Coercive Management

[Blood Lust]

HI All

In my workplace we have about 200 staff who get rotated around every six months so they have a new manager on their team. I've inherited a group with some demotivated employees on it.

Their last manager was coercive towards them as her normal management style. Some of the staff feel bitter about it, some have had lots of sick leave days and the employee turnover rate is high.

Is it possible to repair these staff and how would you go about doing it?

BL

 

[Christine Hough]

Sounds as if you will need to make them feel valued, not just feel but actually value them and recognise their input.

Focus their attention on present / future and not the past.
Given they get the same pay and employment package with both of you, the difference you can make is to give them space to display their skills and show you appreciate.

Have fun, (not sarcastic). If you enjoy and get a sense of achievement from work it will influence others.

 

[Moneyman]

Get a team building made simple book and follow it. it is relatively straight forward. before you do monitor everything from sales to staff sickness and then you will have a fantastic little report to dump on a managers desk when you need a pay rise.

 

[BusinessDeli]

In my workplace we have about 200 staff who get rotated around every six months so they have a new manager on their team. I've inherited a group with some demotivated employees on it.

Their last manager was coercive towards them as her normal management style. Some of the staff feel bitter about it, some have had lots of sick leave days and the employee turnover rate is high.

Is it possible to repair these staff and how would you go about doing it?

Firstly irrespective of their last manager (and I've never heard of an organisation that rotates managers like this), you have to manage to your own style.
Secondly, they do not need "repair". I always get a little concerned when I read, hear or see comments such as your last sentence. They are people, not things that are broken.

 

[Christine Hough]

Secondly, they do not need "repair". I always get a little concerned when I read, hear or see comments such as your last sentence. They are people, not things that are broken.

Agree with that one!

 

[The Byre]

Here's a little method I have used several times -

Ask them to solve a problem or complete a straight forward task to which there will be a simple solution or answer. Ask them to think about it over the weekend. Chances are, they will get together and think about it as a group and come up with a plan by Monday and will want to see it through as a group.

This simple device teaches junior staff to work as a group and develop a structure. They learn how to come to decisions and how to discuss and defend those decisions. As they move on to more complex tasks, they will learn how to divide up the tasks within the group.

 

[Blood Lust]

Sounds as if you will need to make them feel valued, not just feel but actually value them and recognise their input.

Focus their attention on present / future and not the past.
Given they get the same pay and employment package with both of you, the difference you can make is to give them space to display their skills and show you appreciate.

Have fun, (not sarcastic). If you enjoy and get a sense of achievement from work it will influence others.

That will no doubt recover some of them what about the ones that resent the business?

 

[JackyBaz]

There are several team building exercises you can do to bring a team together however in order for them to work, your team members needs to feel valued and respected. They need to feel included in decisions and that their efforts are appreciated. How often do you hold team meetings and what format do they take? For instance is it about you giving them information or a forum in which ideas and issues are discussed as a team. Do you make time to have productive 1-to-1 sessions with your team? The first step in motivating your team and bringing them together as a team is to improve overall communication. They need to know that you value their opinions and are always available to listen to their ideas and concerns.

 

[marklew]

Call a meeting with everyone. Say I appreciate there have been some issues when xxx was manager here. I want everyone to understand that I am not xxx and I want you to be valued employees who enjoy coming to work.

Say you would like them to share the bad experiences and why they feel like they do and what they believe will improve it (with the intention to use their ideas (if feasible) to make the workplace better for them). If they are not comfortable doing this in front of everyone to please come and see you in private and you will listen to their issues and look for solutions.

Buy-in, a sense of ownership and being valued is what is required. Some are maybe too far gone and have to be performance managed.

Look at management of change (and apply to changing behaviour and culture), forget the name of the model, but similar to going through a bereavement and the 4 stages (status quo/denial, disruption/fear, exploration/acceptance, rebuilding/commitment), use the techniques to get past the first two stages ASAP.

Also identify the people who you need to get on-board (there is a matrix (again forget the name)), and you can map people on it to see where about they are and what tactics/techniques work best with these type of people, some will try and drag people down, some will be in-between and if you get them onboard they will 'sell' the culture to other staff members, try and identify the key people and focus on them first.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Tell them you going to take them out into the yard and knock them about .This will shock them I promise !!!! This used to work for me but I'm getting older now !!!

I'm amazed that how much drama larger companies are prepared to tolerate . How do they actually make money when they spend so much time on stupid nonsense