James Monroe's Blog

The state of the American workplace is so bad, the US Surgeon General has now stepped in. The same guy who warns us of the deadly consequences of smoking is now saying Americans suffer from mental and physical health problems because of stressful, sometimes hostile, often toxic workplaces.

He cites specific workplace conditions that contribute to unhealthy work environments, including “heavy workloads, long commutes, unpredictable schedules, limited autonomy, long work hours, multiple jobs, low wages.”

He says many workers face “hostile or dangerous working conditions, harassment, and discrimination.”

And he calls out toxic work cultures that are “disrespectful, non-inclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive.”

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Because according to the Surgeon General’s report, 84% of us can identify a workplace issue that negatively impacts our mental health.

So, there you go. You don’t need me to tell you that jerk bosses and lousy managers are bad for our companies and our country. Someone with much more impressive credentials than I have is saying it very eloquently.

The report contains convincing data tying employee wellbeing to the bottom line, and lays out a step-by-step process by which managers can make sure their workplaces and policies are fostering healthy, productive cultures.

Among the things managers can do: make sure work schedules are flexible and predictable, respect boundaries between work time and personal time, and build a culture of gratitude and recognition. These things come naturally to great managers, but there just aren’t enough of them, and it’s going to be an uphill battle to get lousy managers to change. Still, it’s a battle worth fighting.

OK, So Now What?

The report is an excellent read, but do you think most managers will bother? Are they curious to understand the angst behind the Great Resignation, and determined to prevent a repeat? Do they believe that employee engagement is deeply connected to productivity and financial performance?

Or are they victims of their own backgrounds, egos, and insecurities? Few of them received proper training in people management. Most of them are trapped in macho cultures where talking about mental health is for wimps. And an awful lot of them are so focused on impressing their own bosses (or shareholders) they just don’t have time to think about issues that can’t be summarized in a spreadsheet.

The information is out there now in this well-researched and comprehensive report, but we still have a horse and water problem. For the report to have any impact at all, it’s going to take managers who are confident and secure, who can empathize with their employees, who are willing to make big changes, and who understand that doing right by the workforce is also doing right by customers and shareholders.

Those managers already understand much of what’s in this report, but they can still use it to raise the level of awareness and urgency in their organizations. They can use it as a roadmap to improve their company’s culture and financial performance.

Because it’s not just a handful of good managers talking anymore, they’re now backed by the office that reduced smoking in this country by 75%, just by issuing a report.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to know how to improve the managers you have and hire managers with the potential to be great, I have just the books for you.

 

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Jerk Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

And to figure out how to hire great managers, read How to Stop Hiring Lousy Managers and How to Hire Great Ones. It’s also available on Kindle and paperback from Amazon, and its audiobook is also on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a jerk manager? Take the quiz!

Photo by Andres Siimon on Unsplash

The post Surgeon General’s Workplace Warning appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

Obviously, employees are essential to the success of any company. We need their brains and their hands to develop and build the services and products we sell. That’s why we often say our employees are our greatest assets. But we don’t really think of them as assets. We think of them as expenses, and that creates all kinds of problems.

Like finding the cheapest vendor for office supplies, we look for ways to save on the cost of our labor force. But unlike office supply vendors, employees aren’t interchangeable.

A pencil is a pencil, but people have a variety of talents and skills that may not be easily replaced.

All pencils work the same way, but people have distinct personalities and needs, and their performance and output can vary. If the company runs out of pencils for a few weeks, it will survive. Without people, it will be in trouble.

Yet we routinely undervalue our employees because we see them as costs we must control rather than assets we must protect.
I once worked for a company that decided to eliminate several jobs across the country by centralizing the duties of a group of quality assurance employees. The company kicked off a massive project to enable a handful of people in a central location to monitor the product produced at sites all across the country and sound alarms if anything went wrong. After spending millions on equipment, sensors, and connectivity, the employees were let go, and the company hit the switch on the new system.

It did not go well.

