Does anyone else’s manager do this? Micromanaging driving me nuts

[Mog09]

In my job I get a lot of emails, most do not need actioning immediately so I usually just close my outlook tab and check it periodically throughout the day so I don’t get distracted by the emails popping up.

My manager has a habit of messaging me throughout the day saying ‘have you seen x email, I think you should do this’ or ‘on this email for x, can you do x y z’. Usually I haven’t seen the email yet as in most cases it’s literally been less than 10 mins since I received it!

Its starting to wind me up as firstly it feels like he has nothing else to do when my team is really busy, and I wonder why he’s being paid so much more than me to literally make actions off my emails. It also feels like micromanaging, I have a team of direct reports and he’s quite often giving instructions like ‘can you ask x person to look at this’, I was usually planning on doing that anyway, had I read the email as soon as I received it!

Anyone else’s manager do this? Other managers I’ve had are much less hands on and even if cc’d would just leave it to me. Is there a strategy to stop it? I literally feel like logging off and saying why don’t you just do my bloody job!

I have a co-worker who does this. I ignore him.

Your manager should trust you to do your job. If he feels that he has to remind you of things then you should be on a performance plan

I'd put this to him, ask if he trusts you and does he believe you're a capable manager and can do your job, tell him you've noticed he's constantly asking if you've seen an email and is this off the back of feedback that you've not responded, if he says yes, ask to see the feedback so you can address it. Id word it like this as you don't want to go in all aggressive and you need to maintain a relationship, I'd want to find out why he's acting like this, if this is his management style then he either needs to change or will run the risk of losing a valuable member of staff

By the way I stay in my job because my manager leaves me to do my job with very little managing

I had a line manager like this. He was a bloody nightmare - I used to ignore most of his queries and then at the end of the day respond with one message. He also wanted endless reports from the team.
He had too much time on his hands, no imagination and went to boarding school so found it very hard to cope if anything fell outside a planned schedule!

I'd respond once towards day end, and if he keeps at it ask him - in writing - if he has concerns re your performance. Otherwise, needs to let you get on with managing your own time

But this may not be the case. often the micromanging (well usually) is about the manager not the member of staff. Sometimes can be an (unfounded) lack of trust, or a founded one but where the manager won't have a direct conversation so does it by the back door.

Agree. I left my last job due to a new manager and her micromanaging of just me. I had been there longer than her and knew the business standards by heart. She would be nice with me one minute and annoyed with me the next. I could be talking to a customer which is a major part of my job and she would come up and ask me what I was doing as if the customer wasn’t there and the customer is looking at her dumbfounded since it’s quite obvious I’m assisting someone. Berated me in front of customers because of a misunderstanding on her part and I’m trying to diffuse the situation. She nearly gave me a red mark for communication in my appraisal because I was almost late which was very rare for me and I didn’t call, but I was less than a minute away from the store. I arrived and she stopped me after I put my things away and before I could sign in. By time she was done questioning me, I ended up clocking in late. She erased it but she already had it down beforehand and that was the only reason she gave me for it. Add in insults about my home country in front of colleagues and making me dread coming to a job I enjoyed working every time she was on, I had enough. Worse part about it, I was one of the high performers and met my numbers despite only working the weekends. I dread any employer calling for a reference because I have no idea if she is still there and what she would say.

@PastaLaVistaBabee

I can’t second this enough, the comment from @Kanaloa …

I know you say you wouldn’t expect supervisees to respond to their emails out of work but it isn’t really appropriate in most jobs to be emailing those who report to you through the night. Despite your words saying you wouldn’t expect them to reply, your actions of feeling you can send them work at any time of the day or night could definitely make them feel they have to be constantly available to you. Unless obviously you make it clear when they are hired that they should turn their notifications off when they leave because you tend to send work emails at any hour.

If you need to send an email, try an experiment where you send it to yourself first and in the morning, resend to the intended recipient( s ).

Large company I worked for had a virtue signalling moment from the Board of the company telling people they shouldn’t feel like they had to respond to emails out of hours.
If they gave a damn, they should have told people not to send the emails in the first place, just wait till the day starts.

I get this and I’ve done it too where there is an issue with one of my direct reports, but don’t you think it is a good idea to tell them why you have an issue with their performance and discuss the steps in place to manage it eg i am going to be more clear with your task list? If it was a problem with my work I would have expected to hear about it in my one to ones as well.

It depends a lot on the culture of the organisation you work it.

