policy it doesn’t help the morale of those of us who don’t.

My workplace has not replaced employees who have retired/left as a way to handle budget cuts, and the result is more work than is humanly possible. Depending on the urgency and critical nature of a need I will put in lots of extra hours, but sometimes when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel you give up. There are times I’ve felt that even if I worked 24 hours a day for weeks I wouldn’t get it all done.

In my current position I’m about as senior as possible without managing employees. To be honest, I don’t want to be a manager. I see it as a very difficult and thankless job.

Our boss has tried to do a lot of cross-training in our area, which has positives and negatives. For a while she was treating us all as interchangeable and overlooking that we each have areas of expertise. It works better for us to have a primary and a back-up instead of switching things around all the time.

I also think it is better to let go of employees who make lots of mistakes, abuse policies, or are bad at their job. I have a co-worker who never should have been hired for the position. He’s been given lots of chances, over and over again. While he’s a nice guy, the fact that he can’t do his job means more work for me - I’m either fixing his mistakes, or taking calls from people who won’t call him because he’s an idiot so I end up doing his job. I resent that he is taking up a salary that could potentially go to someone who could help get the work done.

It sounds like there are potentially several things at work in your situation - maybe not the right people for the task, or need better documentation.

Make sure you are “approachable” by your employees, too. My job is in a support role, and I when I work with other employees I always let them know I am available for follow-up questions, additional training, or other support. I tell them that we want to give them the tools needed to do their jobs well, and to please contact me if they have questions. But I have co-workers who act irritated when their “customers” seek help, like they’re a big bother. I’m not saying you are like this, but if I was afraid of getting my head bitten off if I went to someone to ask for assistance, I would avoid admitting my mistakes or need for help.

An analogy (since we are on CC) - about a year ago S accidentally backed the car into a neighbor’s who had parked (illegally) behind him. S was afraid to tell H because he knew he’d just yell at him. He told me instead. I know S felt bad; I know he’s a cautious driver and doesn’t make mistakes often. I also know I have made mistakes. It wasn’t a happy situation (a strain on our already tight budget) but I told him I appreciated his honesty. We talked about how to prevent future situations (just because a car should not have been parked there doesn’t mean it won’t be). Anyway, a long and rambling way to say make sure your employees can ask for help or admit mistakes if the situation warrants.

hops_scout · June 3, 2011, 11:59pm

One thing that frustrates me is when I do something correctly and my supervisor doesn’t even tell me. They just correct the mistake and move on. If I don’t know that I made a mistake, how do I prevent from doing it again?

LasMa · June 4, 2011, 3:24am

Good suggestions.

One thing that I’ve found improves performance is simply letting the employee know that you notice what they do right. No, I’m not talking about overlooking errors, or being cuddly, or anything like that. This is not a substitute for policies, expectations, or discipline. But if you make a point of watching for their areas of competency, as well as areas needing improvement, it subtly changes how you see them. They become more potential and less problem. Employees sense this, and at least in my experience, it is motivating for them. I’m not talking about elaborate award programs. A simple “Nice work on that project, Joe” or “You’re getting the hang of this, Suzy” goes a long way with most employees.

This style also makes you more approachable when employees either have a question about how to do something, or need to confess an error. I was brought into my job because the head of our department is a truly horrible manager, very intimidating. When you ask her how to do something, she makes you feel about 2 inches tall, and God forbid you ever make an actual mistake. A certain percentage of our errors were due to the fact that employees would rather guess at the answer to a question than be belittled by the boss. One of my functions is to be a buffer between the boss and the employees. I have a softer, more understanding style. When someone needs to ask a question or correct an error, they are not afraid to call me. I don’t tell them that an error is OK, but I also don’t make them feel stupid, or like they’ve just caused the demise of the company. Our error rate is down.

NewHope33 · June 4, 2011, 8:08am

Ah, if only there was a handbook for training good Managers. Well there isn’t. It’s been my experience that gifted managers are born that way. I’ve had the great pleasure of working for two of these … and the great displeasure of working for a half-dozen of the other kind.

OP, you sound like a working manager. That’s a particularly difficult job, due to competing needs of your work and the needs of your workers. You need to be accessible to your staff … and you need to get your own work done. What worked best for me in such situations was “management by walking around.”

[management</a> by walking around - Google Search](<a href=“management by walking around - Google Search”>management by walking around - Google Search)

tom1944 · June 4, 2011, 8:24am

Can you install some type of system to check and fix errors before they impact revenue?
Also are people making the same error- in that case it may be training

EPTR · June 4, 2011, 9:15am

I can’t believe the parallels to my job teaching kids!!! Same stuff!! I wonder, too, if it is a generational thing. I notice after teaching for 25 years that kids are getting harder in all of the ways that the OP describes. Tasks need to be described over and over again, directions are seldom followed and they are shocked when there are consequences to their lack of attention.

