Advice from managers

[ikno]

I’m a new manager and have been propelled into a team that has a poor culture and HR issues. For example bullying culture - I may need to have some firm conversations to stamp this out; and as another example one colleague is refusing to do her job and wants certain adjustments that aren’t possible. So again I’ll have to be firm that the company has looked into the request but cannot offer it and be firm that she needs to follow her contract of employment and not pick and choose the aspects of her role.

so far I have been quite nice, but not as assertive as I could be perhaps. I suppose I’m worried that because I’m giving people slightly bad news or managing them appropriately, that it may ruin our rapport. I’m worried about counter allegations of bullying too for example, as even though I conduct myself carefully there is a bullying culture within the team and counter allegations are common.

A few things here.

1. highlighting and praising positives is as important as addressing the issues, if not more so. You are wanting to improve the overall culture of the team and that means you need for the good actions to continue and to spread.
2. you can't be friends with the people that you manage, you can be friendly but not friends so you need to accept that.
3. you may be accused of bullying at some point, what's important is to know that those accusations are untrue, and the way to know that is to ensure that your behaviours and actions are consistent, follow the company policies, are fair and that you document adequately any performance discussions you have.

With regard having performance discussions with people on the team, the first thing you need to do is to ensure that the expectations are set clearly.

• does everyone on the team know what their job role is, what the KPIs are, what the SLAs are, what the company values/behavioural competencies are? You need to be certain of this, you can't just assume they know or expect that they should know.
• you start with an 'informal' discussion in the 1:1 where you confirm that they understand what they should be doing, discuss if they have received the relevant training/support, if not you arrange it, then you outline how their performance is not meeting the expectation, what they need to do, set a target (SMART objective) and agree a date to review. You make notes about this and send it to them either in a 1:1 form or an email something they and you can refer back to.
• you then make absolutely sure that you have a follow up meeting, in that meeting you either praise them for meeting the objective or you move to an 'action plan/performance improvement plan' whatever your terminology. Same process as before really but this is more of a path to formal action, you set objectives, you set reviews, you stick to regular reviews.
• if they do not meet the objective you move to disciplinary and it's on the basis of either conduct or capability.

It's important that you remain calm throughout the discussions, that you don't rise to any bait they may set, that you are fair, you listen and give them the opportunity to provide any mitigations, to tell you about personal or work issues they may be experiencing.

That’s some great advice from @FatAgainItsLettuceTime .

I think good managers have excellent people skills, which isn’t easy to quantify but is blatantly obvious when it’s lacking.

Be fair and consistent. Fair doesn’t always mean ‘equal’ but it’s about understanding individuals needs and their work style.

Listen to people/the team. Understand what their strengths are and what their challenges are.
Actually take some time to learn their role to a decent enough level, particularly for the more junior positions. If you’re managing highly skilled, qualified people then I wouldn’t expect you to all of a sudden become capable of brain surgery yourself (insert any other specialism here) but it gets peoples backs up when they feel taken for granted/belittled because the role isn’t well paid, If they know the person calling the shots wouldn’t be capable of doing the job themselves.

No one you manage is your friend, or should be. Don’t have favourites etc.

OP, be very careful with this one colleague is refusing to do her job and wants certain adjustments that aren’t possible if it's due to a protected characteristic.

It may well be that this person is protected by law, and is entitled to request 'reasonable adjustments' to their role. (And it isn't simply a case of 'we can't allow that' if that's the case)

Sounds a lot like a team I recently left.

The advice above is perfect. If it is a team similar to the one I left, they were quite childish and didn't seem to understand any of the written or unwritten rules around working and behaviour. You will have to speak to them at the level they project.

They don't have to get on to work but they have to be civil. Remind them no one wants to work with dicks.

Wow thanks for the brilliant responses. My manager has already given me good feedback to her boss so the advice has really helped x