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On being the employee who “needs improvement”

virtuouscode.com

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Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#21

Post by madeofpalk »

danieltillett wrote: post #14
blowski wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day. 1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a…

...isnt managing and helping out your employees like half your job?

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#22

Post by madeofpalk »

What an interestingly bizarre article.

What we're all missing is how these things were presented - were the managers being unreasonable dicks in the way they talked about

"Mismatched expectations" about availability aside, what does the author expect when they're supposedly letting their team down?

I've had a number of conversations with managers were they've told me I'm letting them down and I'm always incredibly grateful for them. Sure, they're sometimes hard to hear, but I would much rather to receive feedback early so I can act on it and be better at what I do.

Also not to mention how incredibly valuable I find regular peer-review cycles (last 2 companies I've been to do these every 6 months). They've always found it super helpful to be told what I should continue doing well and what I need to improve on. Does everyone want to be the best at what they do?

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#23

Post by x0x0 »

tigershark wrote: post #7
humanrebar wrote: post #5

I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough." In the story linked, it se…

Honestly to me it seems that the author was extremely unprofessional. He just disappeared for whole days without letting anyone know. In all the companies that I worked it was explicitly mentioned in the contract that such behaviour was subject to disciplinary actions up to dismissal.

If this were a problem, then his or her manager should have said something the very first time it happened. Waiting for it to happen multiple times and being on the verge of firing someone before telling the employee they didn't like it is wildly incompetent.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#24

Post by foodie_ »

danieltillett wrote: post #14
blowski wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day. 1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a…

I believe it was Andy Grove who suggest no more than 6-8 direct reports for this reason.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#25

Post by blowski »

danieltillett wrote: post #14
blowski wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day. 1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a…

If you can't have a weekly one to one with all your direct reports, the solution is fewer direct reports.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#26

Post by seanmcdirmid »

foodie_ wrote: post #24
danieltillett wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a boss the problem is employees take up so much time. Each employee really needs at least 30 minutes of your attention per day averaged over the month (mostly just chit chat, but also mentoring and feedback) [1]. Once you have more than a couple of people to manage there goes your whole day. 1. Yes some people are fine with less, but this is the average amount of time people need. Putting in less just results in a…

I believe it was Andy Grove who suggest no more than 6-8 direct reports for this reason.

6-8 sounds like too many. Anyways, in addition to probably being unfit for people management, it sounds like it would take away all my coding time.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#27

Post by blowski »

tigershark wrote: post #8
blowski wrote: post #2

My takeaway from this is that frequent 1 to 1s are a good idea for every single employee, from the day you start to the day you leave the company. You need to use them for positive feedback as well as negative, and general chats about progress and ideas.

They are utterly and completely useless. You should speak with your boss continuously, regardless of the 1 on 1s. Maybe it's a coincidence but with all the worst bosses that I had we had 1 on 1s. It's just a way to hide their incompetence in my opinion.

The problem with being continuously available is that it leads to "squeakiest wheel" syndrome where the loudest complainers get all the attention. Meanwhile, the quietly productive people quit because their frustrations aren't heard.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#28

Post by eeZah7Ux »

tigershark wrote: post #7
humanrebar wrote: post #5

I don't know what the motivations for the bosses in this story were, but in corporate America personal improvement plans are fundamentally about gearing up to fire someone more than any actual improvement. When defending yourself against a wrongful termination lawsuit, it looks good to courts to say, "Look, we met every week, we had these conversations, and things didn't get better enough." In the story linked, it se…

Honestly to me it seems that the author was extremely unprofessional. He just disappeared for whole days without letting anyone know. In all the companies that I worked it was explicitly mentioned in the contract that such behaviour was subject to disciplinary actions up to dismissal.

You are making a lot of assumptions on what is "professional".

A contract is an agreement. There are companies paying very high salaries to very low - expecting very high commitment to very low - in various combinations.

It's up to the company to clarify expectations.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#29

Post by blowski »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26
foodie_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it was Andy Grove who suggest no more than 6-8 direct reports for this reason.

6-8 sounds like too many. Anyways, in addition to probably being unfit for people management, it sounds like it would take away all my coding time.

Personally, I think that mixing management with programming leads to bad results.

Re: On being the employee who “needs improvement”

#30

Post by mattmanser »

madeofpalk wrote: post #22

What an interestingly bizarre article. What we're all missing is how these things were presented - were the managers being unreasonable dicks in the way they talked about "Mismatched expectations" about availability aside, what does the author expect when they're supposedly letting their team down? I've had a number of conversations with managers were they've told me I'm letting them down and I'm always incredibly gr…

That's not what happened though. Obviously we only see one side of it, but this reads like they suddenly accuse him of being bad, and instead of letting him self-correct, humiliate him by letting juniors micro-manage him. And gang up on him, 2 against one.
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