RUN WITH THE Big dogS™ newsletter
 

Volume 3, issue 19

Do your employees have multiple communications paths from the top or is their manager their only source of information?  If so,  you risk being blindsided...John

Management idea

A client of ours had a large immigrant workforce that didn't understand English. The company relied on a single bilingual supervisor to communicate its message to the workers.

They shared financial performance with the Supervisor in an effort to provide a broader context for his work and recognize his management position.  Unfortunately the Supervisor confused gross margin with pretax margin and concluded that his team of immigrant workers were grossly underpaid. (In fact they were earning above market wages as skilled machine operators.) He got his group together and explained his plan - he would present an ultimatum to the owner - dramatically increase wages immediately and retroactively or every operator would immediately walk, crippling the company.

The owner said no way - the operators walked. After waiting in the parking lot for a half day they gave up and returned to their jobs, albeit without their Supervisor who the owner fired on the spot.  The company brought in a bilingual HR Director to translate and set the record straight. From that day forward they made sure that no department or group heard from the company exclusively though one person.  You can not afford to allow any manager to be the only channel to your employees. In our strategic planning meetings we have encountered similar employee misunderstandings in groups lead by a variety of managers who aggressively isolate their people - IT departments, sales teams, branch offices, etc.