First, not only had the humans detected problems, but they’d also solved them. The new system only found problems. Somebody else needed to solve them.

Second, monitoring was only part of the job done by the humans. The rest? Somebody else needed to do that, too.

Third, the remote system didn’t work nearly as well as the humans had, and product quality dropped immediately.

There was no way to hire people to fill in the gaps. The expensive new system was designed to eliminate jobs, not create new ones. So existing staff needed to stretch to cover the tasks left undone by the new technology.

One last problem: the salaries of the employees who were let go were among the lowest in the company. Grounding a corporate jet for a little while would have saved more money. We ended up with a disgruntled, overworked staff, a degraded product, and little—if any—savings.

But the project was deemed a great success and our competitors rushed out and did the same thing.

It all made sense to the accountants. Payroll went down, and they capitalized the project’s costs, so the books looked better. But the product and morale suffered.

Was it worth it? Did we save money after calculating the costs of the degraded product? Did we see people leave the company after more responsibilities were heaped on them without a pay increase? As far as I know, nobody ever did that analysis.

Back to the pencil analogy—you spend as little as possible on them, grind them down until they’re worn out, then throw them away.

Unfortunately, that’s how too many managers think of their employees. It’s time to realize employees are capable and complex assets, not expenses like office supplies, no matter where they fall on the balance sheet.

And it’s time to hire and train managers who can recognize that and get rid of those who can’t.

 

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

Photo by StellrWeb on Unsplash

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We were warned.

For years, companies like Gallup cautioned that the vast majority of our employees were disengaged from their work. Researchers showed us that this lowered productivity and morale, and increased absenteeism and employee turnover. They said that large chunks of our workforce were considering changing jobs or careers.

And they placed the blame squarely on managers. They said that more than 80% of our managers weren’t qualified to manage people. They found that only about 20% of people have natural management ability, and that few companies have a way of detecting that ability in their managers.

They pointed to the roadblocks keeping companies from solving the problem: flawed hiring practices, an antiquated promotion process, and entrenched, old-school leadership.

We all nodded when we heard the axiom, “People don’t quit companies, they quit managers.” But we didn’t really see it.

Sure, improved employee engagement would be nice, but would it really translate to the bottom line? How could we prove it? Lower turnover would be nice too, but the rate of people leaving their jobs stayed pretty steady, so we figured turnover was an inevitable part of running a business. And the true cost of that turnover was difficult to measure. It wasn’t like our sales dashboards and budget reviews that gave us a clear view of profitability. Those were the things we measured, therefore those were the things that mattered.

So, we kept bad managers in place. If we even knew who they were—how many companies have a way of rooting out their bad managers? And even if they did, what hard-nosed executive would spend time and resources developing so-called “soft skills” in the absence of a demonstrated, direct link to financial performance? They’d be laughed out of the boardroom.

And then came the pandemic. Overnight, the world changed.

Businesses shut down. Employees who could, stopped going to work in person. Buying patterns changed. Nothing was predictable anymore and nobody knew if things would ever return to the way they were.

But as uncertain as those first few months were, we adjusted. The more we learned about the virus, the better we became at managing it. Our fears subsided. We’d fired or furloughed millions of employees, so we began hiring them back as things improved. Business began returning to normal.

And then our employees started quitting. We heard terms like “the great resignation,” and “pandemic epiphanies,” and we found ourselves powerless to stop the exodus.

The people we’d always assumed were grateful to have jobs suddenly decided they didn’t want them. When we let them go at the beginning of the pandemic, we gave them time to reflect. We gave them more time with their families and hobbies, the things that bring real value and pleasure to their lives. Then, they started comparing their new lives to their old ones: the intractable toxic workplaces, abusive managers who were free to carry on unchecked, distant and detached leadership. They remembered the price they paid to have those jobs—the commutes that took hours, the mistreatment they endured, the instability of jobs that can suddenly evaporate at an executive’s whim—and many of them decided their paychecks came at too high a cost.

