Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

One of the ideas tossed about from time to time is on whether a manager should work alongside of their workers or only manage from without. 

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I have worked with some companies that will demote or promote or fire managers based upon the individual’s practical response to that idea. 

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This is a question that really can’t be answered across the board because in some companies one way can work and in others it won’t.

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I want to focus on retail managers for a moment. The trend among many retail firms has been to keep a base amount of full-time employees, who are considered the core of the company throughout the year, and hire part-time workers to fill in the gaps. 

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While this strategy is understandable from the shareholders and CEOs point-of-view, from the management point-of-view it can be a nightmare. 

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The pressure put upon managers to push their people to the edge of exhaustion and burnout is extraordinary. Then when the manager understands that the workforce, no matter how hard they try, or how good of workers they are, aren’t able to complete their tasks, some have tried to pitch in and help their fellow employees. 

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The response by upper management to me is disastrous and setting up everyone for failure. I have seen manager after manager written up for helping.

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Don’t get me wrong, I understand that some that are promoted to management have to learn to see things from the bigger picture and understand how things are to flow together. 

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But having said that, it is nothing short of cruelty to see how some human beings are being pressed beyond measure to accomplish something with the resources available that cannot possibly be done.

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It is somewhat shocking to me to see these things happening today, yet the companies doing it are huge, big-name corporations that go through such a high turnover that they have accepted it as the cost of doing business. 

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I think that they need to re-evaluate their strategies. When I have looked at the results, it’s not really that they are short hundreds of people, but simply several more full-time positions added to the company would take tremendous pressure off and would retain some great employees. 

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When you consider the cost of retraining new employees, the loss of sales through inexperience and lack of even knowing where product is, and the high turnover of good managers, I don’t know what it is with this strategy that makes them think that it’s working. 

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Have you ever come across this same situation? Tell us about it here.