5 ms·

Good general advice. Had a manager who would say to folks “you won’t get fired for xyz”. Even the mention of firing made the environment unpleasant. Now I fully

• dannyw 5y ago
  The inverse "we will support you for xyz" works just as well anyway.
• anon7725 5y ago
  There is a person in my management chain who makes occasional references to being fired along the lines of “If someone did X they’d be instantly let go.” I find that it makes for an uncomfortable work environment - I’ve never heard managers speak this way before. To be clear, I am not speaking about some bright-line issue that comes up in required training. It makes me think that they are a weak “rules lawyer” type, who are more interested in always having plausible deniability/coverage of their own ass than actually leading their team.
  • gumby 5y ago
    As with everything there is a slight exception (doesn’t look like you were talking about this case): if someone jokes about doing something forbidden it’s proper for a manager to say “sorry, but I don’t like even joking about that because violating safety protocol/falsifying govt form X/paying a bribe even where it’s the country’s culture is grounds for immediate termination. Let’s just move on”. Sometimes we joke about things to reduce fear, but sometimes joking about things normalizes them.
  • myohmy 5y ago
    I do that sometimes. I'm being 100% serious. I get bureaucrats talk about building slow and expensive process controls to prevent someone from doing something stupid. I counter with the fact that we don't need the controls because my employees know I will simply fire the person if they do it.