Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Work to Live Vs Live to Work

I am not a happy camper
every time I start to get ready for work
I burst into tears
or am encompassed by an overwhelming urge
to weep

I am tired of the environment I work in
I am tired of the culture of failure.
I am tired of the prescription for failure

instead of asking middle managers what they need to be effective
they've asked front line employees to squeal on their middle managers
thereby setting both front line people and middle managers up for failure

instead of giving middle managers the tools they need to succeed
"they" decide that the best way to be a good leader is to go back to being a front line employee for 2 to 4 weeks

being front line for 2 - 4 weeks won't improve their ability to be effective middle managers
it simply will make them better front line employees - and we already have those
besides for the past 3 years the "punishment" for middle managers not doing their job correctly
is to make them work as front line employees
so tell me how you can spin this in a positive light and not be reflective of punishment for all the middle managers as opposed to just the one's you deem are not doing their jobs?
Why paint everyone with the same brush?

Why not actually train the middle managers ?
the project last fall was a good start - because it got all the middle managers at that time to at least make their files look alike...

but when is the last time that anyone talked about the Company Core Values? When was the last time that they actually offered Corporate training -aside from the Employee Relations stuff?

Why not ask the middle managers how often they get actual coaching from their Supervisors?
as opposed to fire fighting?

Why not teach a middle manager how to actually coach? (there's a novel concept)
Teach them how to actually write a development plan? Teach them to define qualified and quantifiable goals

Teach them what actually make an event notation?

Why not offer leadership courses?

Want effective middle managers ?
Make the teams smaller (there are working teams of 20 front line employees )

Hire more Supervisors so that the middle manager to Supervisor ratio isn't too high - 9 teams is too many teams for a Supervisor

Make Supervisors work the same hours as all of their middle managers so that there is some kind of effective coaching going on...

Make the Supervisors actually accountable for their middle manager's training!

and make the Company we all work for allow for enough coaching time to get all of our front line employee's off the phone for coaching - as opposed to sporadic coaching for the bottom 30 reps

and while I'm on the subject - Stop playing favorites!
I once got officially punished for missing a deadline I didn't even know I had - my Supervisor and his Supervisor were all soo sorry but it had to be done - except one of the 4 of us that missed the "deadline" never did get punished...how's that fair?

I am tired of the environment I work in
I am tired of the culture of failure.
I am tired of the prescription for failure
I don't know if I will go back at all...

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