Department Managers managing skills

[Goldberg]

Often get these type of emails from him. Funny thing is, he is either a no show or strolls in the office after 11:00am and leaves at 17:30... On more than one occasion he has been on his way to the office only to never surface...

All, We're getting slack with our start times again…. I'm seeing people roll in consistently (and randomly) between 10 and 11 (sometimes even later) – this can and often does cause significant issues where the right people are not in the office to deal with issues and we have to wait until 11 or later before we have all hands on deck. This really takes the p*** out of the rest of your colleagues that have actually arrived on time / early and in general have 1+ hours under their belts before you even start. Need to be very clear – unless there is an EXCELLENT reason you all need to be in the office between 9.30 and 10 AM – many of us are in before 10 – some even before 9. That said, I do understand that things happen occasionally that mean that you'll be late – accepted – as long it is not a consistent thing. Also, I do understand that occasionally we all put in big hours and work very late – in those cases I obviously wouldn't expect you to be in before 10 but do remember that if you start at 11 AM in general your NORMAL working day completes at 8 PM What I do ask is that if you are going to be in after 10 then you need to text and / or email me and your line manager.

So, as I often get in for 8:30am, does that mean to follow protocol I must leave at 16:30 ?? It continues...

[Goldberg]

So in continuation, this is an email that followed regarding WFH (Working From Home).

Hi All,

We are changing our WFH policy.

From Monday there is no ad-hoc WFH allowed anymore.

WFH will be granted in exceptional circumstances but requires the following conditions to be met.
3+ days in advance notice
Explicit approval from me
Explicit approval from Rob
WFH without these conditions being met will be considered AWOL with attendant consequences…

Those with a pre-existing agreement to WFH are not impacted by this change and will continue as before.

Thanks

Then:

All,

Should note that this is not because we believe the the WFH privilege is being abused or that those who do WFH are not being effective and I know that on many, many occasions"Team Skype" has been a very effective way of working

The motivation rather it is:
To allow us to work more effectively as a team, which is easiest when we able to talk face-to-face
To ensure we have more discipline over who is in the office when
Thanks

Morale boosting this!! And this is the guy who ever quarter fails to meet the deadline to submit individuals grades for the Quarterly Bonus which often results in them been paid months after they were documented..

[cassy34]

Feel free to post his e-mail address

[BertRoot]

many of us are in before 10 – some even before 9

Is that a pisstake? Many before 10? Wow well fucking done...

[Roach-Rampino]

Both the format and content of his emails are seriously unprofessional. His bumbling attempts to lay down guidelines just muddy the waters further.

This sort of issue needs to be dealt with by a very clear memo to all involved with an acknowledgement slip that the recipients can fill out and return, to then be kept on their personal file.

[Sanj[UK]]

My place is starting WFH for my role very soon simply because they dont want to pay for my parking at the new place. Bollocks.

[Goldberg]

Problem is, we have 120 people in an office designed for 80 at a push. We have 3 or 4 at a desk designed for 2 so to be honest working from home is often more productive! Personally I only exercise it when I am waiting for a delivery or something.

This is London where 'Flexi-time' is the norm. Problem is no matter what time you start, 8:30, 9:00, 10:00 - you always end up working beyond until 19:00, 20:00 or even into the early hours at times.
We do get overtime, but only after we have worked an additional 3 hours per day for free. So after 11 hours of working you get overtime for hours 12 onwards. This is each day! It does not accumulate over the week.
So you might work 20 hours one day = 9 hours overtime but then if you worked 11 hours daily for the rest of the week you get nothing.

I know we should be grateful for that, but still...

We are all starting to leave 'on-time' as instructed by line managers, but then they expect you to be available at home to continue.

It just does not all add up.. It is the case now where we all leave our Macs and Laptops in the office so we cannot work from home after hours, in addition because most of us don't have a company phone, we refuse to install 'Good' on the iPhone/Android as it creates a profile and funks settings up... If they want us to be available then they should supply phones also.

Think the main problem is we have gone from a startup mentality to now been worth £85m as we have just been bought by a much larger company ans they are slowly transitioning to their practices. Problem is he is going about it in the wrong fashion.

