Advice to (what appears to be younger) posters: Not everyone is equal at work

[Anonymous]

Companies are allowed to treat people differently -- as long as it is not based on sex, race, religion, and a few other categories.

Job performance, absolutely. A+ people get better raises, and they will put up with more.
Rainmakers (people that bring in a lot of revenue), the rule the company.

It is a business, not middle school. The goal is to maximize profit (private sector), or to get the most done within the budget constraints (public sector).
If you complain to management about the high-performers (or perceived high performers), you will lose. Management does not have time for middle school shit.

I have seen this view in multiple threads.

What is not ok: (what I have seen high performers fired for)
Sexual harassment, including viewing porn at work
Discrimination based on race, creed, sexual orientation, etc (in my company)

[Anonymous]

Absolutely true.

Also, your manager is not at your beck and call. Threads in which people talk about "reinforcing this topic with my manager" or "bringing this up again with my manager because he hasn't acted on it" = whining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely true.

Also, your manager is not at your beck and call. Threads in which people talk about "reinforcing this topic with my manager" or "bringing this up again with my manager because he hasn't acted on it" = whining.

Managers are there to help you with performance issues, but not personality conflicts. Like, if I need a tool to do my job, I can talk to the manager. Or if there is a problem on a program so that a product may be late, talk to the manager. But, unless the behavior is illegal or unethical, they do not need to here it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely true.

Also, your manager is not at your beck and call. Threads in which people talk about "reinforcing this topic with my manager" or "bringing this up again with my manager because he hasn't acted on it" = whining.

Managers are there to help you with performance issues, but not personality conflicts. Like, if I need a tool to do my job, I can talk to the manager. Or if there is a problem on a program so that a product may be late, talk to the manager. But, unless the behavior is illegal or unethical, they do not need to here it.

I actually disagree. A good manager will be very sensitive to personality conflicts, recognizing that those conflicts can seriously impact performance. It's about knowing when it's appropriate to raise these issues to the managerial level and when you just need to power through whatever it is. I am having some difficulties with someone on my team that are really affecting my work. He undermines me constantly both in private office contexts with other colleagues and most recently in front of clients. He is in no way receptive to my attempts to talk to him about the issue. When it was just him being rude and dismissive to me with our colleagues, I pretty much just rolled my eyes and stuck to my knitting, but now that his attitude is affecting client care (mental health field), I'm taking it to our supervisor.

Taking on a managerial role includes team relations as well as productivity and performance. That you think otherwise is scary.

[Anonymous]

I think you missed the point 6:39. Yes, human relations is s managerial task. But if you bring up a conflict with your manager and he/she declined to act on it, you're done. It's not time to manage the manager. It's time to manage your expectations.

[Anonymous]

Let me put it another way: you hire two people to work on your house: one is a handyman, the other is a cleaner. They don't get along, and come to you. What do you do?

Well, first of all, I tell them I am paying them to do a job. Unless someone is threatening the other (at which point I get the police involved), I tell them to work through it. Now, if it continues, I probably fire one or both. Who I fire will depend on:

1) the relationship I have with them. If she has been cleaning for me for 5 years, she has the edge

2) who is easier to replace. Cleaners are easier to find than handymen. Advantage handyman.

This is assuming no violence or theft is involved. If someone is steeling from me, I will take action.

And this is no different that at work: they are hiring you to do a job. Unless someone is doing something illegal, I am going tell y'all to work it out. If I have to get involved, I will make a business decision. It might not be fair, but I can find a new admin assistant much easier than a senior software engineer with 18 years java experience. (I think that is when java came out...).

[Anonymous]

I had a personality conflict with someone on my very small team. But the truth is, to be the best employee I can, although my manager is aware of the other person's difficulties, I see it as my job to work with my team mate as best as I can and rise over the conflict. My manager is then happy that he/she does not have to referree.

That said, my colleague's personality issues are not violent, hostile, or dishonest or sabotaging, so it might be harder to resolve those kinds of situations without managerial involvement.

[Anonymous]

PP here. Another point,

As a manager, my job is not to hand hold. My job is to ensure the group is profitable this year, next year, and the year after that. I am given a budget to do that -- that budget can be expressed in terms of man hours.

