I'm a new manager (and being taken advantage of)...
Dear JobDig: I am a new manager and I am being taken advantage of. The girls who work for me cheat on their time cards. It is not much, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there. How do I solve this problem?—Mr. Green
Dear Green: Welcome to Management 101. It is a
real dilemma isn't it? If you call them on it, you will be
small-minded, part of ‘management,' or
worse—overly concerned with meaningless details.
If you say nothing, they might have no respect for you as a new
manager. You realize that this is a small step on a very slippery
slope. Take a wrong step and you could well slide all the way back
down the hill.
You have some choices of ways to respond. Which one do you
choose?
"What's up with your time card? I saw you come in 15 minutes late last Monday? You gotta be correct here (direct)."
"Some of us are hedging a bit on our time cards. Can we all be a bit more careful on how we fill them out in the future (team-oriented)?"
"I know this time card thing is a real drag to do, but ‘they' want us to do it (us vs them)."
"Hey, glad to see you worked more hours than I thought you had last week (sarcasm)."
Let's go through the answers one at a time.
Direct. A direct confrontation is often best. It
establishes that you are in charge and that you are honest,
forthright and willing to call them on the smallest issues. If you
are attending to all the details like this, performance will
improve as will service.
Team-oriented. The old teamwork approach appeals
to a lot of us. It is easy to call the entire team together and
make it seem like we are all working on the issue TOGETHER.
Hogwash...they all know who the culprit is, and bringing the team
together is disrespectful of all their efforts.
Us vs. them. The old them vs us game just doesn't
cut it when you are a first time manager. It's time to grow up and
act like a manager.
Sarcasm. It works at home on your kid brother,
this sarcastic answer and tone. It hardly ever works in the
workplace…not to say it isn't tried. It makes you
look small, somehow.
I am in favor of answer number one (can you tell?). Obviously, it
bothers you and it simply isn't worth the machinations to avoid a
direct response. Take care of it quickly, unapologetically and find
something bigger to work on. Don't waste time worrying about how to
handle this issue…do it right, do it quickly, and
do it one on one, not in a group.
