As the HR manager, you’re on top of things, but that’s only a small part of the battle. The rest of it is fought mostly by your supervisors, and they are not HR experts … yet.
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Supervisors play a particularly critical role in compliance. They must be familiar and comfortable with organizational policies and with employment-related laws. They have to adhere carefully to proper and legal practices, and ensure that their employees do the same.
But they also have to get things done.
You’re asking quite a lot of your supervisors. They have to supervise, select, motivate, train, and give feedback. They have to manage tight resources and their own careers. They’re responsible for ever larger groups of employees, with ever greater pressure to perform, in an environment where change is a given and there’s never enough time.
Unfortunately, that means that they are likely to make some off-the-cuff decisions that you’ll regret, probably in court.
Common Mistakes Supervisors Make
The Knee-Jerk No
The knee-jerk no comes in many forms:
- Are you kidding me?
- We’re trying to run a business here!
- You’re going to leave us in the lurch at crunch time?
- Sure, you’re going to work from home … Not.
These phrases all translate into the same thing—"I’m begging you to sue me."
The requests that generate knee-jerk responses:
- I need to take time off for bonding with my new son.
- We’ve got an appointment about our upcoming adoption.
- I have an appointment.
- I think I need to come in late because of my new medication.
Requests like these have to be responded to professionally. Typically, your rule will be to check with HR before responding. You really don’t want your supervisors trying to deal with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and other technical questions. HR needs to evaluate the situation in light of law, policy, reasonableness, and past practice.
Yes, you do have the budget and time to train managers and supervisors with BLR’s® 10-Minute HR Trainer. Get it Now.
Ignoring Employee Complaints
Here are some typical complaints and typical (untrained) supervisor responses:
- I’m being harassed. (Typical response: "Ah, that’s Jimmie being Jimmie. No harm meant.")
- I’m not going in there; I don’t think it’s safe. (Typical response: “If you want to keep your job, get in there.”)
- I’m not being paid for all my overtime. (Typical response: “You want to complain about your pay, find some other job to complain about.”)
Documentation Details
Supervisors hate dealing with documentation. It’s just busywork to them compared to their real job of production, and they are not comfortable with it. You probably didn’t promote them to supervisor because of their writing skills. Provide them with sample write-ups or fill-in-the-blanks forms.
Acting Precipitously
Of course, the most dangerous thing supervisors do is the heat-of-the-moment firing. "That’s the last straw—you’re fired. Pack up and get out of here." Consider:
- Firing, no surprise, is the most likely act to get an employee thinking about a lawsuit.
- A fire-from-the-hip termination often happens in front of other employees, and that just exacerbates the situation.
- Firing is the most likely act to get a jury thinking "unfair" (and an attorney thinking “easy money”).
- The stated reason for the firing is often not supported by existing documentation. For example, a person will be fired for "poor performance," and then when the personnel file is revealed, there is a string of performance reviews that say "Satisfactory" or "Good" performance.
Supervisors need to know that they must always contact HR before making a termination decision.
Ignoring Budding Problems
Most supervisors don’t like confronting their employees about negative things (for example, lateness, vulgarity, harassment, threats, abuse, discriminatory behavior), so they tend to let things slide in the hopes that either the performance will improve or the person will quit. Unfortunately, that rarely happens. Once you’ve let problem performance go without comment for months, you’re condoning it.
Retaliating
Unfortunately, if you are a supervisor, it’s a natural urge to retaliate when, for example, an employee:
- Says bad things about you online
- Files a harassment or discrimination claim against you
- Does something that is legal, but annoying, like requesting FMLA leave during the busy time of the year
"You think you’re getting away with that and I’m going to do nothing about it?”
Yes, you do have the budget and time to train managers and supervisors with BLR’s® 10-Minute HR Trainer. Get it Now.
Supervisors have myriad ways to make life miserable for workers who have "wronged" them, but they must refrain from doing any of these things unless they are done for a well-documented business reason and are consistent with past actions in similar circumstances.
In tomorrow’s Advisor, 10 steps to making your supervisor training more effective, plus an introduction to a unique 10-minutes-at-a-time training system.
In the section entitled “Ignoring Employee Complaints” the statements attributed to the employees are clear as to what they perceive is happening. There are trigger words in each of those statement that convey to a manager that he/she needs to respond — “harassed,” “safe” and “not being paid.” The real challenge for managers is when the employee does not use trigger words in his/her complaint. Training managers to also recognize the softer notices that employees may give is key to successful prevention.