Management Rant...

[slinxy]

Hi All, Apologies for the rant..

One of my colleagues has been made the department manager, he was always a senior since I've join the company 5 years ago but was never my direct manager.

His position hasn't official been briefed out as far as I am aware, it's just been word of mouth and the way he's been acting.

Anyway, we have a small department 4 of us; we all work hard and are clearly understaff as we are looking to employ someone else. Working in IT I log everything I do in our job management system, document any project/system work as per industry standard, we also write a yearly review on ourselves as per company requirements.

But he now wants a weekly report on what we have done and what we are planning to do next week, which I flatly refused and explained to him why it shoudn't be required.

Quite frankly I feel insulted that I need to do this; I feel it's nothing but time and motion and for him to try and micromanage us when it's not required. It shows a lack of trust; in that we know what we are doing or will seek help when required! If he has an issue with a member of staff; be that me, he should address it with that member of staff and not change procedure and cause us more work.

I can understand such reports are required if a person is up for review, or if their manage serveal departments/areas/companies but this person was put in place to run the day to day affairs of the department because the person that was doing it manages serveal departments; doesn't have the time nor the experince to get involved in everyday affairs.

Like said, I'm never hid anything away from my colleagues. I log everything, document what needs to be documented at the correct time and keep them inform verbally or via email when required. It's not like I'm new to the role or to the company. So it be a mighty small report if I did one anyway! But rather having regular meetings; which is what we been asking for as forsure if he needs to know; so does my other colleagues.

I'm going to be quite blunt and honest and say that even before he was made the boss. Out of the four in the department he is the worst for:
- time management; never gets anything done on time, so people would ask us to do it instead.
- Information flow; never tells us anything about the systems that he is looking after.

So a lot of the time when I'm doing something out of scope; which is what I think he's worried about... I'm covering his butt.

Anyway; I'm prepared to walk over this, worked out how much I need to live and prepared to take a paycut not to work under such a regime. No other department operates in such a manner and in all the places I worked for; and I have worked on the road where I've not touch base for months in a row, I have never required to do this.

 

[slinxy]

Ask him what he hopes to achieve with the reports. There might be something wrong he's neglecting to tell you.

Yub that was the first question I asked him... what's the purpose of this? and his response was so he can keep track of us.
Honestly thou there will be nothing in the report apart from "Business as usual" and filled in this report.

 

[slinxy]

Create a RAG report as requested. It shouldn’t be a massive overhead if you are already providing the info into your management system.

It’s your choice of course but conflict causes more stress.

Like said, I'm cool with walking away; what stress is causes will affect him as well.

Out of interest was you not given the opportunity to apply?

No one was given the opportunity to apply, possible down to historical reasons, trust me I don't want to manage the department as it would drag me away from the technical side which is what I enjoy.

 

[slinxy]

We do this in the form of daily stand-ups just to increase visibility. It's actually been quite useful to help prioritise things and has been used to take work OFF employees who are up against it rather than to highlight those who aren't pulling their weight. The other thing we do is weekly demos and retrospectives, which have been pretty great at highlighting issues of process.

Does it feel like he's abusing the power, or could it be to try and make sure work load is spread as evenly as possible given that some of you are obviously up against it with the lack of staff? Seems like it could be used to make sure no one person is feeling the brunt of it if handled correctly...

We all look after different areas of the department responsibilities some of which are specialist tasks, like said I'm happy to share my workload, help out where/when I can and pass information around; just not in the format of a written report that waste time and is in no benifit for anyone apart from someones' ego.

To me; perhaps down to histrionic behavior of the person.. but it's so he knows what's going on, I agree he has the right to but it's in the system already, but this will just allow him to interfere and make work harder than it should be. He's not the most reasonable person, he will justify his case relentless then next day change his mind and then argue that case. In many cases in the past; we have just gone "WTF?!?" and worked around him, this includes people from other departments.

Now that he's the boss this makes it more difficult and I think he's trying to plug up the hole with the reports.

