Employee Handbooks are often a substitute for good guidance for managers. Managers are told to follow the policy or procedure in the Handbook. They may do so and then fall foul of an Employment Judge. Or they will be calling HR every 5 minutes as every new situation arises. This makes life tough for HR and still won’t protect them if the dreaded tribunal claim arrives.
FRONT LINE
Managers are the ones who have to give evidence at a tribunal and who stand in the firing line. they have to own their decisions. They also have to be able to explain them, and justify them. This is usually where managers fall down.
SET OF RULES
But what if they could follow one simply set of rules that would keep them on the right side of the law? Managers need sensible practical guidance. But they face so many different scenarios every day. Is there one set of rules that can be used to help with the wide variety of personnel decisions they need to make? Yes, there is. There are rules they can follow even for decisions that don’t even involve HR. If managers have a safe set of rules to follow, the chances of them making a serious mistake reduces drastically.
More than that, though, their chances of developing into good competent and capable managers goes through the roof. Learning good skills takes time and some dedication. Even small changes can have a significant impact.
Take the manager facing a request by a millennial to finance a night out with her colleagues at a casino or the manager who wanted to demote an assistant who wasn’t performing. What set of rules do you think would guide both managers? What questions would these rules lead them to ask themselves and the employee?
PROTECTING THE BUSINESS
Every question, conflict, decision has a right answer and a wrong one. An answer that protects the business and helps the manager develop, and one that can take the business and the manager three steps backwards.
Take the manager facing a request by a millennial to finance a night out with her colleagues at a casino. He followed my rules and decided to go along with this. What do you think his reasons were? As predicted, it was a great decision and increased productivity within the team. It also led to one dismissal, which was another good decision he made.
Or take the manager intending to demote his assistant because she wasn’t performing. He followed my rules and didn’t do so. What do you think his reasons were? This was also a very good decision. Tears were involved, a mediation process, and a re-setting of goals. The overall results in terms of team performance, team structure and working relationships, were amazing.
You can contact me direct to talk about giving your managers a set of rules that will guide them to make the best possible decisions for your business. These are rules that apply in any situation and will give your managers confidence to make difficult decisions and the skills to be able to see them through. I provide one to one training and training in small groups. Wherever possible we use real life examples - often from within your business - to really demonstrate the value of following the rules and becoming a better, more confident manager.