I would suggest approaching this the way a teacher would. Clear expectations (manual), positive feedback when things are good, negative consequences when things are bad. I also agree with the regualr meetings with employees to go over their goals, strenths and weaknesses. And get rid of the employees that are just not cutting it. In this economy, you have options.

oldfort · June 4, 2011, 9:45am

I just recently got rid of 20% underperforming employees. I followed up by having a town hall with rest of staff to explain the decision made. After the meeting, the feedback was it should have been done years ago, a lot of them were carrying those dead wood’s weight, and they didn’t think it was fair they had to do someone else’s work and correct those low performers’ mistakes. Sometimes managers may feel they are being compassionate by keeping low performers on, but in reality they are demoralizing high performers on their team.

I also like to empower people to make decisions, instead of just following instructions and seek approval all the time. OP’s employee is not a clerk who gets paid minimum wage. OP shouldn’t be the one to have to come up with a full proof procedure for the employee to follow. I would rather hire higher calibre employees rather than come up with cumbersome procedures to prevent people from making mistakes.

amandakayak · June 4, 2011, 9:49am

The worst employees I ever managed (when I worked) came down to bad hiring decisions. They were hired because they had great sales skills - which wasn’t a job requirement, but it made them sell themselves as a wonderful candidate. They sold us. Now, there were other more technically competent people who weren’t that well “packaged” and presented in the interviews, who didn’t get offers.

avoidingwork · June 4, 2011, 10:53am

Lots of good suggestions have been provided already.

A good resource on how to create a culture that acknowledges good work is the book “The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance”

If you are irritated and astonished when mistakes are made, then this is likely communicated by your tone and manner to the employee; which is counter-productive. It is important that you remain calm, non-judgmental, and focused on how the problem is going to be addressed and behavior changed going forward, rather than the mere fact that a mistake (big or small was made). I think it is also best to deal with root cause after any actions to address the mistake have been done.

Many have made the good suggestion of an ops manual. I have often worked where there is little documentation on processes and policies. My philosophy is that if someone did something incorrectly but it is not a documented process/policy, then you really can’t be angry at them when they don’t do it the correct way.

One other small hint is to not use the word ‘you’ when composing emails. I’ve been doing this for years, and am often dealing with situations where something has been done incorrectly. The word ‘you’ has an accusatory tone in emails.

Classof2015 · June 4, 2011, 11:14am

NewHope33 – great link – thank you! I am going to read up more on “management by walking around.”

Avoidingwork – good point. I have to work at maintaining a neutral face and tone when I realize an employee has made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Nobody likes it when they’re pointed out. The goal is to learn from them and not make the same one again – make a different one (Ha. Ha.)

LasMa – so true – appreciate all the things they’re doing right. Every one likes compliments – nobody likes criticism. I would truly like to be the kind of manager people WANT to work for and give their best. I honestly in all my years of working never had that kind of manager. Maybe they’re rare.

Turbo93 – this is about mortgage processing (A to B) vs underwriting (B to C). In this industry, everyone who does B to C started out as a processor (doing A to B). Processing involves ordering appraisals, issuing disclosures, entering a borrower’s application into our underwriting system, collecting loan documents, whereas underwriting is analysis of a complete file. We make it very clear to each new hire that the job requires processing. They all say “no problem” but I think I need some new interview questions to ferret out the people who are just saying that to get a job and really have no intention of processing and hate it.

ebeeeee – I will pm you for your manual. I have a feeling this would be time well spent this weekend for me to put together a manual.

LasMa · June 4, 2011, 1:29pm

Rare indeed! The only manager I’ve ever had who regularly gave positive feedback happened to be a pastor. “Encouragement” was part of his job description, and that viewpoint carried into his role as supervisor as well.

One little thing: I don’t think of it as “complimenting” and “criticizing,” which to me has a connotation of addressing the person, but rather “feedback” which focuses on a particular behavior. Say an employee adds a helpful new column to a spreadsheet (I’m an accountant lol). A compliment would be: “Wow, you’re great at spreadsheets!” Feedback would be: “Your idea to add that column is going to help me at budget time.” See the difference? The first sounds better on the surface, but is actually much less helpful to the employee. The second tells him/her that you noticed – and appreciated – a specific effort.

Classof2015 · June 4, 2011, 7:14pm

^LasMa – very good point – I thought my positive feedback had to be in the form of a compliment, but you’re right – specific feedback on the task at hand makes much more sense in the business setting.

My goal for Monday is (besides doing ops manual): acknowledge; appreciate; stay neutral; be grateful (grateful they all showed up for work) and try to move it forward.

Tips for being a good manager?

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