I’ve inherited a difficult team - advice please

[Knitonepurlonee]

This is an admin/support team which has a reputation in the wider organisation as being quite difficult, reluctant to change, very hierarchical (ie the longer term PAs/exec assistants run the show).

Three separate managers have come and gone in the last 18 months - all citing the difficulties managing this team as the reason they’ve left. New hires to the team are not staying.

Ive been here 1 month. At the beginning I had a general team meeting to set expectations around time keeping, productivity, behaviours in the workplace etc. I was openly challenged by two members of staff around my behaviour 🤦‍♀️ ie so will YOU be coming in on time everyday, will YOU be doing x/y/x. I refused to get into a discussion with them around this as I have no reason to defend myself, they were clear they mean managers as some vague body of people.

Ive held 1-1s with all members of the team and there are very clear issues.

the older established team don’t think there are any issues in their team, it’s either the new people couldn’t cope or the managers were rubbish.

the newer team members who have stayed are clear it’s a toxic environment, bullying, gossiping, intimidation if you speak out against the clique of the “A” team.

Everyday going into work is like dealing with a bunch of teenage girls. A constant stream of women in and out of my office to either tell me Sue did this, Mary did that.

Ive got one off long term sick with her mental health because a previous manager put her on a performance plan. I’ve got one off sick with her mental health because she had an argument with another member of staff who told her she was a bully.

There is a complete refusal to adopt different ways of working because “this is how it’s done, you don’t understand our department” (to be clear these are things like switching from paper to electronic systems which other departments have been using for years).

It’s bloody chaotic and feels like the lunatics have been allowed to take over the asylum.

Please give me words of wisdom/advice!!

Identify the ring leader/s, look for issues and put them on a PiP. If they did their heels (and they will) keep taking it further. Force them out the door.

Sounds just like my workplace. If it's a mental health NHS Trust in the NW you have my sympathy. If not, have some cold comfort that you're not alone...

Get an external consultancy to come in and review the dept to get sense of what best practice is and how you need to change to move towards it. Having an impartial, external view can be really helpful in unsticking long standing issues like this.

Split the ring leaders and worst offenders up. It’s the only way

I’ve worked in environments like this and I can totally sympathise with you as the new manager coming in - it seems like you definitely have your work cut out for sure. It appears that you’ve got a team that are hesitant to change and with so many manager changes of late, they’ll probably be thinking that you are just ‘another one’.

The older team probably don’t see that there are any issues because they’ve worked together for so long they know no different, but you have been hired as the new manager and inevitably you will make changes. You’ve got to get the buy in from them and explain - it will be tough with these people on your team who seem to be making your life difficult but be persistent with it.

They’ll either crack on and adapt or they’ll leave…. And if they don’t…. Well.. you can performance manage them out of the business. Just make sure you follow the process otherwise you could possibly have a tribunal case on your hands…

I've had this situation, it was really hard to sort out and it took about 18 mo of hard slog. I remember being shouted at in meetings, all the going off sick if they didn't like something etc etc.

As you well know, they have been successful with their approach and are very confident it will get them the desired result. For this, just make sure you are applying the policies, and follow through. You can cut through it if you're tenacious, but it is a lot of energy.

A couple of key things - firstly, the active support of your manager. You won't be able to do anything with that, aside from anything else you need someone to lean on when the going gets tough.

Secondly, whilst you have bad apples, you will also have some people who don't like it. You've mentioned the newer people but there will be at least one on of the older staff who feels uncomfortable. Seek them out and get them on side. Allies among them is key for you.

Thirdly, look at shifting some of them on if you can. Make it clear where the door is, a subtle way to do this is to enthusiastically bang on about career development and how supportive you are of it, talk about how beneficial moving around has been for you. At least some of them will already want to actively leave, I actually arranged managed moves for one or two of the people who were rotten apples about actually could do some work and would be much better when separated from the pack.

