Employee Awards Issue

Manxman_in_exile

happyandcontented wrote: »

I know, I think and most employees think, that the awards are outdated but they are alive and well in many sectors, not just McDonalds!

Thank you all for your input, I am seeing my friend this afternoon and will put it to her that even if their working performance is identical then the fact that the other party has managed to maintain that in the face of adversity is related to her job. I think that looking at it that way she will be able to change her perspective.

I think that is the approach a good friend would take. Good luck!

ReadingTim

Personally I think there are some life lessons which people can't be taught and need to learn for themselves, usually the hard way. These include:

• life ain't always fair
• throwing your toys out of the pram may feel good in the short term, but is often counter-productive in the long term

General_Grant

happyandcontented wrote: »

I know, I think and most employees think, that the awards are outdated but they are alive and well in many sectors, not just McDonalds!

. . .

Such as the NHS - employee and team awards.

General_Grant

I'm surprised that someone in their late 50s is so touchy - at least to go as far as relaying the situation to even a close friend.

I might be a bit miffed if I thought someone had been unfairly favoured above me but know it isn't worth the time dwelling on it.

HardCoreProgrammer

OP I hope that this is not too late for you.

I have a somewhat similar situation to your friend at work.

We have a staff of the month in our team. The selection criteria is not clear but we think that they just pick the person who closes the most issues.

Now there is a person in my team who does not know one of the products which I support. Despite this, he has been picking off (he thinks) easy issues for that product to add to his count and without informing me, but in multiple occasions this has led to problems because the issues are not as simple as at first sight.

So in a recent monthly meeting, they announced that he is the winner. Fortunately I was working remotely and on mute. My reaction would not have gained me any favours with management.

I am not happy with management for focusing on quantity not quality. I am annoyed with the person as well, but understand that he was just gaming a crooked system to his advantage.

There is no point kicking up a fuss about this, but I am not going to take this lying down. When he caused trouble for me by taking another issue with the product which he knew nothing about, I sent him an email explaining what he did wrong, the upset he caused the client, and asked him not to do it again.
If there is another repeat, I will send that email to management. He has been warned.
You pick your battles wisely.

Takeaway_Addict

happyandcontented wrote: »

A close friend of mine works in a team of 4, two of whom are long-serving, whilst the other 2 joined 3 months ago. Her line manager nominated the other long-serving employee for an employee annual award because (and this is what she said to my friend to justify the nomination) 'she has a very hard home life and yet she is always neat as a new pin' No mention of any work-related successes or anything other than her home life issues.

I also work in the same organisation and I am aware that to avoid creating division within teams LM's never nominate their own team members, however, this LM is well known for being oblivious to the nuances of good team management and has ignored this unwritten rule.

My friend is very upset that non-work related issues have been factored into such an award. However, her problem is that she is very friendly with the person who has received the award and doesn't want to cause a fuss. When it was originally mentioned to my friend by her LM she was non-commital as she fully expected her LM to have a think about whether it was an appropriate action. Clearly, she didn't do that.

I have tried to tell her to let it go and that in the scheme of things it doesn't matter, but she feels that because it was an all-staff presentation other people will believe that the reasons for the nomination are work-related and that she is in some way not as good an employee.

I am sure no one is thinking that it is yesterday's news already, but my friend is angry and upset and cannot seem to move past it. To add insult to injury, the wording on the award does refer to 'going the extra mile etc' as obviously, she couldn't put down the real reason.

My friend has mentioned resignation as she feels undermined by this manager as this is not the first time something has happened which has upset and annoyed her.

I have discussed this with her on many occasions and she feels much of it stems from the fact that she does have a good home life, a great supportive family and is comfortably off and her LM resents her, as she has none of those things.

I am trying to offer her a sense of perspective here, but it is hard because I can see where she is coming from and I don't know how I would feel under similar circumstances.

How can I persuade her to let it go? What would others do?

Your friend needs to stop being so precious

custardy

End of the day. Your friend needs to decide how much she cares.
If this slight sours the working environment and she cant go on,then its resign.
If she can deal with it and work to the planned retirement age then so be it.
TBH I sympathise as I left a good job due to (In my view) a face fits/nepotism situation, that impacted me and rather than being the bitter guy,I left.

Ja7188

I am seeing my friend this afternoon and will put it to her that even if their working performance is identical then the fact that the other party has managed to maintain that in the face of adversity is related to her job. I think that looking at it that way she will be able to change her perspective.

