HR Meeting

trishandbubs

I work in retail as a floor manager and have been in this position since end of October 2011 so not long. This is my first position in management so still learning the ropes but have had good feedback from staff and other managers. Unfortunately my manager hasnt been the best manager in the world and in the past year 11 members of staff have left (some of them been with the company for 10+ years). She has only been in the position with this company since sept 2010 but has alot of managment experience.

Now she is being investigated with the area manager coming in etc and she has phoned today to ask me to work on Friday as HR are coming in and want to have a meeting with me about the way things are run.

I know if I say anything which looks bad on her that she would know it was me and if she only gets a warning etc and stays at the same store then she will make things very difficult for me. But if I dont say anything then the chances are that nothing will change or she will change for a short time and then go back to her old ways.

I know that there are a lot of staff looking for new jobs etc and I have had moments where I want to just quit but the assistant manager has talked me out of it saying that everything will be sorted. I just now feel like Im between a rock and a hard place

agrinnall

Quitting is not the answer at the moment. I would recommend that you attend the meeting with HR (which hopefully won't include your manager) so that you can give your view of how things are and explain that you will not be happy working for her in the future - if HR do nothing then you'll know that it's not the right place to work and you can start to look for something else.

Sambucus_Nigra

You can only tell the truth and say what you see and experience. Try to keep it 'systematic' rather than 'personal'. so don't say 'she is crap at'...say 'the system implemented doesn't work because'....

wnoktnwbr

trishandbubs wrote: »

I know that there are a lot of staff looking for new jobs etc and I have had moments where I want to just quit but the assistant manager has talked me out of it saying that everything will be sorted. I just now feel like Im between a rock and a hard place

If you're considering quitting anyway, just be honest and there's a chance your honesty will make the upper management aware of the problems and fix them. Worst case they don't fix the problems and you can just quit then.

quitting now would be a big mistake.

Errata

All you have to say is something like "As you know, this is my first management role so I'm still on a learning curve about how the company operates, but I did wonder if x, y or z could be perhaps slightly improved and they're things I'm going to discuss with the team now the Christmas rush and January Sale are over".
You haven't been there long enough to form a clear judgment about what areas of management are under performing, and you can say that as well.

trishandbubs

thanks for the replies I know I really dont have much choice and need to say whats been happening otherwise things cant be sorted. Cant wait till this is over and done with :-(

ohreally

I would tread carefully as this has the potential for you to be used as a pawn in workplace politics.

Fri is your rest day, you have a prior engagement.

DVardysShadow

11 members of staff leaving seems to have caught their attention. They could try and smooth things over and get this manager working properly. But for you, damned if you do, because she might turn nasty and damned if you don't, she will stay nasty.

I would just be honest about it but try to suppress any malice which you might feel.

Emmzi

talk about process, not personalities.

so eg "sometimes we're late doing the rotas and staff can be annoyed. I'm not sure if my boss is overloaded because she's been coaching me, or if maybe she'd feel confident delegating that to me once we'd done it together a few times."

or even

"I enjoy working here, we have great products and customer, I don;t really have anything to measure it against as I am a new manager in this business. But I'd love to see how a different store runs and if there are any ideas I could bring back to work on together, or if there's anything we do well that they can learn from, would that be possible?"

Are you able to share specifically what you think the problems are?

Emmzi

trishandbubs wrote: »

thanks for the replies I know I really dont have much choice and need to say whats been happening otherwise things cant be sorted. Cant wait till this is over and done with :-(

there's ways of saying it. You don't attack personalities, you don't offer an opinion on competency.

ask questions about if there is maybe a better way of doing x... don;t be too rigid in your opinion.

Factual, and to the point. No attacks.

mazza111

You could also state something like... This is my first managerial role and I'm still learning, but if I was in the position I would do such and such different.. or that different. Rather than just pointing out the negatives, you could also point out a few positives. And rather making the negatives look like negatives, you could point out another way of doing things.