Finally, there are generally two categories of people who participate in this sort of nonsense. The first is people who just aren't very nice - not much you can do about those. The second is people who are acting out - basically they have a problem and they react with bad behaviour. If you build trust with them and engage with them you can usually find out what that problem is and solve it for them - and this is usually highly effective in curbing their behaviour whilst also building trust.

Honestly it's one of the hardest things you will ever have to deal with in your career, don't be hard on yourself if you feel you want to give up and move on like the other managers. But it is satisfying when you get to the end of it!

Do PM me if you'd like more info about the truly grotty and very similar sounding I've just finished sorting out (I'm also public sector).

You need HR on board and external Change Management consultants if your organisation can afford them.

I'd start by making small changes, focus on timekeeping for eg - that is a contractual thing - and work up to there.

So good to see all the decent support and advice in this thread. This stuff is so difficult and why I gave up working with people!

Some great general / overall advice upthread OP, but I’ll add a specific for 1:1s you may find useful. When I was in a similar situation, I’d have the organisation’s values up on my monitor during every 1:1 with the troublemakers / ringleaders, and I’d ask them if they thought [whichever undesirable behaviour of theirs I was tackling that time] was consistent with the company’s values. If they tried to bluster I’d ask them to read the relevant sections and describe to me exactly how their behaviour matched the values (it never did and they never could). The trick was always to make it a question and make them (try to) justify their actions, rather than deliver another lecture they’re deaf to by now.

Your department / trust / whatever will have resources you can use - policies, mission / values statement, MI data - so familiarise yourself with them and use them. It’s much harder to argue against something when the way it should be is literally in black and white in front of them and you’re asking them how they match.

speaking as a public sector worker of more years than I care to admit….I’ve seen managers come & try to immediately change working practices without discussing benefits with staff.
many of these changes come without any staff training….I remember receiving dozens of emails/ communications asking to ‘scan the QR code’…this was a few years ago & no one had a clue what a QR code was, how to scan it & by the way what’s that chequered box thing at the bottom of the mail?
Change can be done but managers need to be fair, approciable and clear with communications. They also need to understand any training their staff will need to deal with new working practices.

Private sector worker here and agree 100%. We had one CFO who had our manager harangue us for 'not meeting his expectations' when he'd been in post six months - the expectations he hadn't actually bothered to communicate. Then there was the new system that was sprung on us and that made everybody's job three times as difficult but made the reporting easier so guess who looked good with HO?

Staff departures in that dept after covid eased were unbelievable.

I think you need to do some disrupting.

I'd do a confidential questionnaire with the team and with others who experience the team about strengths, attitudes, areas for improvement. No names mentioned. I'd then collate the results and share them with the whole team. It will cause upset but should show them what opinions are.

I did this with a large department in a secondary school that had a cire of staff who ran the show and who excluded you g/new staff, ITT students, support staff etc. They ran the department in a clique.

The Head of Department was leaving and I took the opportunity to do exit interviews with ITT students, support staff who were leaving and four young teachers who were leaving because of their behaviours. I also asked the senior team to contribute their opinions.

On the first day in Sept, the new HOD and I met with the 'clique' and gave them the summary of responses and explained this was what had been said about the dept and the culture by 10 staff plus the senior staff's views. We asked them what they thought. They were horrified - they knew it was true but were horrified it was out there so bluntly. There was no hiding place then- it was unacceptable.

One was furious- she was Assistant Head of Dept- the others were embarrassed and, I think, genuinely saw it could not continue and that things had to change.

The new HOD focussed on it and just swept it away . We had to challenge two of them bluntly twice but they did all move their thinking- probably partly because they knew it was all being monitored through exit interviews and through settling in interviews with new staff across the year. The new HOD made the most of their strengths which were not inconsiderable, and they still felt valued and responded. I worked closely with one by seconding her onto my team which worked very differently and which she really liked.

I think you have to be upfront and not in any way allow the idea that any of it is acceptable to prevail.