Recording 1-2-1s with Line Managers

[NickK]

This is a terrible idea - what would your friend say if his line manager asked if it's ok if he started to record everything in the workplace out of the blue? - maybe miffed?

If he's concerned about being messed about in 1-2-1s etc then they should try and subtly (as possible) summarize the 1-2-1 after each one and send it on an email to his boss afterwards as a way of recording/controlling the agenda. However this approach is pretty passive aggressive to.

..But you're friend really needs to start looking for a new position tbh

I agree recording without people's knowledge is a no-no. Also it may come over as a bit defensive or possibly formal HR process. Meeting minutes are the tried and tested approach to this (as any war of words agreement). Updates on those dated, specifically identifying blockers or impacting issues (the boss is meant to be helping remove those right?!?).

In reality if there's an objective set for a performance review it should be in the HR system otherwise it's not really a performance objective..

It does sound like a performance issue - but it can be the boss pointing a finger and attempting to justify it for the boss' own bad performance.

 

[Freefaller]

This is a bit vague tbh.. mate. Messed around how? Are they asserting that he's missed some objectives they set? Are they claiming they claiming he was due to carry out some tasks/meet some other objectives he's saying he was unaware of? Are they changing objectives continually? I guess the latter is something he'd need to suck up so long as they can acknowledge prior work and that objectives were changed after he'd be working on other things or towards different goals.

Are these annual, monthly or weekly meetings?

Annual objectives ought to be put in writing for sure, I can certainly see a weekly or monthly meeting not necessarily having minutes/notes though and just being a brief thing.

Openly recording could come off as a bit weird and discretely recording is the sort of thing people might do in advance of a tribunal, by all means if he can do it totally discretely and as a personal record do it but I'd not advertise the fact.

One thing he might consider doing, rather than just emailing a meeting summary, is just to drop a weekly update e-mail to his manager say each Friday, just a brief few lines or bullet points checking off his progress on whatever things he's working on, and maybe the odd comment about stuff the manager needs to chase perhaps [X still outstanding, still waiting for Y from Z team, have chased are you able to escalate?] etc.. and then in the bottom part of the email perhaps mention the objectives and which are met, in progress, ongoing etc...

That might help solve his issues, just being visibly productive if there are issues between him and the manager - does the manager know what he's been doing day to day? Like say these objectives are monthly and he's updating this weekly email and showing progress towards them then at the next month the manager is like "oh what about issues B and C" well he's sent 4 emails during the past month showing exactly what he's been working on with the objectives at the bottom and maybe [completed] and [in progress] , [to be done] etc.. next to the objectives and the manager hasn't said anything by then??? Perhaps that regular email then means that sort of thing would be less likely for that to happen - even if the manager is disorganised and this new task/objective comes in mid-month and he forgets he's not told your mate about it.. well they've got this regular email now and they can both refer back to it at the next 1 to 1 meeting. And before that meeting, the manager may well see on one of the emails that matey isn't working on the thing he's going to ask about next week and then realise he's unaware of it and mention it to him.

I had a chat and this seems to be the issue:

• regularly excluded from meetings (i.e. team/department meetings) therefore missing out on key information
• Every time they agree on progress, and he delivers work based on the requests it's never "good enough" or doesn't seem to land
• He feels he's had to re-do his work dozens of times and basically not making any progress
• Whenever he delivers things it's either said he can't publish it, or has to be reviewed, and it's never reviewed and ends up disappearing, only for 6 months later to become the most important thing, and gets no recognition or asked to get involved despite having already done a significant amount of work towards it.
• His 1-2-1s are basically the same every single time and feels like he's basically not making any progress.
• He's fed up that his manager doesn't have his back or seems to push his agenda in senior meetings and feels "forgotten"

I think I'm going to suggest that he minutes the meetings sends them to his LM. Then keep a log of what he's up to and how it aligns to this role and business targets so that there can be no issues with him. If he keeps a log of his work it'll be useful for him to showcase what he's done but also from a professional development perspective give him some encouragement that he's actually done some good.

He has good working relationships with the rest of his peer group - he just seems to get blocked at doing more and actually trying to deliver stuff - there's a misalignment of what his LM thinks needs to be done and what actually needs to be done.

From the sounds of it to me it sounds like the LM is out of his depth or is clueless at managing teams/people or driving projects forward and is a bit of a prevaricator with a lot of smoke and mirrors... but I'm only seeing 1 side of the story, but being a good mate, I would tend to be on his side.

It's so hard to be the man in the middle of these conversations! However it's so good to be able to share things with a wider group and keep some sort of anonymity means that no one gets hurt or have repercussions!

Thanks again for all your insights.

 

[HangTime]

Meeting minutes sounds good to me but to be honest if you're in a situation where you need to formally minute all your 121s (as opposed to just personal notes for your own reference) then it's a bit of a faff anyway, I wouldn't want to work in that environment.

As for voice recordings, I'll be honest, if I was a manager and a team member wanted to record our 121s I'd (rightly or wrongly) feel like there's some sort of issue going on and/or be more cautious with what I say, plus start second-guessing the way they phrase everything which again probably isn't a great situation to be in. Being able to speak freely in a 121 without fear of reprisals is quite liberating and helps you get deeper into honest conversations that you don't cover in group meetings.

 

[Freefaller]

So a bit of an update, he has found out that his LM and the CEO were discussing getting rid of his department! Which is why he was struggling to get anything moving and finding blockers everywhere! Hence the toxic behaviours.

Anyway since then his LM has moved onto a different role within the org and there's a new CEO, however, he has also moved to a new LM in a different part of the business and he's SO much happier.

He did start to minute his meetings and share them back with the toxic LM, what happened was that the LM cancelled his 1-2-1s, as he didn't like the fact outcomes were being recorded (this is a guess).

When the new CEO landed he did make suggestions of how to reset things to her, and she was quite proactive and saw what his team were able to (and have) delivered, and is now flourishing. Have to say sounds like a great move by the company and a breath of fresh air with the new CEO and LM!

 

[OspreyO]

Progress at least.

Reminds me of a line manager who left. Never thanked their team. No one in the team was ever invited to meeting. Then it turned out the manger had been taking credit for other peoples work in the meetings. Amazing how people can be so manipulating.

 

[Rroff]

Progress at least.

Reminds me of a line manager who left. Never thanked their team. No one in the team was ever invited to meeting. Then it turned out the manger had been taking credit for other peoples work in the meetings. Amazing how people can be so manipulating.

Had a manager like that once - career driven and trying to climb the corporate ladder, taking all the credit and unreasonable expectations on staff so as to try and progress his prospects. Karma got him though as they reorganised the corporate structure and the site I worked at dropped down a band - so he couldn't go from there to what had been the next level up but had to spend another 1-2 years doing it all over again at a site on the same band as we used to be hah. Horrible person.

 

[Ali195]

Sounds like the usual shenanigans of trying to manage someone out of a job. As mentioned, email summaries are usually a first call and then you may as well get another role if the firm is big enough or leave because unless other managers are on your side (eg they’re not aware of this attempt at managing you out), it won’t help.

 

[Lopéz]

Interesting question and outcome - seems the person was right to have their concerns.

On the subject of documenting 1-2-1/review meetings; around half the jobs I've had this was mandatory, the other half not.
When I was a line manager I always documented 1-2-1 and review meetings with my team.

I'm not taking literally recording, but things like "We discussed XYZ, Jenny will to A, I'll do aB, we agreed to look at C in a few months", that sort of thing.