In my work (Gov't contracting), everyones time has to be accounted for completely. It can be on a project, or indirect/overhead. Indirect/overhead includes running the company, managing my people, and marketing/proposing future work. We (or the customer) separate running the company (G & A) (usually regulatory compliance issues) from people and marketing (OH).

I want to spend my overhead on marketing -- to ensure the revenue stream exists in the future. I budget abut 100 hours/year (for me) to do personnel management, about 1200/year direct support of contract, and about 700 hours per year marketing.

of that 100 hours, that includes balancing workloads, performance reviews, and any personnel issue. I manage 15 people; Performance review take 30 hours per year. Balancing workloads takes about 50 hours per week (4 hours per month). So that leaves me with 20 hours to deal with other issues. That includes illness/disability (finding replacements, etc).

You come to me with a personality issue, and I have to look into it, that is coming out of the 20 hours. If there is a real issue, ok: ethics, discrimination, harassment, violation of company policies. Otherwise my first question will be "have you talked to them?".

If the issue (one I actually had) was he talks to himself when he works and that disturbs me, and he is a nationally renowned scientist who regularly brings in 2-3 million in contracts, and you are a recent grad who is supposed to support him, guess what? I will solve the problem. I suggested music/headphone. When that was rejection, I told the young employee that it was time to either learn to live with it or find another job. If you force me to take action between him and you, I will fire you.

[Anonymous]

What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

[Anonymous]

"I can't be writing what the rules are because my rules vary from player to player. It's like I told Lawrence: In Dallas we had a linebacker named John Roper who got cut for falling asleep in a meeting. If Troy Aikman fell asleep in a meeting, I'd go over and whisper, `Wake up, Troy.' "

--Miami Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson, on what he expects of new running back Lawrence Phillips, a player with a history of trouble with the law who was cut by St. Louis for breaking numerous team rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

It gets back to the position that I can not spend my days babysitting employees.

[Anonymous]

I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

It depends on how you define giving your best vs mailing it in. Performance matter. If you can get the job done in 40 hours, great. I would rather have someone who works their 8 hours, then goes home vs 14 hours doing the same quality work. Why? Well, the 14 hr person will burn out. It is not sustainable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you're not getting, OP, is that most folks don't have a sense of who the "high performers" are and don't get that they aren't in that class. So, the differentiated treatment appears arbitrary, when in fact it's actually merit based - but the mediocre employees has incomplete information and doesn't realize that's the case.

Further, most supervisors don't know how to give proper feedback, so they go around telling their employees "good job! you're doing great!" as a means to boost morale, but they don't give specific enough feedback so that individual employees can assess their strengths & weaknesses.

Now, if an enthusiastic, hard worker who maybe lacks emotional intelligence takes these "good job" comments at face value, given that it's the only feedback he gets all year, then he'll probably conclude that he is indeed doing a good job and there are no major issues. The fact that he's unaware of his weaknesses and isn't progressing is certainly on him, but I also would say that at least part of the responsibility for his stagnation is his supervisor's inability to have productive conversations around performance. These conversations don't have to be awkward, and when done well can mean getting a lot more out of your employees.

It gets back to the position that I can not spend my days babysitting employees.

I think it gets to the point that most companies are structured in such a way that in order to advance in pay & stature, you have to take on management responsibilities, but many technical subject matter experts don't actually have an interest in supervisory responsibilities, nor do they have any talent for it. Yet, the #1 reason employees leave is because of their boss - resulting in the high turn over rate that seems to have so many firms perplexed. There are a lot of new ideas about how to restructure advancement tracks so that only the people actually interested in management responsibilities take them on. It's good reading, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would also add that doing your best (even if your best isn't as good as some others around you) - goes a long way. I will always, always, give preference to the person who is giving me everything that he has as opposed to the person that is performing OK but mailing it in. Spend more time trying to improve your effort and less time worrying about how others are being treated.

It depends on how you define giving your best vs mailing it in. Performance matter. If you can get the job done in 40 hours, great. I would rather have someone who works their 8 hours, then goes home vs 14 hours doing the same quality work. Why? Well, the 14 hr person will burn out. It is not sustainable.

What about someone who can get their work done in 5 to 6 hours doing the same quality work as others who take 8 hours? Out of a department of around 10, 2 or 3 need 5 to 6 hours to do the job, 4 or 5 take around 8 hours, and 2 or 3 take 9 to 10 hours. Who would you rather have?