Why is new boss being such a knob?

[Buggeroffboss]

Our old boss took ill suddenly in December last year and died shortly after. They been the boss for 20+ years, so appreciate we were all very used to them.

Following their illness I became interim boss. In April I was offered the role permanently but declined as it would mean returning to full time work. I'm bitterly regretting not taking it due to new boss!

We're a remote team, have been since many years before COVID. New boss clearly hates remote working. We do have an office, but it seats 10 people and us open to the whole business (approx 300 people) not just our department (40 people). New boss wants everyone in the office 2 days a week. HR have told him to go whistle - we are all on remote contracts and live across the whole of the UK, including channel Islands and 2 in France!

New boss is now insisting we schedule any "coffee breaks" (you know, where you brew up between meetings) and that under no circumstances are we to appear on screen with tea/ coffee if it isn't adjacent to our scheduled break. In addition he's put an embargo on lunch time errands, such as laundry, popping to the post office or collecting the car from the garage. All time is to be accounted for.

As you can imagine, morale has gone down the pan. We're a high performing department, there is 0 issues with productivity. Our work is largely invisible most of the time, lots of thinking time and idea generation which makes monitoring our day to day workloads difficult, but we always exceed our targets at quarter and year ends - so people are clearly working. In the 6 weeks he's been in there's been a noticeable change in how people are working, fewer people on early or late, most just working to their hours.

AIBU to think he's being a bit of a dick and just needs to chill the fuck out?

He’s not the right culture fit

OP, please take the job and negotiate a 4 day week

This sounds like an amazing company to work for!

Is he new to Management ? He sounds very insecure , as if he’s trying to assert his authority but going about it in the wrong way . You either need to have a word with him , have an informal word with HR or raise a grievance. Soon enough morale will be rock bottom & productivity will go down.

To put it another way, OP if you hired someone who didn't fit culturally and was causing issues within the company, if a subordinate and HR TOLD you there were issues, wouldn't you just sort it if you agreed with it? Rather than tell the person who had an issue to raise a grievance? It's just really odd.

It does sound like a big shift in management style. If the team has a strong track record and is meeting its targets, introducing lots of monitoring all at once is bound to affect morale.
It's not surprising people have stopped going above and beyond if they feel they're no longer being trusted.

Disagree. The main boss made a mistake hiring someone who is a poor fit for the business, the culture and the role.

If they decide to sack this guy, accepting they made a poor decision and correcting it is the right way to go.

Not everyone is suitable for development. This guy is wrong for the business, off he pops.

When did I suggest development?

You don't need a grievance to get rid. I can't see how one is in the best interests of anyone here and I don't understand why BB suggested.

Who does the grievance reflect poorly on in this situation? (Other than boss....)... BB (cause a grievance of that nature screams culture fit miss match which was BB hiring choice) or (if I was being Machiavellian) OP (her team is so entrenched in the old culture that she orchestrated a coup, raised a malicious grievance etc)

IMO, what big boss is saying to @Buggeroffboss is "give me the bullets for my gun, and then I will carry out the assassination". I imagine there will have to be some sort of process within the company, but it does make it a lot easier if you can point to grievances which will ultimately lead to a drop in both morale and productivity.

I agree

He is on probation
They don’t need a grievance to get rid during probation.
just need to give him notice which is usually a week during Probation

Does this mean that if people are in the office drinking tea, they can't do it at their desks?! He sounds like a total tosser.

Also, he can't control what people do in their lunch breaks.

Absolutely. I now work remotely but in my office years, at various companies, not once did anyone have any issue with people making drinks at any time of day for themselves / colleagues. I can't believe someone would take issue with that (unless it's in a job where it's a health and safety risk)

Play him at his own game. Make a thermos up BEFORE working hours and drink it throughout meetings.
He can't dictate how you spend your lunch break (as long as you take the correct time).

What he actually needs, as well as termination of contract, is a good, old-fashioned bollocking. It's deeply disappointing how this has apparently died the death - if people screw up they need to know a. how they've screwed up, b. what they should do differently next time and c. what effect they have had on colleagues and the organisation. Just passing them on to the next schmucks who hire them is negligent, IMO.

(SIDE RANT) I think there's an awful lot of people who are good at interviews, especially the competency-based ones, but who are absolutely useless in post. I used to work for one of the Big 4 professional services firms and did a lot of interviewing - we were supposed to work within a strict competency-based framework, and I did always tick those boxes, but I also asked quite a lot of random questions to try to find out about the actual person, which we weren't supposed to do. Oddly, my recruitment recommendations had a much higher retention rate than the firm's average....

Well this would totally suit him wouldn’t it? The employee makes a coffee before working hours snd then not again.
so how is that playing him at his own game?

I remember having to sit opposite the new recruit who got the job I had applied for and which I should have got. He was in the job for almost a year. He had completely lied about his history, had no idea of the job, was a waste of space and an alcoholic to boot, always swanning off for a tipple. As all staff also worked outside the office too, it took quite some time before the "problem' was realised! I wonder if your new boss was properly "vetted",or indeed is the person he purports to be.

You sound like a great boss, @Buggeroffboss.

Very pleased to hear your peers have raised the same points with BB/HR.

Surely someone else I. The house you’re working coujd have made you a cuppa - how does he know who is st home with you

Did you get the job after he left @Calmdownfolks ?

I'd be scheduling a full-on Japanese tea ceremony!

There you go then it’s fine! I don’t know the HR rules. Just some big new director at a firm I worked in (this was a few years ago), clung on for a while, disliked by a few people and then suddenly left. I’d left by then too. All my ex colleagues were told was he’d found a new job that was “too good to turn down”. The company didn’t last much longer though, their factory was transferred to India.

Submit the grievance OP. Your big boss sounds great. We are in a similar position at my work but with a new CEO. He's been in place for about 18 months now, the board love him, everyone else hates him as he is just so incompetent and has no understanding of the roles any of us do. We have lost a number of incredible staff because of his behaviour and at the moment are at a loss as to how on earth we are going to dig ourselves out of the hole he's put us in.

The job cannot be done in 4 days - I did it for 7 months and it's definitely a full time post.

Grievance is just more evidence that he's not right for the role/ company. Earlier this year I had to fire someone in their probation period and HR told me the more sources of evidence the better. So I imagine big boss is thinking along the same lines. He's a great leader and manager. I also suspect he doesn't want to be accused of trying to sweep our concerns under the carpet by "having a word", a grievance is a paper trail of concerns and actions taken.

Wait you aren't allowed to make yourself a cuppa if it's not made in a "scheduled break"? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Are you allowed to go to the toilet?

Good luck in getting it sorted! You sound like a amazing line manager

I wonder if your new boss was properly "vetted", or indeed is the person he purports to be.

There's a problem when "vetting" new employees that if, in previous roles, someone did just "have a word" or they were "let go" at the end of probation, then the previous employer only needs to write the most basic of facts in any reference so unless someone has actually been sacked they only have to say "they worked this date to this date", and (not sure) they may be able to say if excessive amounts of sick leave were taken?

That ties in with the number of cases in recent years where a company has been sued for writing anything in a reference that could be considered derogatory about an ex employee without hard proof. However if this person is subject to a formal grievance, especially if there have been a number of these or it's a group grievance, the ex employee doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Someone up thread mentioned that things could get tricky if the person has a protected characteristic which the employer could be considered to have not taken into consideration or made reasonable adjustments for. PCs over ride the ability to get rid under 2 years for no reason.

However this is only applicable if the employer has been made aware of the PC, so claiming not enough consideration had been made for say, a neuro diversity is only valid if the employer had been made aware of said ND before any action had been taken.