Any advice welcome ...

ad83

It's the middle of the night and I'm awake thinking about work

Maybe people might have some advice or opinions

Will try and lay out the situation

I work as a manager in an international bank that may be known to some people in financial circles

I manage a team of ten people who are seriously unhappy with their current work situation

The team is comprised of a few seriously smart guys(2) some very good(3), some decent(2)and some very poor performers(3) which would be standard in the industry

My issue is that all of the decent performers on up are in the process of trying to leave due to their unhappiness with how the company is run and how they are treated

Two of the better members have already resigned before securing new jobs and the rest are soon to follow

I have a very good and open relationship with most of them and they are very honest about why they are leaving which I have shared with senior management

A major problem with the company is the ability to deal with poor performers

The team will shortly be left with just three of "to put it mildly " less capable employees all of whom have made it clear they intend to stay and are not willing to do any more than they are currently doing

There is a hiring freeze at a global level and I have been told any replacements will need to be internal

I just received the first three today who are in my opinion under qualified and most definitely not in any way motivated- each has worked for the company for many years in loosely related roles

To say there is an over reliance on the top 7 is a serious understatement

I fully understand that a failure to deal with the bottom 3 has played a big part in leaving us/me in this mess but those who understand the pressure in this industry to provide results may somewhat understand this practice, not that I agree with it. Regardless, we cannot change the past and need to look forward

Wondering if anyone has any experience in dealing with this type if situation

fran38

As manager, has it been put to you by your superiors that their performance is your responsibility?
do you receive regular work supervision? Or is that a norm in financial circles? If so, bring your concerns there. Once your concerns are noted at that level, then if things go pearshaped you're covered.

ad83

fran38 wrote: »

As manager, has it been put to you by your superiors that their performance is your responsibility?
do you receive regular work supervision? Or is that a norm in financial circles? If so, bring your concerns there. Once your concerns are noted at that level, then if things go pearshaped you're covered.

Thanks Fran. I suppose supervision isn't the word but I do have close contact on a daily basis with them and have been very blunt with them about the situation. They are, in fairness, excellent to deal with and are essentially being told from abroad to deal with it. I've told them to pass it on to the big guys that they need to be ready to live with the consequences so in terms of covering my own ass I've no worries as this is on record.

Essentially, yes, their performance is largely my responsibility. The standard approach to dealing with under performers is to squeeze the rest of the team harder and avoid the problems they deem are not fixable but working our good guys 12 + hours a day is not the ideal solution

It's been put to me that my responsibility is achieve results at the end of the day

Appreciate your feedback

I should mention that the last few guys to do this job have lost the plot so I am aware that I need to consider what battles are worth fighting

Nody

So let me summarize it for you; you ignored the lazy people and put more work on the good guys who said "eff this" and are now leaving because they feel (rightly) that they have to take on an unfair amount of work.

This will be very blunt but you're not doing your job; you're taking the easy way out and blaming management for asking you to do your job (delivering the results for your department/team). If you want to do your job then you need to ride your lazy people's back and set very clear, deliverable, targets that they will need to achieve that's equal for everyone in the team. Failure by them do so goes into disciplinary hearing with clear goal setting once again and any retraining etc. required. Your lazy people need to feel the heat and you need to check their deliverable every single day, track it, share it with them, have weekly 1-2-1s discussing their results etc. to make them realize the gravy train is over.

Is it easy? No. Is that's part of the job? Heck yes! You might lose them (i.e. resigning/moving to other departments) but at least the rest of your team will not feel like they have to work their behinds off while the lazy people gets cuddled and ignored.

ad83

Nody wrote: »

So let me summarize it for you; you ignored the lazy people and put more work on the good guys who said "eff this" and are now leaving because they feel (rightly) that they have to take on an unfair amount of work.

This will be very blunt but you're not doing your job; you're taking the easy way out and blaming management for asking you to do your job (delivering the results for your department/team). If you want to do your job then you need to ride your lazy people's back and set very clear, deliverable, targets that they will need to achieve that's equal for everyone in the team. Failure by them do so goes into disciplinary hearing with clear goal setting once again and any retraining etc. required. Your lazy people need to feel the heat and you need to check their deliverable every single day, track it, share it with them, have weekly 1-2-1s discussing their results etc. to make them realize the gravy train is over.

Is it easy? No. Is that's part of the job? Heck yes! You might lose them (i.e. resigning/moving to other departments) but at least the rest of your team will not feel like they have to work their behinds off while the lazy people gets cuddled and ignored.

