I know some of you are list hounds, so if you'd rather skip the monologue, scroll down a bit.
A month ago I shared some specific ways to get ahead at work. For me it worked, I got promoted within my IT group and was actually bumped up 2 spots. As I mentioned in that post, I was promoted directly by a VP (my boss' boss), which was unusual. Since then my boss was let go basically because anarchy broke out in the group and people were quitting daily. However, it got me thinking. What if I didn't have a VP that recognized my efforts? When does the atmosphere at work get so backstabbing and bureaucratic, that there is no good process to overcome it? What if a star employee wants to grow but management doesn't know what to do or how to take advantage of the enthusiasm and motivation?
Those are all questions that I will address over the next few weeks because they are best answered individually. However, there are several things that mid-level managers can do to keep employees happy and there are even more things they can do to irritate them to the point of quitting or becoming a virus.
I polled the other guys in my group and we built a damn good list of things that our IT manager did that led to him losing his $100K/year job. Note that I left a few specific things out because I don't need anyone getting pinched. If you repeat these things successfully, you too will get your team to hate you. If you are a reporting to someone that does these things, print this and do the old Office Space under the door routine.
A month ago I shared some specific ways to get ahead at work. For me it worked, I got promoted within my IT group and was actually bumped up 2 spots. As I mentioned in that post, I was promoted directly by a VP (my boss' boss), which was unusual. Since then my boss was let go basically because anarchy broke out in the group and people were quitting daily. However, it got me thinking. What if I didn't have a VP that recognized my efforts? When does the atmosphere at work get so backstabbing and bureaucratic, that there is no good process to overcome it? What if a star employee wants to grow but management doesn't know what to do or how to take advantage of the enthusiasm and motivation?
Those are all questions that I will address over the next few weeks because they are best answered individually. However, there are several things that mid-level managers can do to keep employees happy and there are even more things they can do to irritate them to the point of quitting or becoming a virus.
I polled the other guys in my group and we built a damn good list of things that our IT manager did that led to him losing his $100K/year job. Note that I left a few specific things out because I don't need anyone getting pinched. If you repeat these things successfully, you too will get your team to hate you. If you are a reporting to someone that does these things, print this and do the old Office Space under the door routine.
- Assign enough projects with tight deadlines so that your team has no choice but to work a 60 hour week while you only work 30 hours
- Cap overtime pay.
- Do not offer project pay.
- Constantly underestimate the time it takes to get things done and then penalize employees' bonuses because they didn't hit the goal.
- Talk more than you listen.
- Tell the team to begin planning for tons of deployments but never obtain the budget to actually implement any of them.
- Don't trust written time cards. Make employees email you when they get to the office so you can see a timestamp when they get in.
- Always take sides in disputes instead of moderating.
- Avoid looking people in the eye.
- Reprimand employees in front of the entire team.
- Hire someone that is very weak to take the place of a veteran and expect the same results from the team.
- Reprimand Mark but don't reprimand Tony when he makes the same error.
- Consistency is good. Never ask you employees if they are challenged enough or want to take on more responsibility.
- Make promises to internal customers but have no idea on the elements involved in getting the task done.
- You know that Tony is a slacker, but he is really cool to hang out with so keep him around and give him good reviews.
- Suzy can take 20 minute breaks instead of 10 because she's a little cuter than Paul.
- Give your employees 2nd tier systems to work with but expect top tier results.
- Never cross train anybody on anything. The skills they walked in with are the skills they are leaving with.
- Mandate a new policy without consulting a single person that will have to live with it.
- Give employees low raises because the more you save, the higher your bonus.
- When talking to an employee on the phone, type away at your email. That's a great time to catch-up!
- When someone comes to you with an issue regarding another employee, use a lot of big words to explain the situation but really take no interest or action.
- Create a desk cleanliness policy.
- When Suzy comes in late and leaves early, and we complain, do nothing about it.
- Instead of offering to help hands-on, watch from a distance and provide support over email.
- Mandate that the entire team use a single to-do list application simply because you think it's best.
- Make your best employees train the newbies for weeks at a time but insist that all deadlines be met.
- Never answer your cell phone.
- Never be the on-call guy to share in the team burden.
- Have a group of employees that you get a long with and go out to lunch with while those that you don't like get left out.
- Send employees lots of chain letters, poems and other crap spam when they are hard at work.
- Constantly give your employees vague project plans and get pissed when the result is not what you wanted.
- Refuse to upgrade a system after the entire team asks for it and then be sure not to give a valid reason.
- Blame everything on your boss because no one will ever call you on it.
- Make all men wear ties.
- Do not let employees expense cell phone use but require a cell phone number for the on-call guy.
- Shut off access to Google and Ebay because it's not "required for work".
- Never let employees hangout and use the corp. network to play games after hours.
- Tell employees to do plan B because you will save $11 even though plan A is the safer, more efficient way to go.
- I don't care what they are working on. No one should get a monitor larger than yours
- Insist employees come to your wife's silly Barbecue.
- Give advice on topics you are only partially educated in.
- When the kudos are handed out, you should take the credit because you managed the team. Do not give credit to anyone else.
- Monitor all phone use.
- Charge someone .25 days off for a dentist appointment.
- Lecture the team at least weekly.
- Hold team meetings to provide updates even though the updates only pertain to one-third of team.
- Buy the team lunch and always forget that Vegan in the corner...he'll come around.
- Make the team fill out self evaluations but provide very vague feedback on what they type.
- Sleep with that girl Suzy on the team. No one will suspect she's getting preferential treatment.
- Call the redhead guy on the team Rusty. Everyone will laugh and you are sure to win their hearts.
- Make sure the cubicles are as close to each other as physically possible. The open areas surrounding the group will be used eventually.
- Make the entire team read a book and then set aside 3 hours to discuss it. This is sure to increase productivity.
- Let a couple people work from the house, but provide no reason for it or ways for others to obtain the right.
- Insist that employees complete projects that even you admit are worthless.