And finally, way too late to do anything about it, some companies began to see how employee engagement and quality managers can impact the bottom line, and in a big way. Businesses curtailed working hours, too short on staff to return to pre-pandemic operations. They endured supply chain scarcities as their vendors suffered from labor shortages of their own. Bare shelves, unfilled orders, and sales backlogs were suddenly common.

That’s the cost of bad managers and low employee engagement, and it’s devastating. And now that we know, now that we have the evidence we’ve always needed, our organizations must change.

We can’t assume we’re ever going back to the way things were. It’s just not possible that one day, employees once again will be grateful to have jobs and will be desperate to keep them, no matter how high the cost.

We must do the hard work of rooting out poor managers and setting standards for respectful workplaces that cultivate and reward individual achievement and innovation. We must look at pay, benefits, flexible work schedules, and our own corporate citizenship, and we must make sure we are competitive. For we must compete not only with other employers, but we must also compete for time with families and personal activities, and when we get that time, we have to be worth it.

We must provide our employees with genuine job satisfaction. We must let them be involved in the business. They must feel like they have a stake in the company’s success. We must make workplaces safe for new ideas, questions, and innovation. We must listen to our employees and engage with them.

Our employees are the people at the heart of our business. More than our factories or computers or customers or shareholders, our employees are responsible for our success.

Let’s start treating them like it. Let’s give them better managers.

 

Photo by Sergei Wing on Unsplash

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

The post We Were Warned appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

It’s no secret the pandemic brought unprecedented upheaval to the American workforce.

Overnight, many of us had to learn to work from home or take significant precautions at work. Over the first few weeks, thousands lost jobs.

The pandemic shocked us out of our routines and gave us a chance to see our work, jobs, and lives with a fresh perspective. The result was an exodus from jobs of all kinds. Some people decided not to return to the workforce for personal reasons. Others changed companies, or even professions.

As millions of people quit their jobs in the first half of 2021, employers scrambled. Signing bonuses, wage increases, and flexible work options suddenly became the norm at many companies.

And while all of that is good for employees, there is still a big elephant in the room, and neither bonuses nor pay increases will get rid of it: terrible managers, at all levels of American companies.

While it might be convenient to blame Covid-19 for all this turmoil, we must ask ourselves two questions:

Would someone who felt valued and respected, who did rewarding work and was recognized for their performance, who respected their manager, their co-workers, and their company, leave their job? A few might, for family or health reasons, but millions in just a few weeks?Why has working from home become so attractive, even necessary? Is it just the commute? Or have many workplaces become so oppressive and toxic that employees dread going back?

The pandemic did not suddenly send millions of employees running for the door. Managers did.

Bad managers have created and tolerated unpleasant company cultures over the course of decades. The pandemic simply put a spotlight on it and revealed options for those who were tired of suffering.

Missed Opportunity?

Employees saw clearly whether their managers valued their physical safety and their mental health. They discovered whether the company prized process over performance, whether managers were nimble enough to adapt or mired in unproductive tradition and habit.

Employers had a chance to demonstrate compassion and flexibility. They were handed an unprecedented opportunity to support what they often call their greatest asset: their workforce. Managers who did weren’t coddling employees, they were maintaining productivity and retaining their best people. Managers who fell short did so in full view of current and prospective employees.

And perhaps for the first time, some leaders realized they have a problem. The problem, and therefore its solution, lies in the way we identify, hire, train, and evaluate managers.

Good managers are selfless. They put the needs of their teams first and prioritize the business and their employees over their own egos. They understand the importance of recognition and reward and are good communicators.

But too often, manager candidates are successful self-promoters with good-looking resumes who interview well. They’re good at polishing resumes and talking about themselves but lack the skills necessary to manage people well. Too many self-centered bullies, book lickers, and sycophants sail through the interview process, then suddenly find themselves in charge of a team.

And while their companies will train them in avoiding harassment, what they can and can’t ask during job interviews, and other risk-avoidance topics, virtually none of them will be taught how to manage people.

