Employee Retention From the Managers Perspective
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Little fleas have bigger fleas upon their backs to bite them.
Bigger Fleas have greater fleas and so on ad infinitum.
That's my view of management.
As an employee I may get frustrated that progress doesn't seem to be made in a certain direction because my manager seems to be dragging his feet.
My manager may be equally frustrated because their manager seems to be dragging his feet.
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I completly agree employee get frustrated that progress doesn't seem to be made in a certain direction because my manager seems to be dragging his feet.
Worst part at end of the day it is fault of employee.
Kindest Regards,Amit Lohia
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Maybe it's just me but I've yet to come across the manager that I could truly respect - team & task leads...YES - but all the managers I've come across as well as those that my friends and colleagues describe from their previous jobs - have done very well when it comes to micromanagement (ensuring that everyone's signing timesheets accurately, submitting leave applications at least 3 weeks in advance, submitting status reports at the end of each month etc...) but when it comes to the heart of it - snagging the contracts and keeping them, knowing your team members and the dynamics between them, walking the diplomatic tightrope between clients and employees - I've known only one manager who came close to having most of what it takes!!!
My pet peeve & big mental block - maybe this has nothing to do with managerial skills but definitely with effective communications - is when I get emails from executives "way up top" with misspelled words - using "your" & "you're" interchageably - as well as "where" & "were"; "whether" & "weather"; "irregardless"....aargh!!!
Could be that I've had a run of really bad (managerial) luck -
- am in the process of job-hunting right now...maybe this time I'll strike gold and find the kind of manager that biographers dream about ?!?!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
Having been on both sides of this fence I think Steve did a pretty good job of summing up the issues that managers face. A manager that has an exceptional team has a very difficult task to prove that none of his people deserve to be rated lowly.
In both the civilian and military the problem of evaluation inflation is real. Managers are human and most of them grow to like the people that they work with. At a minimum they want to avoid confronting substandard performers so the easy way around is to inflate the scores/ratings. This is the primary reason that managers are forced to rank employees on a kind of bell curve. Even though it may not be fair to some teams that have a large percentage of high performers, ultimately evaluation inflation is every bit as unfair to those employees who really do perform at high levels.
So like it or not, you are most likely competing with your fellow employees, if not for your job, at least for your raises and bonuses. It's the worst system that I can think of--except for all the others...
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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Thanks, this one was much harder to write than I expected.
Kind of like being a manager. Not a lot of work, but definitely stressful and a lot of thought goes into that job.
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"above friendships and likes and dislikes, effectiveness matters to managers"
I think this is an idealistic way of seeing the managers, from my experience friendship - buddy type of relation matters more then how well a person perform his/hers job.
For buddies there will be always bonuses and raises, but a good employee will have to justify why he\she deserve it and still might not get it. Also I think there is the view between buddies that, I take care of you now, one day you will take care of me. They stick together and they follow the leader when he/she change the job.
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I think your view is the simplistic (and cynical) one. It is unfortunately also the prevailing view of sub-standard performers who like to blame everything except themselves for their own failings. There is a very good reason why some people tend to play "follow the leader" when they move around. If you know that you can rely on somebody to get the job done and you know that you can work with that person, of course you will seek opportunities to work with them again.
I take it as a badge of honor that people with whom I have worked previously have sought me out for employment opportunities. I have worked to maintain contact and a good relationship with all but one of my former managers, and I know that every one of them would give me a good recommendation.
I don't know you from Adam, but if you have worked a reasonably long time and have never had this happen to you, I would suggest that the problem just might lie much closer than the "good old boys club" that you seem to resent.
Sure there are incompetent people who get ahead because of who they know, but outside of politics, this is the exception rather than the rule in my experience.
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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There is another part of management that makes it a difficult job. Although they primarily have to answer to their bosses they also have a responsibility to the people that work for them. I have always viewed managers as the people that remove the impediments to their employees' success. I am much more responsive to a manager's requests if he/she is successful at keeping the politics off my back so I can do the best job possible. So, from that angle, I can definitely see why some people will follow a good manager around.
[font="Tahoma"]Bryant E. Byrd, BSSE MCDBA MCAD[/font]
Business Intelligence Administrator
MSBI Administration Blog -
I've never given a raise or perk simply because I like someone. There's a very clear line between the company's interests and those of my crew, and while I consider the crew's needs as more directly impactful, it's the company that signs all of our checks. It is always an issue of how a person integrates with the team, how their project work goes, and how our customers view their interaction with the team member - matters that are of importance to the service to the company - that generate recommendations.
That doesn't stop me from going out for happy hour with members of the crew, and there are different levels of getting along with one another. However, we work with one another professionally - and it is (at least in my view) the soul of our work to always be just that, professional.
Maybe it's just me...but I'd like to think not.
T
Kindest Regards,Thomas J. Theobald
midwayusa.comUmpteen zillion products and counting for your favorite shooting sports...(and all run with SQL Server and Delphi)...come visit us at the website above!
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I tend to agree with susila. Most of the managers (atleast I have seen especially in IT) are self centered, care less for others and are just puppets in the hand of management. Their inner conscious says it is wrong but still they do the wrong thing for their own good.
I have yet to see a good manager who is altruistic to other's needs.
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