I thought it had been a quiet chat, raising the matter of performance after the employee had been with me perhaps six or seven years. He’d been impressive and dynamic at the beginning but gradually the performance had tailed off. I outlined some of the identifiable issues and suggested he think about them and come back for another chat the following week.
The next day the employee was absent: work-related stress was cited.
Going off sick is a standard employee response to such situations. Sometimes they take a couple of days to make a point and then they are back. This case followed the other route: the employee was clearly not going to return. The union was involved and, after a bit of sabre rattling by him, a compromise agreement was reached. The employee received a substantial payment in exchange for resigning.
It was the union’s accusation of bullying that disturbed me. I didn’t want to bully anyone, merely to get the job done. And it’s bad business to have accusations like that floating around in any business. It was clearly necessary for me to get trained. I booked into an ACAS course about bullying in the workplace.
Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) is a Government body. “Making working life better for everyone in Britain” is its strapline. “ACAS gives employees and employers free, impartial advice on workplace rights, rules and best practice.” I had high expectations of the course.
Taking place a good while before Covid and distance learning, this was an in-person course. It started with a plenary session at which we were asked what we wanted to get out of the course. I kicked off: “I want to know the difference between bullying and firm management.”
“Mm, yes,” echoed the trainer. “You want to know the difference between bullying and firm management.”
After one or two others had raised questions, the course proceeded. It contained all the obvious things about dealing with employees kindly and fairly, etc, etc. Eventually the course ended with a plenary session, at which we were asked if we had any questions.
“I want to know the difference between bullying and firm management,” I said, since the matter hadn’t even been mentioned during the course.
“Ah yes,” said the trainer and then paused. “It all depends on what side of the fence you are on. If you are an employer, you call it firm management: if you are the union, you call it bullying.”
And that was that.
The whole Dominic Raab situation is based on the myth of perfect management. This is the absurd notion that perfect management results in a contented workforce, perfectly carrying out all their functions. If there is under-performance or, God forbid, discontent in the workforce, the management is imperfect and any fault is theirs.
Those of us who have had significant experience as employers know that, in today’s workplace, effective management is impossible to achieve because of the myth of perfect management. Right from the beginning we expected Dominic Raab to get the chop.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
At least the trainer was honest
Thanks for this; interesting.
A friend from one of the utilities supervised a team of workers in Liverpool. Any kindness by a manager was seen as weakness by the workers and was exploited to the full. It was essentially open warfare.
He not only had to ensure discipline but anticipate all the workers’ scams and gather sufficient evidence before taking official action.
A question like that should be immediately met with a counter-question: What’s your idea of firm management? Until this has been defined somehow, any conversation about it will necessarily remain an exchange of platitudes. For the given example, it’s easy to see why it was regarded as bullying. This should have been a set of orders of the form You are doing … but you should be doing … instead. That’s something people can comply with. Unspecific performance shaming combined with a latent, equally unspecified threats is useless for anything except stressing out people. Leaders have to lead, ideally by example, and where that isn’t possible, as in much of the modern working world, at least by giving clear orders. I’m more powerful than you and hence, you better pay attention to my nagging! doesn’t qualify.
Doesn’t the right approach depend on the employee? Some employees would appreciate very clear instructions, others might prefer to be given some vague hints and work out for themselves what they should be doing.
That’s a bit of a different question. If the issue is one of work performance, I think (I’m still absolutely no leader of people) it should be detailed what the supposed problem is and what the remedy is supposed to look like. Or try a different approach altogether, maybe something like I’ve noticed $detrimental change. Can you tell me why this has happened and what could be done to improve it again?,
this being based on the presumption that there could well be another cause than just plain laziness.
More generally, some people would always prefer to operate like computers, ie, these are the steps you have to perform in that order (and then, the desired outcome will hopefully manifest itself). Replacing these with computers might be a good idea (if feasible). Otherwise, it’s the objective that needs to be clear and insofar people need help accomplishing it, it should be provided by lower order leaders with more experience.
NB: This is essentially so-called mission tactics, invented by the Prussian/ German army in the late 19th and early 20th century and later on universally copied due to its successes.
“If the issue is one of work performance, I think (I’m still absolutely no leader of people) it should be detailed what the supposed problem is and what the remedy is supposed to look like. Or try a different approach altogether, maybe something like I’ve noticed $detrimental change. Can you tell me why this has happened and what could be done to improve it again?,
this being based on the presumption that there could well be another cause than just plain laziness.”
Yes, I would agree. I think you have not-so-well-hidden leadership potential.
I’m capable of understanding the theory. I couldn’t put it into practice because of lack of people-handling skills.
Well I don’t like to feel I am being “handled”. I prefer someone who comes across as blunt or even rude, who is being honest, to someone who is trying to manipulate me. I’m not advocating deliberate bluntness or rudeness, just saying that “people-handling” may be overrated. I suppose someone with a fragile ego might require more care.
I’d like to submit this as exhibit A for the statement I made: You interpreted it as something entirely different and much more negative than what I meant to express.
What I was trying to refer to was this everyday stuff everybody just takes for granted, eg, meet & greet & exchange the proper social platitudes for that (I probably shouldn’t be calling them platitudes). I don’t really understand what purpose this serves and I can’t really do it, at least not convincingly, either. And this extends to a great many other social interactions and/ or behaviours. Eg, people usually like to sit together and talk and can literally do this for hours on end. I’m wondering how one can manage to do this at all (there cannot be so much stuff to talk about on this planet, especially of the pub talk kind, can there) and apart from that, I prefer to walk on my own and think about things and maybe talk to someone once or twice per week (but certainly not to everyone every week) if I think there’s actually something worthy of being said.
I like to talk sometimes but equally I like being around people who don’t feel they need to make small talk – it’s very relaxing.
I think it depends both on the employee & the employer.
The employer may value initiative & creative solutions, may have selected his employee with half an eye to this ability, & may be delighted to give them such space to be self motivated.
On the other hand some employees are incapable of such an approach & need firm inflexible instructions.
So a potential source of friction, unfortunately, between colleagues.
But some employers can be just the opposite. It depends also on the task(s)…although less than one might think.
For instance, a consultant engineer friend of mine was allowed creative space by one enlightened employer, & absolutely not by another.
The atmosphere in the latter workplace was considerably more stressful.
I somehow doubt the majority of uncivil servants have developed much creative thinking.
I knew one who wrote Priti Patel’s speeches.
She more or less hated her & was obstructive.
Indeed
Who’d want to work for a politician?
Ironically, it’s probably best to treat all employees with contempt. That way, no one is being singled out and equality in the workplace is assured
It’s not a great surprise that the charge of “bullying” is raised by slithering serpents. After all, they get paid whether they work half as hard or twice as hard as their colleagues. They’re surrounded by colleagues who all think they’re the cream of the crop. They are expected to take a substantial number of days of ‘sick leave’, no doubt suffering from ‘stress’ and when they retire they receive an incredibly generous, taxpayer funded, final salary pension.
And you expect me to do what you tell me to do Minister?