Hopefully she will - but if not, you should probably tell her to box it off in a corner of her mind and move on. If she's reached her late 50s and this is the first major work-related upset she's had, she's actually doing pretty well!

happyandcontented

custardy wrote: »

End of the day. Your friend needs to decide how much she cares.
If this slight sours the working environment and she cant go on,then its resign.
If she can deal with it and work to the planned retirement age then so be it.
TBH I sympathise as I left a good job due to (In my view) a face fits/nepotism situation, that impacted me and rather than being the bitter guy,I left.

I think that this is part of the issue. This is not the first time that her manager has behaved in such a way but it is the first time my friend has felt that she has effectively been boxed into a corner and been unable to bring it up for discussion because she doesn't want the other team member to feel bad about her award. Part of her feels deliberately manipulated by the situation. That is why she is so annoyed, she feels impotent and that that situation has been engineered by her manager.

Many of the comments on here would just reinforce her feeling that bringing it up would make her look petty, but it is not an isolated incident. People telling her to buck up are missing the point that it has affected her, whether it would affect them is really not the point. Listening to her, I think it was the straw that etc, etc.

You see many articles about workplace issues and how they affect mental health and self-esteem and we all pay lip service to how important that is and then when someone has an issue that affects them many just say 'pull yourself together'. For my friend, (who for background info has had some problems in that area previously) it is not quite as simple as that, but she is really trying.

Ja7188 wrote: »

Hopefully she will - but if not, you should probably tell her to box it off in a corner of her mind and move on. If she's reached her late 50s and this is the first major work-related upset she's had, she's actually doing pretty well!

I spoke to her about and suggested she think about how she would be able to perform at work if she had the other persons' issues to contend with and she did see the point.

However, she also said that the issues do cause her to have a lot of time off and so others have to cover her work so the reality is that they do affect her performance because she is not there to perform.

After some thought, she has decided to try to compartmentalise this specific issue but also to ensure that her manager does not get away with other things (perhaps more palatable issues to complain legitimately about) such as palming her own work off on my friend, sending her on the most difficult troubleshooting jobs to have it reflect well on her department, but then complaining that she is short-staffed and taking it out on my friend and too many more to list. I know this to be true, as I have seen it firsthand.

In the past, my friend has just shrugged her shoulders and got on with it despite others ( including me) saying she was crackers to do it, but I doubt she will do that again. I think this incident, petty though some of you think it is, will have other unintended consequences for the manager further down the line.

Takeaway_Addict

happyandcontented wrote: »

I think that this is part of the issue. This is not the first time that her manager has behaved in such a way but it is the first time my friend has felt that she has effectively been boxed into a corner and been unable to bring it up for discussion because she doesn't want the other team member to feel bad about her award. Part of her feels deliberately manipulated by the situation. That is why she is so annoyed, she feels impotent and that that situation has been engineered by her manager.

Many of the comments on here would just reinforce her feeling that bringing it up would make her look petty, but it is not an isolated incident. People telling her to buck up are missing the point that it has affected her, whether it would affect them is really not the point. Listening to her, I think it was the straw that etc, etc.

You see many articles about workplace issues and how they affect mental health and self-esteem and we all pay lip service to how important that is and then when someone has an issue that affects them many just say 'pull yourself together'. For my friend, (who for background info has had some problems in that area previously) it is not quite as simple as that, but she is really trying.



I spoke to her about and suggested she think about how she would be able to perform at work if she had the other persons' issues to contend with and she did see the point.

However, she also said that the issues do cause her to have a lot of time off and so others have to cover her work so the reality is that they do affect her performance because she is not there to perform.

After some thought, she has decided to try to compartmentalise this specific issue but also to ensure that her manager does not get away with other things (perhaps more palatable issues to complain legitimately about) such as palming her own work off on my friend, sending her on the most difficult troubleshooting jobs to have it reflect well on her department, but then complaining that she is short-staffed and taking it out on my friend and too many more to list. I know this to be true, as I have seen it firsthand.

In the past, my friend has just shrugged her shoulders and got on with it despite others ( including me) saying she was crackers to do it, but I doubt she will do that again. I think this incident, petty though some of you think it is, will have other unintended consequences for the manager further down the line.

Thing is she may feel all this unjust and she could still well be wrong.

It seems to me you're doing all the work when she needs to be?

And I doubt the manager will either see these unintended consequences or even if they do care, ultimately its down to your friend to deal with the situation as best they can