Demand from manager - for total silence?

Tygermoth

Dear all,

Just a general question about something that’s bothering me.

We are a small team of 4 – get on really well - are super productive and are hitting our targets. Our direct manager is very happy with us and our output. We have never had amy complaints leveled against us. Our job type involves a lot of discussion amongst ourselves and by the nature of what we do, can get quite heated and contentious. As such the members of the team are quite vivacious, outgoing and bubbly as this job suits this type of individual.

Due to large scale redundancies at other sites we now have a new unit manager who looks after our team, he used to manage a whole unit (50 people) in an entirely different part of the business (only has a very limited idea of what we do). We already have a team manager; supervisor and Unit head as well as the Regional dept head based in this small office so we have more managers than staff!

This gentleman is nice enough but hates, absolutely hates us talking. He gets very bent out of shape if we discuss a case out loud and has demanded going forward we do this via email and keep conversation to a bare minimum. Any conversation which is not work based is to be kept for lunch or breaks and if we make a non related work comment he huffs and puffs and calls over the office to ‘pipe down’ ‘work people’ ‘not paying for you to yak’

So far we have ignored him, mainly because he has little or no sway with this team and we have requested he speak to the eight hundred managers we already have between him and us and come back with how we are to incorporate this in to a process.

However our direct manager was away today and the office was empty he saw fit to hand down a dictat that for the rest of this afternoon we are not to talk….

Can a manager reasonably made this demand?

GEEGEE8

Oh! How awful... I really don't see how he can just come in and stop you talking, not if you are all hitting you targets and getting on well.

I would try to ignore him, but then I don't know if that is the right approach lol.

I'm guessing you can't get warnings for 'talking'?? Especially not as you all work well and meet targets.

Tygermoth

To be fair that’s why we have not really taken any notice before. But he advised he could make it a disciplinary matter...

Can you get a warning for chatting?

Tygermoth

The job role requires quite a bit back and forth amongst the team, so i cant understand how he expects us to deal with cases where if takes 15 mins to formulate the query via and email that you can just ask in 2 secs, not only that normally the answer will need to get bashed about by the whole team for a resolution to be formulated.

Doing this by email is insane! It would take ages. You would spend the working day on one case to get an answer.

Jennifer_Yellow_Hat

Can you involve HR? Surely talking is a human right?! It's so unreasonable, especially as it's about work it's not like you're discussing last night's Eastenders.

MrsManda

You could ask whether your team could have an instant messenger service uploaded on to your computers so that you can discuss cases silently. Microsoft Outlook has the ability to have this facility. It may be worth mentioning this option to your immediate manager as a compromise.
Emails in large organisations can have a time delay so this could be a reason why instant messaging is a good middle way.

SarEl

I'm afraid that I am with Judas on this one - and that doesn't happen very often

Ignoring a manager is a perilous thing to do, even if said manager is a complete twerp. People have been disciplined for less, and perfromance isn't a defence against being disciplined unless the disciplinary happens to be about performance!

If you feel that this instruction is disruptive in terms of your performance, the correct thing to do is to suck it up for now and then speak formally to your manager when they return to work. However, I would also have to say that presenting a solution rather than a demand might be a good idea. To be fair, you admit that your "conversations" can be loud, heated and "vivacious". This may be great for your work - but there are other people around you for whom it may not be quite so great. Perhaps you could compromise by finding a way to "keep it down" to a tolerable level - other people's ability to perform may be adversely affected by your actions, and that isn't fair either. Some people need quiet, or reasonably quiet surrounding to concentrate.

paulwf

In retail I've had managers that hate absolutely any non work related interaction between staff, I don't think there is any employment law allowing a right to talk...I may be wrong though.

Managers associate talking with a loss of productivity, if you think your case is bad just think how I felt when we weren't allowed to talk to each other whilst shelf stacking...99% of the time it would have had absolutely no impact on productivity and this was outside of customer hours, but we had to stand there doing a boring brainless job in silence!

ilovemydebts

Call me old fashioned but aren't you paid to work not to socialise?

Bogof_Babe

The OP has explained that most of the chat is work related and necessary to the job. If the job is considered to involve teamwork then it would be impossible to never speak about something that might affect the whole team.

Does the job involve telephone work OP?

I have worked in an open plan office where a couple of people have been prone to really loud shrieks and guffaws of laughter, which I did find distracting (and so did my customers on the other end of the phone!). Normal level non-hysterical conversation should be allowed, unless you work in a library or an operating theatre!

pinkshoes

If discussion of something makes you more efficient in your job, then if they ban discussion, then they should expect a drop in your production rate.

If he banned talking, then what about making involuntary animal noises instead?