But no matter how lousy they are as managers, they are usually safe. Most companies don’t have a way of identifying bad managers, nor a process to train or fire them. And in many cases, their managers (and their managers, and their managers, all the way up to the CEO) are not much better.

Inept managers create distracted, unproductive workplaces and leave employees feeling unappreciated and angry. And so, when they can, employees leave.

The Solution

The only way to turn this around is to improve the way we recruit, hire, train, and evaluate managers.

Start by understanding what good managers look like. Know the qualities and characteristics of good managers. How can you be sure you’re hiring someone who will nurture and reward their teams? What character traits should you look for? What questions can you ask in interviews and reference checks to be certain?

Then develop training and mentoring programs for managers (and not just the new ones) that teach them about people management: the importance of empathy, the value of verbal rewards, effective communication techniques, how and why to create safe, discrimination-free workplaces.

Next, figure out how to evaluate your managers. Employee surveys aren’t enough, since employees with lousy managers won’t trust the company to maintain confidentiality. You’re going to have to find other ways to get the truth about the quality of your managers.

Then be prepared to act on your findings. Have a process in place to reform poor managers, and to remove them if that fails.

It sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But you’re finally escorting the elephant out, undoing decades of damage, and helping your company compete in the post-pandemic, thoroughly transparent world.

 

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

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In all areas of life, incentives work really well. They’re easy to understand—if I do this, I will get that—and they focus people on a specific outcome. We start young—eat your vegetables and you’ll get dessert—and we continue to respond to incentives all our lives.

In business, incentives are incredibly successful. Do you want your employee to do something really well? Make it a requirement in order to get a raise. Do you want your executives to accomplish something specific? Put it in their bonus plans.

And because incentives are so successful, you must create them carefully. It’s highly likely the thing you are trying to accomplish will be done to the letter, so make sure it’s exactly what you want.

If you have a shop and you want it to be clean when customers come in, it may be tempting to set a goal requiring employees to spend a certain portion of their shift cleaning. But if employees are so focused on keeping the store tidy, they neglect customers who need help, shoppers won’t be back. Your team achieved the goal you set, but that’s really not what you wanted.

Or let’s say you conclude a certain amount of turnover is a good sign managers are constantly improving their teams, as one large company has reportedly decided. So, you create an incentive for managers to achieve a specific turnover goal and reward them if they hit that number.

That’s not really what you meant to do.

You meant to ensure managers constantly optimize their teams, and it is possible that means moving poor performers out. But training, mentoring, and retaining team members may be even better. Of course, that’s not going to happen now, because managers are going to focus on firing enough people to hit their numbers. Or, as has been reported, intentionally hire people who are not qualified, then fire them to meet the quota. (Which is perversely clever: managers hit their turnover goals while protecting their good performers, but at a high cost to the poor pawns in that game.)

Possibly the most misguided incentives are those created by corporate boards for their CEOs and other executives. Like any incentive, executive bonuses are highly effective, and they don’t just guide the leadership team. Because for executives to achieve their goals, the entire company, top to bottom, must work toward them too. The executive bonus plan becomes a roadmap for everyone.

For decades, increasing short term shareholder value has been the primary goal for most CEOs. Their bonus depends on it, and that bonus usually includes stock, so the CEO is highly motivated to increase the share price.

But does the board really want the stock price to increase at any cost? Or does the board want leadership to live up to other values as well?

Where is the line?

In the quest to increase shareholder value, is it OK to break the law? Ruin the environment? Abuse employees? Endanger their health?

Is it OK to pay off detractors? Hide transgressions with non-disclosure agreements? Lie to congress?

Is it OK to keep wages so low the government must step in with food stamps and other assistance? Is it OK to dodge taxes so regular citizens are left to fund the infrastructure that makes the business possible?

Perhaps boards don’t overtly endorse any of this behavior, but they tacitly encourage it when they reward one kind of result without setting conditions for achieving it.

Maybe directors don’t think it through and consider what an executive team might do to accomplish their goals. Or maybe they do, but the incentive plan is still heavily weighted toward valuation, with diversity or governance accounting for only a small percentage of the bonus.

