I often get questions from friends and employees on how to deal with their supervisors and managers. They often seem to feel that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not being treated fairly compared to how they see someone else being treated. Since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not in the office I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m never quite sure whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a matter of perception or reality. Often it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter.<\/p>\n
What I notice most of the time is that problems occur when there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a break down in communications. Actually, I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an overused metaphor because sometimes there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never been any real communications to begin with; can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t break something down that never existed. <\/p>\n
Often this is the fault of ineffective management, because managers need to know how to communicate with their employees. But if you as an employee is always going to wait for a bad manager to come to you then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not going to get any satisfaction. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty much standard for everyone; if you wait for things to happen, instead of trying to do something to change them, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll end up with nothing but frustration.<\/p>\n
I believe the first step is always trying to set up a meeting with your supervisor to discuss your issues. This is a very proactive move, and if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a supervisor who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at least willing to listen to you then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on the right track. <\/p>\n
Make sure you have your issues organized in some fashion and have thought them through, because the last thing you want to do is waste someone else's time. As a manager, I was willing to help an employee express exactly what they were hoping to get across, but you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t assume every person in a management position will do the same thing. If the issue is personal, make sure to keep your emotions in check as you discuss the issue; you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to risk turning the manager off with too much emotion. Make sure your words stress how serious you feel the problems are. <\/p>\n
With this, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve crossed the threshold of the communication gap that sometimes happens between people on different levels of the employment stairs. However, there are some things you need to consider. One, your supervisor may not agree with what you have to say. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not always right, but then again neither is the supervisor. Remember that the issue is communications, not necessarily total agreement. <\/p>\n
Two, watch out for the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whiner\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tag. There are some people who are always complaining about something, and supervisors really hate to deal with those people. If the issue is important enough to you and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not getting any satisfaction, be prepared to go the next step up with your complaint. Unless your supervisor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s answer seems to be a thoughtful response to what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had to say, you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to allow someone else to demean your concerns. <\/p>\n
Three, remember what I said at number one; your supervisor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supervisor may not agree with you either. At that point you have two things you can do. Either look back at your issue and see if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re possibly wrong in your assessment, or realize that your issue definitely needs some kind of satisfaction and be ready to take it to the next level once again. Well, there is a third option, but deciding to leave a company is always a hard decision to make.<\/p>\n
Four, know your rights. If the issue is one of some kind of harassment or discrimination you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re definitely covered by state and federal employment laws. If the issue is procedural yet illegal you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re protected under federal laws also. If the issue is procedural yet not illegal you may just have to learn to live with it, because if it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get changed soon enough. If the issue is personal, well, you have the option of deciding if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a one time thing that you can move beyond or need to look for employment elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Sometimes your perception of how things are isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t what someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perception of the same event is; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all different. But if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live with only you can make the initial decision as to what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best for you. My favorite phrase, even to myself, is \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcjust do something.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I often get questions from friends and employees on how to deal with their supervisors and managers. They often seem to feel that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not being treated fairly compared to how they see someone else being treated. Since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not in the office I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m never quite sure whether it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a matter of perception or reality. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[376],"tags":[982,377],"class_list":["post-2887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employee-issues","tag-dealing-with-supervisors","tag-employee-issues-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttmitchellconsulting.com\/Mitchblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}