To think managers don’t give a hoot about their team’s wellbeing

[Mbluebird]

I guess it’s wrong to generalise but I haven’t had a genuine decent and empathetic manager in a long, long time.

I am increasing finding managers are very indifferent to their team’s wellbeing. I have been giving so many unrealistic deadlines that I am regularly logging on from 9:30 till 11:00. My managers know but don’t care. This is in stark contrast to the torrent of emails we get about well being and look g after your mental health.

One colleague was off ill for 2 weeks with stress yet our manager is still relentless as ever.

I really feel things have changed for the worse. When I started out in the early 00 things were so different. There was less talk of well being etc but long hours were pretty rare and most people were logged off by 5:30.

I'm lucky enough to work for an organisation that takes mental health and staff wellbeing seriously, and a very supportive manager.

If she thinks someone is under pressure, and that none of the rest of the team has capacity to take on some of their caseload, she makes us stop taking referrals.

Middle management is a rubbish place to be. I always tell my team not to work extra hours because they'll always feel under appreciated for it. If their job isn't doable in the time they have then there is either an issue with how they are doing it or with the expectations of the role. A good manager will know the difference and deal with it accordingly. There are a lot of people that think presenteeism gets them brownie points but that's often not the reality.

Yabu to generalise.

Management broke me, I worked tirelessly for my team and protected them from all the shit I got. It was brutal and although my team did really like me, I had to leave for my own mental health.

Yes of course there are shit managers but there are also incredibly good staff doing their best to manage teams.

I am sorry your experience is crap, it really does sound like you have a shit manager. Not everywhere is the same.

Think it's company culture. My current place takes wellbeong genuinely seriously and I know I had the room to really look after my team as best I can...other places not so much.

I’m biased as a manager of a team in public sector.
genuinely well being is a top priority, if a team member is struggling or having personal issues then they need support put in place.
if someone is not supported with well being then they are not at their best.
if I need to reduce workload and pressure at the cost of next months performance report then so be it.
no good will ever come of unrealistic deadlines or increasing demands. A person will reach breaking point, early intervention is key but the employee needs to be open about this as sometimes it’s hard to identify

I guess it’s wrong to generalise

Spot on there!

I care deeply about the people I line manage, who are all managers themselves.

I’ve had some absolute cunts as managers and some inspirational, empathetic ones.

I think I’m a kind manager.

I never make any kind of issue of childcare stuff, appointments etc. I frequently let them take this sort of thing off without having to book annual leave like others do.

I find this breeds goodwill for when the pressure ramps up.

However, (and this isn’t woe is me) I do think sometimes my team forget that 1. I’m a person too with my own pressures outside of work and 2. I do have my own job to do and it’s not just looking after them!

I had a female manager who totally stressed me and I worked till 3:30 am once , now have a wonderful male manager , I messed up recently and he’s been taking the flack and checking in on me , we need more like him

This is not my company culture at all, so I have the opposite issue where I've had to tell one of my direct reports off for sending emails and updating files online at 1 am. She is choosing to work unsociable hours and my company is flexible, but that did not go down well with our director.

But we're lucky, and I feel people often forgot that middle managers have often little influence on these things. Either the company culture does not support late working and it's your responsibility to push back on the deadlines/workloads.
Or it support and encourage this type of behaviours, and then your manager is under the exact same pressure and doesn't really have a choice.

Nope.

Support my staff through life events, promote flexibility for all and work life balance.

Actually one of my team sent me flowers last week.

But there's a whole boatload of shit ones out there.

My manager could not care less about our teams wellbeing she is vile. I love my job but struggling working under her micro managing ways. No work life balance either

I imagine it's a 70-30 split. 70 being those who do care. I've had both and it's rotten when management don't care. I had one who used annual leave to take each Friday off to use up 20 days leave which caused no end of discomfort for the rest of the team as she was counted in the one person off at any one time rule. I thought that was very selfish.
I think that 30% can be broken down into those who really do not care and those who have no capacity to care as they are under immense pressure themselves.

I care about my team and I like to think they respect me for it. Have really struggled recently with protecting them from the crap coming down from on high. There is only so much you can do and obviously I care about my ability to support my family and parent my kids well more than I care about my team. I've been pretty open with them about it and been clear they need to do the same.

I am a good manager on the SLT - 45k employees globally. I am a team player, I will muck in and get shit done in tough times every day of the week if I have to. I once started work at 4.30am on Christmas Eve to get a job done because a team member had let me down.

However (as per quoted post), junior colleagues do seem to need so much support than before in my 20+ years' experience as senior management. I'm not sure what it is. This year, I have taken courses in mental health first aid and counselling to try to offer better support.

Back in the day we said "fire in the belly" made the difference and it was an 80/20 split (20% having the fire to really progress); now it's about 95/5. There seems a real lack of resilience - not sure if it's Covid, parenting, social media...

I say this as someone who was bullied to burn out at age 49 and took a good year to recover, so I am massively sympathetic to employees experiencing mental ill health. As a leader, it is incredibly exhausting, and I spend the majority of my time taking care of people issues rather than business issues.

My manager has listened to me about issues (work and home problems), has helped me in arranging flexible hours around my childcare, supported me though multiple miscarriages, stuck up for me when I had issues with other departments, put me in my place when I was wrong but in a way I said “fair enough”, came to an appointment with me when I was nervous about it and DH couldn’t come, helped me fill out paperwork, helped my colleague with a financial crisis by finding her agencies with support, has come to an event I arranged outside of work, given me a lift home when I had a prang in the car park… I could go on. All while keeping things ticking over at work and trailblazing several new projects.

She. Gets. Results!

Goes to show that you reap what you sow because we are the highest achieving team and are very loyal to our manager. In a job that is pretty thankless.

I don't think it's the fault of managers, I think in some companies the aim is to bleed every last bit of profit from every team member, and this means a shower of shit that flows downhill.
Companies get greedy- they want maximum work from minimum resources and for minimum pay.
We hear the old rhetoric about how the business will go under unless we give blood, sweat and tears and yet year on year they celebrate bigger profits Imcluding huge bonuses for the top dogs.
They give zero care about how this impacts on their staff- management or otherwise.
Not that I'm bitter stuck in a job I despise...lol