Here’s a suggestion

When you set incentive plan goals, make another list of the things you are not including in the plan, things like ethical treatment of employees, responsible environmental policies, or principled lobbying practices. Title that list, “Accomplishments for Which the Board of Directors Will Not Reward Company Executives,” then circulate it to the media, employees and shareholders.

You may have policies regarding these things but realize that by excluding them from the incentive plan, you’re saying that they are not as important as stock price. Is that really what you mean to say? How will you feel when your customers, employees, and shareholders see that list? How will you defend it?

Of course, no board member would say they don’t want good governance, respectful workplaces, fair wages, and socially responsible policies. But they send mixed messages when they pay lip service to those issues, but only reward financial performance.

Changes are coming. Some investors are starting to hold executives accountable for more than profits. Notably, those investors are called “activist investors,” not “responsible investors,” or “concerned investors,” but nonetheless, they are making themselves heard. Recently, shareholders have convinced Apple to include environmental, social, and governance goals in their executive bonus plan, and an investor secured two Exxon board seats by promoting a climate agenda, so change may come there too.

But it shouldn’t take activists to make boards think hard about the kind of companies they want to create and the role those companies play in society, then use executive incentives to get it done.

It will work. It will change behavior, priorities and even company culture. Because like all of us, corporate executives will eat as many vegetables as necessary to get their dessert.

 

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

Photo by Bradyn Trollip on Unsplash

The post Be Careful What You Bonus For appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

We’ve heard the slogans: “People are our most important asset.” “We want to be an employer of choice.”

And we know most companies fall far short of those aspirations, for lots of reasons.

Sometimes, it’s because their leaders say the words but really don’t understand why they should have an engaged workforce. To them, it seems like one big distraction. They really don’t believe that companies with engaged employees are more profitable and productive, and by double digits.

In other cases, company leaders genuinely want to improve but don’t know how to do it. They want to have an inclusive, respectful workplace but they keep hiring managers with antiquated ideas about how to treat people. They haven’t yet figured out that good managers don’t just have nice resumes, they also have excellent characters.

And chances are, they’re not thinking about their employees in the right way. If they really want to have respectful, inclusive workplaces and engaged employees, leaders and managers must embrace one concept above all others: they must presume that their employees have integrity.

As simple as it sounds, this presumption of integrity simply doesn’t happen in most companies. Too many businesses treat employees with varying degrees of distrust and suspicion, and their work environment is full of the evidence:

Managers hire security guards and install cameras because without those, employees would steal the company blind.Supervisors monitor company email and computer use or surely employees would spend hours watching Netflix.Rather than focus on work output, managers install surveillance software to measure employee computer activity. Because, apparently, it’s more important to make sure an employee is constantly staring at their screen than it is to have them turn out quality work in their own way.Supervisors time employee lunches and bathroom breaks so they don’t brutalize the company’s bottom line by spending a couple of minutes touching up their makeup.Managers clamp down on social media use, even though that’s how many employees stay in touch with family, because a couple of cat videos might bring down the stock price.Leaders create strict leave policies that can even prevent employees from attending funerals, because their lazy people will use any excuse for time off.

Does any of this sound familiar? When managers fail to presume employees will act with integrity, they go to extreme measures to control them. They treat them as devious adversaries, not as respected partners working toward a shared goal.

Outside of work, that’s not how we treat these people. We encourage them to become parents and homeowners. The state issues them driver’s licenses. We welcome them into our stores and banks and neighborhoods. We don’t believe they’re too shady to do any of these normal things. We assume, correctly, that most people will do the right thing most of the time, in the home, on the road, and in society.

But, when they get to work, all that changes. Managers seem to think those trustworthy citizens turn into swindlers and cheats between 9 and 5.

It’s certainly possible that a few employees are lazy or dishonest, but the vast majority of them are not. Yet, we make draconian rules to prevent abuses we imagine will happen, subject the entire workforce to those rules whether or not they deserve it, then monitor, measure, and discipline with abandon.

