3 ms·

When employees are open with each other, but not management

14 points by DanBC 7y ago

itronitron 7y ago
In my experience, management is usually less than open with employees as they consider the scope of their decision-making to be a management concern and not an 'employee' concern. This is often reflected in statements such as 'this won't really change anything' and 'no need to worry'. Obviously that approach creates real problems when management's scope makes a grab for technical scope.
- a3n 7y ago
  Management being less than open because of management vs employee concerns smells like management viewing employees as tools to be fed input, and then expecting specific pounds of output. In fact it smells like the very material being fed to such employees.
sgt101 7y ago
Look, when management have no commitment to the insitution and are simply inflating their bonuses they will bully and sack anyone in their way. Everyone knows this, so they shut up and play along for the sake of their healthcare and mortgages. There are three mitigations. First hamstring HR and Finance to prevent them from being used to bully operations and engineering into submission. Second, reduce management compensation in the short term and enhance it in the long term. Third, ensure that there is tenure and protection for junior employees. Why are these remedies not used widely? Because there's looting to be done my friends, looting to be done. Investors are extremely short term now and do not care about what happens in five years, management are at it and workers have become used to this all. It's normalised behaviour now. When will this change? I would say it's extremely unlikely to change without punative political intervention and regulation. There is a much stronger case for this than there is for a UBI...
hinkley 7y ago
I always wondered about managers who expect team players but then make it dreadfully clear they don’t see themselves as part of the team... What sort of treatment are you expecting?
drewcoo 7y ago
Additional "way to tell" that wasn't listed for some reason: - When accountant-managers move the headquarters of their previously engineering-centric company 2000 miles away from where all of the engineers will still work.

14 points by DanBC 7y ago

In my experience, management is usually less than open with employees as they consider the scope of their decision-making to be a management concern and not an 'employee' concern. This is often reflected in statements such as 'this won't really change anything' and 'no need to worry'. Obviously that approach creates real problems when management's scope makes a grab for technical scope.

a3n 7y ago
Management being less than open because of management vs employee concerns smells like management viewing employees as tools to be fed input, and then expecting specific pounds of output. In fact it smells like the very material being fed to such employees.

sgt101 7y ago

Look, when management have no commitment to the insitution and are simply inflating their bonuses they will bully and sack anyone in their way. Everyone knows this, so they shut up and play along for the sake of their healthcare and mortgages. There are three mitigations. First hamstring HR and Finance to prevent them from being used to bully operations and engineering into submission. Second, reduce management compensation in the short term and enhance it in the long term. Third, ensure that there is tenure and protection for junior employees. Why are these remedies not used widely? Because there's looting to be done my friends, looting to be done. Investors are extremely short term now and do not care about what happens in five years, management are at it and workers have become used to this all. It's normalised behaviour now. When will this change? I would say it's extremely unlikely to change without punative political intervention and regulation. There is a much stronger case for this than there is for a UBI...

hinkley 7y ago

I always wondered about managers who expect team players but then make it dreadfully clear they don’t see themselves as part of the team... What sort of treatment are you expecting?

drewcoo 7y ago

Additional "way to tell" that wasn't listed for some reason: - When accountant-managers move the headquarters of their previously engineering-centric company 2000 miles away from where all of the engineers will still work.