Hi Nody, thanks for the straight answer

I obviously agree that we drove out the good guys with this practice

The reason I blame the higher ups is I have been telling them this for more than a year. The workload is not fair to spread across 10 excellent people let alone 7

I have been attempting to discipline the three I inherited but am continually blocked in my attempts. I'm based in a country with extraordinary workers rights and the three are a symptom of this. They know their rights and know the company cannot force them to work any harder.

They are given strict deliverables which I have to measure every day - these guys game the system like you wouldn't believe and have the company by the balls

This is a knowledge business and is always driven by the stronger performers

Not looking to make excuses or look like I'm defending my poor choices but this us a battle that cannot be won I've been told

I do appreciate your feedback

Nody

ad83 wrote: »

Hi Nody, thanks for the straight answer

I obviously agree that we drove out the good guys with this practice

The reason I blame the higher ups is I have been telling them this for more than a year. The workload is not fair to spread across 10 excellent people let alone 7

To be blunt they don't care and they will never care; it's your job to work around that. Why do they not care? Because they see results coming out from your team by overworking some basically.

I have been attempting to discipline the three I inherited but am continually blocked in my attempts. I'm based in a country with extraordinary workers rights and the three are a symptom of this. They know their rights and know the company cannot force them to work any harder.

Then sit down with HR and ask them how to proceed; I've yet to find it impossible to not get it done outside of entities that refuses to sack people. Sitting down with HR also allows you to clarify exactly how the process needs to be executed to avoid any procedural issues which would be cause for a reversal of a future disciplinary hearing and ensure you're protected at all times. It's a meeting I always schedule after having gone through a new companies policies and procedures to ensure I know how to proceed and avoid making mistakes with a brief follow up meeting before I embark down the route at a later stage.

If that's the case then you take it one step up with your manager and outline what you've done, what HR has told you and ask for advice how to proceed as the following things have failed and does (s)he think these things may work instead. Make sure you can clearly outline how you tried to approach the problem in various ways and what suggestions you have; in essence bring up the problem but also propose a solution. Ensure you can back up why you think this needs to be done with KPIs to show why this is an action that needs to be done.

They are given strict deliverables which I have to measure every day - these guys game the system like you wouldn't believe and have the company by the balls

Then set new once they can't gamble in OR if they do gamble can be caught out as cheating. You need to be smart in your measurement and keeping in mind it has to be fair (even if all you want to do is fire someone the ideal solution is always that they will do their fair share instead and that's how anything you do has to be construed to look like to a third party) but that you can also use multiple KPIs.

You've said it yourself that your strong performers are carrying the team so clearly you see something different in performance; now figure out how to measure it in a few differnt ways and you have a starting point for a KPI score card. Can be calls, resolution satisfaction, $ value ec. but there is likely to be something you can nail it on. You then simply introduce the new KPI to your team as going forward we're going to measure XYZ as well, two weeks later you introduce the expected performance based on previous weeks performance and take it from there. Golden rule is what's important is measured and what's measured gets done so try to be smart in your approach. You can even have a lagging KPI of follow up performance going back 1/3/6 months for follow up resolution quality or similar if you can gamble the direct resolution.

This is a knowledge business and is always driven by the stronger performers

Then ask your strong guys to help document/train/prepare training material or what ever (this should be seen as a way for them to develop and not as a punishment for being good btw; so be careful in your approach). You WILL get new people your strong performers WILL leave, you need to prepare for that right now or when they go you'll be in even more problem.

You can never let your team be built around hidden (i.e. learned) knowledge basis because it will bite you so hard in the ass when they ask for promotion or what ever and you realize you can't continue with out them. That does not mean a new guy will be performing at 99% day one but but if you can raise the bar from 50 to 80% you've still taken a great step forward and can work from there. This also includes your job btw because if you ever want to move up you need to think of how your knowledge would be transffered to your replacement who could be someone from the outside or another team. Don't assume your replacement will be from your team or "they'll understand what I mean"; if your mother can't read it and understand then it's not clear enough is the level you should aim for (and if you think your mother would understand it then take it down one more level and you're probably about right).

This also forms a basis for you working on the "lazy" workers to get them up to speed (who may turn out simply has a poor way of approaching things). I've had poor performers become normal/good performers by having the top performers show them the tricks and ways to work they picked up which the poor performer did not have. It also gives you a chance to "field test" the material to see if it's complete (the first version never is from my experience).