[Goldberg]

Both the format and content of his emails are seriously unprofessional. His bumbling attempts to lay down guidelines just muddy the waters further.

This sort of issue needs to be dealt with by a very clear memo to all involved with an acknowledgement slip that the recipients can fill out and return, to then be kept on their personal file.

He is renowned for doing this. It is just a couple of examples of someone out of their depth in the job they do.

[stevo25]

Both the format and content of his emails are seriously unprofessional. His bumbling attempts to lay down guidelines just muddy the waters further.

This sort of issue needs to be dealt with by a very clear memo to all involved with an acknowledgement slip that the recipients can fill out and return, to then be kept on their personal file.

your right it is soo amazingly unprofessional. Fortunately in NHS everything takes ages to change and there is union reps to turn to. But yeah like above most managers are shite imho, with no management skills or training

[cronus71]

Those emails are awful, good example of a person who should not be managing people. The best people who are doing a really good job are soon out the door.
Those things should be brought up in a meeting.
Plus who reads emails today? My managers emails are the last ones I read.

[Goldberg]

To be honest it is only emails from him we get. Everything else is done via Skype, face to face

[DavidF]

We do get overtime, but only after we have worked an additional 3 hours per day for free. So after 11 hours of working you get overtime for hours 12 onwards. This is each day! It does not accumulate over the week.

The whole lot of you who accept this are to blame. Does your company give out its service/product free of charge ? Do you get a kick back if the company performs well in the form of shares or cash bonus ? I just can't get my head round why people work extra hours free of charge....I am aware that many many people do this up and down the country but as I said I just can't get my head around it.
Work the hours you are paid to. If you are any bloody good at your profession then you should be considered an asset to the company. If you are an asset then wages/promotion should take care of itself. And also if you are good at what you do then the flip side is that you will be in demand, Personally I always use the fact that 1. Im good at what I do an 2. I know roughly the market rate for what I do. I use these to my advantage. I Never work for free unless it's a charity case of my own choosing. I have seen off more "managers" than I care to remember. BTW I am just an Electrician but it's all relative. I can do stuff in half the time that some others can while still leaving behind a neat and safe job. My many clients know this and always come back for more. If I were to work for free then IMHO I would be devaluing my job.
As for the original point of your op....Yes your line manager sounds like a twat lol.

[Goldberg]

Commercial Software with £12m contracts and SLA's has something to do with it.
They do give us shares and bonuses (when he puts them through) plus like to call us a 'Family'. That's with the frequent 'social' (meal, go karting etc) all paid for along with bacon Sarnies on Fridays, tea, coffee, soft drinks all gratis. But to then send emails like he did.... Makes you all think why at times.

[Mule]

Can you not go to his boss? If his boss is reasonable and you word it carefully, saying that you'd like the conversation to remain private and then word it so that it's all about concern for the company rather than annoyance at a pillock then you could actually do well out of it.

[rIKmAN]

That's with the frequent 'social' (meal, go karting etc) all paid for along with bacon Sarnies on Fridays, tea, coffee, soft drinks all gratis.

But it's not 'gratis' is it?
It is paid for (and probably more) by you and the umpteen people working upto 3hrs free overtime every night!

[Goldberg]

Rikman, true.

Mule, I do think he is on borrowed time... I won't be the only one picking up on this today. It's not as bad as some of his other antics, but he cannot have long left now.

[Sanj[UK]]

I know roughly the market rate for what I do. I use these to my advantage.

I assumed i knew the market rate for my position after my employer telling me numerous times its what I should be on, till i found a local job (same job spec) but comes with an additional 11k.

Also working for free? Fuck that.

[super mike]

It seems that shit still floats occasionally.

[blacksheep]

That actually sounds like it could be someone I know - does the company begin with a C and have they moved offices within the last year or so?

[liveseytowers]

I used to agree about the unpaid overtime, if you don't get paid for it you don't work it. But I recon once you get over a certain wage you can't really expect that and you just do what you need to get the job done. Especially if you have a decent bonus scheme.