I moved about eight years ago from a culture which was very laid back, almost no supervision other than when you got into trouble, to one of absurd micromanagement. It was a huge shock to the system and it took me a long time to adjust. I used to have managers demanding to read and emails I sent. As someone who had 20 years' experience in a similar role I found it profoundly belittling.

I still think that this level of micromanagement is unhelpful. It just serves to make people feel undermined and patronised. But to some extent is is the way of the world, particularly in commercial, client-facing organisations. Some people just like a very structured approach to this sort of thing.

I've kind of got used to it now.

I had a manager who does this. Well I presume she still does as I got out. She was nice but just obsessive over details she didn't need to be. For context, it was a local authority type place so not her own business. There were a lot of people leaving for what I believe were similar reasons to me. Strangely, I've recently heard the manager has handed her notice in after the fifth resignation in 18 months.

Have you fed this back? Asked for a meeting to discuss?

I would raise it with him directly. Say you find all the messages and steers quite an interruption, so please can you stop doing it and I'll action the emails in the focus time you set aside each day to do this. If there is anything you need his steer on then you'll come and ask him.

I had a manager that insisted on an email for every change I made on the network I was supporting.

We got a new core switch that needed configuring. A bit of code and he had 5000+ emails in his inbox on a Friday afternoon.

So worth the fallout!

What's the negative opposite of a micromanager? A macro manager? That's me. I feel like I never check on what my team is doing, I just tell them to blame me if it goes wrong. I'm sure this level of uncertainty doesn't work for everyone. Someone must like being micromanaged?!

Could you just respond with literally ‘ok’ or a thumbs up emoji each time? Something very bland and robotic. He might give up.

Just email them to say that when you are in the middle of one task you close down your emails so you are not getting constant interruptions. Say that you check the emails frequently throughout the day, but you don't want to be continually bothered by incoming mail diverting you from what you are doing.

Come to think of it, why is your boss checking your email inbox in the first place? I can understandthem doing it it when you are off work, but not all the time.

I've voted YABU because you close outlook and only open it periodically. As a manager I'd be exasperated if one of my team did that. I do have to chase some one in particular of my team with follow ups to emails as they are not reliable. Are you reliable? Honestly?

I email my supervisees all the time, even in the middle of the night because it's how I work and I try and action emails as soon as they come in, or in one evening stint, rather than let them pile up. But I wouldn't expect those I manage it supervise to look at their emails more than they want or need to and I wouldn't expect them to respond outside working hours - ever. Maybe your manager has similar expectations but you feel he/she wants a response straight away? Can you just broach it with him/her?

The problem with having a senior colleague email you in the evening / night is that it means it really isn't okay to say that unfortunately you are too busy to pick up XYZ right now ... because, after all, Sarah emailed you about it at 1am! So there's no chance you are as busy as her.

The other risk is that the people receiving emails at night may end up thinking that the sender is either inefficient or a bit weird. Even if you are really important, you should have other things to do than send work emails in the middle of the night.

Reliability has nothing to do with it. It depends on what your job is. By only looking at emails at set times I have more time to focus on my actual work without too much distraction. I have even been known not to check emails for a whole day! Strangely, I am known for my reliability because I get things done on time. This is probably because I haven't wasted time faffing about with pointless emails.

Sounds like YABU for emailing when you need a reply so quickly. That's what calls are for.

This is pretty much always on the list of recommendation for time management/ efficiency, so your exasperation goes against most advice.

*It depends a lot on the culture of the organisation you work it.

I moved about eight years ago from a culture which was very laid back, almost no supervision other than when you got into trouble, to one of absurd micromanagement. It was a huge shock to the system and it took me a long time to adjust. I used to have managers demanding to read and emails I sent. As someone who had 20 years' experience in a similar role I found it profoundly belittling.

I still think that this level of micromanagement is unhelpful. It just serves to make people feel undermined and patronised.*

I am in a similar position at the moment with my current job, it's demotivating.

When I say periodically I mean once per hour or so, I figure most people can wait that long for a response. In fact we are often told by very senior management to delay sends on our email messages to avoid getting in a back and forth. We also have Microsoft teams and there’s the phone if anything is super urgent. Although it’s usually on teams that my manager decides to message me ‘have I seen this email’ 😀

Can you change your Teams status to say you're focusing on some projects so will check messages/emails periodically. For anything really urgent, contact you on your mobile?

You can mute the chat on Teams, which I have found very useful 😊

very good idea to turn off emails,
it is recommended to work like this
can you mute the messages from your manager
let your manager know you will look at emails at a later point in the day