We think that makes more sense than rooting out the bad eggs while treating the rest of our employees with the trust and respect they deserve.

But it makes no sense at all. No trustworthy person enjoys being treated like a criminal. And the result is a workforce that feels marginalized, abused, and angry.

It just gets worse if employees try to work through the company’s own processes to express their concerns and they are rebuffed or ignored. Then these marginalized, angry people also feel silenced.

So, they talk to their friends and they post on Glassdoor, and, sometimes, they protest, organize, and talk to the press.

At a minimum, reputations suffer. When things get really bad, lawsuits abound, and regulators get involved. Everyone spends massive amounts of time and money on something that doesn’t move the business forward one bit.

But all of this can be avoided. Try to get your company’s leaders to shift their thinking just a little. Encourage managers to presume their employees will act with integrity, to assume they are honest people who have the company’s best interest at heart. Then, consider what rules and policies need to change so that managers stop controlling employees and start inspiring them. Glancing through the employee handbook with this new perspective might be eye-opening.

This kind of transformation will require managers to take a risk, though the risk is quite small. It will take transparency, so employees know that management is taking a fresh approach and can adapt their perspective too. And it will take time—time for managers and employees to learn to trust each other. But once it works, the result will be a much more positive workplace, a focused, engaged workforce, and the improved productivity and profitability that result.

 

Photo by Tim Collins on Unsplash

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

The post The Biggest Obstacle to Great Employee Relations appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

Amazon and some of its workers are going through tough times right now. News coverage of Amazon’s labor problems often refer to the company as being “at war” with its employees.

Imagine that.

It’s like an auto-immune disorder in which the mechanisms designed to keep the body healthy attack it instead.

The company’s leadership needs employees in order for the business to function, and employees need jobs to live. When one fails, so does the other.

Of course, Amazon is only the most recent example of labor strife—it’s certainly not the only one.

So why, in some companies, can’t employees and leadership co-exist peacefully? Why is it so hard for them to focus on their common interests?

Easy. An employment relationship needs three things to thrive: respect, trust, and the presumption of integrity. When a company’s managers fail to provide all three, the relationship is headed for the rocks.

Some Amazon workers claim they face unreasonable demands and have to follow overly strict rules. They say they are electronically monitored and denied breaks, including bathroom breaks. They complain of being disciplined harshly and ignored when they try to ask the company to make changes.

When managers believe they need harsh rules and strict enforcement in order to keep their people in line, it’s because they don’t trust employees to act with integrity on their own. They seem to believe all employees are inherently lazy and dishonest, so they go to extreme measures to control them. They treat them as suspicious adversaries, not as respected partners.

Outside of work, that’s not how we treat these people. We encourage them to become parents and homeowners. The state issues them driver’s licenses. We welcome them into our stores and banks and neighborhoods. We don’t believe they’re too shady to do any of these normal things. We assume, correctly, that most people can be trusted to do the right thing most of the time, in the home, on the road, and in society.

But too often, when they go to work, all that changes.

What’s different about the workplace? Why do some companies think those same trustworthy citizens turn into swindlers and cheats when they arrive at work?

It’s certainly possible that a small number of employees are lazy or dishonest, but the vast majority of them are not. Yet, we make draconian rules to prevent abuses we imagine will happen, subject the entire workforce to those rules whether or not they deserve it, then monitor, measure, and discipline with abandon.

We think that makes more sense than rooting out the bad eggs while treating the rest of our employees with the trust and respect they deserve.

But it makes no sense at all. No trustworthy person enjoys being treated like a criminal. And the result is a workforce that feels marginalized, abused, and angry.

It just gets worse if employees try to work through the company’s own processes to address their concerns and they are rebuffed or ignored. Then these marginalized, angry people also feel silenced.

So, they protest, organize and talk to the press. Everyone involved spends massive amounts of time and money on something that doesn’t move the business forward one bit. Reputations suffer, lawsuits abound, regulators get involved.