 

[slinxy]

To be honest you don't exactly sound like the easiest person to manage if this is your response. It's easy to take a back seat and criticise, yet admittley wouldn't have the cohones to manage yourself.

This.

I do this with my team and it helps make sure no effort is duplicated, share information, if someone needs help I can facilitate it and if there are overlaps in work we can avoid this. It's a positive and it helps us work together and support one another.

Pull the stick out your behind and just work with him and help the guy out.

The department itself have managed over 4 years without a direct manager, we tend to manage ourselves.. we not talking about staff that are new to the role or it's their first job. Maybe in your line of work or the way your department/company is setup it may be required but ours can't be more simpler; we look after the systems that we look after, if anyone needs help, ask... I have no interest in doing something that has never been required from me in all my working life, like I have no interest in standing in a circle and singing kumbaya. We are following industry standards, we are getting the work done, we just need more man power which was agreed years ago but if that make me difficult or **** so be it.

 

[slinxy]

nope no bitterness, I just have to keep reminding myself that I like this guy but if he's going to make my life harder; why shouldn't I be allowed to do the same?

 

[slinxy]

At the end of the day, think what you like; i've posted it and you're welcome to form you're own opinions and to post them

We are talking about a person that worked with the company all his life, in the same department so he should have an understanding of what we do and why we are doing it.
The extra man powered was agreed over 4 years ago after internal and extrenal reviews, just that no one pulled their finger out and got someone hired.

I don't think I'm resistant to change, IT changes everyday.. with tech and requirements. What I am resistant is wasting resources that includes man hours in performing tasks that isn't required. Every reason that he's given; he can look at the job management system to collect that information, there's nothing I don't log either in the system, in documentation or noted in emails to be placed into the system or documentated later. I'm all for sharing information and working together but following a request blindly isn't working together, it's imho madness when it's not required. He maybe my boss, but he has a boss too; at the end of the day, like said before... I would rather walk than to work under such a regime.

 

[slinxy]

yes, the point is that it should and is already logged in the job management system. That's the plan now; to leave.

 

[slinxy]

A weekly report isn't necessarily a bad thing dependent on what the content is and how it is used. Micro-managing in my eyes is telling people how to do a task. Asking for periodic status reports is just collating information on progress, not dictating how progress is achieved.

On the 'shop floor' some workers have little perspective on how visible the work of them and their colleagues is to managers, especially in larger / dispersed teams or where the manager has numerous other responsibilities. What to you may be 'obvious' may be less so to a manager who wants to keep a track on how things are going, visbility on progress, channel for flagging up issues etc.

I've worked with managers who required daily reports, managers who required weekly reports, and managers who required no reports. My preference was weekly reporting because I would much rather have a manager who is keeping an eye on things and giving me a regular channel to communicate risks etc, than just sitting back and letting issues develop, but equally not collecting very fine detail on a daily basis that could be outdated by the end of the week.

The logs in the management system may have been captured for a different purpose or not be very accessible. What some might describe as 'lazy', others might call 'sensible delegation'. I would much rather my manager be focusing on people leadership, strategic planning, fighting our corner etc than wasting his time hunting around trying to find out what we have been up to, how things are progressing, what risks he needs to be aware of etc. By the OPs own admission, he is "doing something out of scope" so the outstanding jobs may not accurately outline what he is going to be working on. It really depends on what MI is readily available in any case - an outstanding jobs list is not a plan for the next week; it is an outstanding jobs list, unless it is accompanied by a plan of some description.

I think your working environment and procures my be different from mine. I/We tend to have everything documented in one from or another either in documention, within the job system or in emails anyway. Doing the reports just decentralise the infomation or replicates work when it's not required. The main point is that there's no responsible reason for the weekly reports as he won't say what the purpose of them are. We are busy enough as is; the whole point of his position is to have someone to 'run the show' on a daily bases, he sits in the same office as us and can general just ask what's happening if he requires to know. The fact that the given purpose and reason behind them keeps changing depending on person questioning them.

Like said; I see the vaule and the reason why reports are required, just not in this case.