And it all could have been avoided by managers who treated employees with trust, respect, and the presumption of integrity.

 

Photo by Jarno De Paemeleere on Unsplash

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

The post Three Keys to Great Employee Relations appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

As a manager, your job is pretty straightforward: make sure the people on your team do their work as well and as efficiently as possible.

Good managers accomplish this by putting their team members first, keeping their focus on the business (not on their own ego), communicating honestly and frequently, rewarding success, and publicly promoting their teams. They seek qualified candidates who can add to the company culture and bring new perspectives to the business.

Bad managers attempt to lead with indifference and intimidation. They often focus their energies on their own bosses, leaving their teams unguided and unrewarded, and they seek sameness when hiring, not diversity nor inclusion. Poor managers can fail because their employees are not motivated to help them deliver quality and efficiency.

It’s obvious which kind of manager is better for the business. And it should be just as obvious which kind of manager is better for the community.

Because a manager’s influence doesn’t end at 5:00 p.m.

Our workplace experiences affect other parts of our lives. Most people cannot go home and block out everything that happened during the workday. Our frame of mind at work continues to affect us throughout the night and over the weekend.

When we feel good about our work and respected by our bosses, we feel good about ourselves. That sense of well-being cannot help but affect the way we behave outside of work.

People fortunate enough to have good managers feel valued. They get more from their job than a paycheck; they earn self-respect. They go home feeling good about themselves and are proud of the work they do. They are proud of their success and say good things about their companies and their bosses. They feel secure in their jobs, which gives them security in every other part of their lives.

People who are told they have valuable work skills may be inclined to use those skills in other ways, at home and in their communities. Their self-confidence enables them to influence others and to overcome obstacles in their neighborhoods, just as they do in their jobs. They know they are capable and effective because that’s the feedback they get from their bosses and companies. Their managers equip them to accomplish more in and out of the workplace.

People with bad managers don’t enjoy the same emotional and intellectual rewards. They can feel marginalized and undervalued. Their self-esteem can suffer, and they can go home frustrated and angry. They feel expendable, and that lack of security ripples throughout their lives.

When we feel undervalued and disrespected, we need to unwind, to forget the indignities and insults, the unfairness and abuse we experience or witness every day. Our unhappiness at work may spill over into our family relationships. And how can we expect discouraged, angry employees to be suitable role models for their children? What kind of future employees are we raising when all they see growing up is adults’ resentment and disappointment with their jobs?

And who wants to live next door to all that?

Manage your employees like they live next door. Help cultivate in your employees the qualities you’d like to have in a neighbor. Treat them with the same dignity and respect you’d like to receive from a member of your community.

Manage them with honesty and integrity and you won’t have to worry about what they’ll say about you in PTA meetings or at the gym.

 

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

The post Manage Like You Live Next Door appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

The latest Gallup report says all employees look for ethical leadership and companies that care about employees’ wellbeing, while younger employees also prioritize diverse and inclusive company cultures.

But are managers creating those kinds of workplaces? Most often, no.

“Employees experience your organization through their manager. If your managers aren’t doing it, it’s not your culture.”

4 Things Gen Z and Millennials Expect From Their Workplace (gallup.com)

 

To learn more about how to be a successful manager, read Don’t Be a Dick Manager: The Down & Dirty Guide to Management. It’s the management training you never got, available on Kindle and in paperback from Amazon.com. The audiobook is available from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Do you think you might be a dick manager? Take the quiz!

The post What Young Millennials and Gen Z Employees Expect appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.

The latest Gallup report says all employees look for ethical leadership and companies that care about employees’ wellbeing, while younger employees also prioritize diverse and inclusive company cultures.

But are managers creating those kinds of workplaces? Most often, no.

“Employees experience your organization through their manager. If your managers aren’t doing it, it’s not your culture.”

4 Things Gen Z and Millennials Expect From Their Workplace (gallup.com)

The post Things Young Millennials and Gen Z Employees Expect appeared first on Don't Be a Dick Manager.