Our managers are unapproachable. Our managers don’t act.
I presented a short webinar for WorkSafe Month Tasmania in October, there were so many excellent questions that I’ve decided to devote my next few posts to answering some of those questions.
Today’s title is Unapproachable managers, and it relates to 2 questions/comments that I received:
1. “It’s really difficult when a colleague’s toxic behaviour is widely known about by Management, but they have no idea how to act upon it and want to avoid the toxic colleagues’ negative responses to formal feedback. Not great for staff morale.”
2. “In my experience as a WHS professional, I’ve witnessed a reluctance from managers to act when senior staff have bullied their subordinates. Is this common and do you have any suggestions to address such?”
Firstly, I want to start with another comment that I often hear – ‘Management are unapproachable’.
For anyone who has listened to the webinar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5r6ArGKHMQ), has been to one of my training sessions or have read any of my blogs you will know that my mantra is ‘communicate, communicate, communicate’. Great plan as long as you can find someone to listen.
Without dismissing the question my first response to a statement that management are unapproachable is, are you sure? Is there just an historical culture that management don’t listen because there was once a period when they didn’t. Is it a logistics or a time issue? Or is it bad management where you are dealing with someone who has their head in the sand and just won’t listen?
Have you tried to approach them? How? Do you have an HR team that you can approach for assistance?
Can you think of a more creative way of approaching the manager/s? are you able to make an appointment with the managers EA to ensure there will be no distractions and you will have enough time to talk?
If you do manage to schedule a time, write down your discussion points, don’t get distracted, try to keep emotion out of the discussion, know what you want to achieve but be prepared to be flexible, take notes, if applicable have stats and data to back up your discussion points, and don’t forget to listen. Remember that just because this issue is important to you and you may have been thinking about it for a while it may be new information for the manager — allow them time to process as well.
Take a support person with you if you need one and ensure you have support and the opportunity for a professional debrief after the meeting.
Bringing this back to the actual question and comment that managers don’t or won’t act, yes unfortunately these are comments that I hear too often.
Firstly, and in the defence of managers, sometimes there may be actions behind the scenes that you are not privy to, they may also be constrained from action by legislation and the necessity to follow correct processes – this is a good thing!
Dealing with bullying behaviours can be difficult and the process is often long as bullying behaviours are often hard to identify and describe and to subsequently prove. The definition of Workplace bullying is repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or a group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety. Perspectives and interpretation also make bullying hard to manage as what one person perceives as bullying another might condone. Are you sure that your manager/s are aware of the bullying behaviours that you are seeing? Behaviours that are impacting us can seem screamingly obvious but may not be noticed by someone else.
Do your manager/s have the skills and training to deal with the bullying behaviours? they may be completely out of their depth. Does your workplace have a workplace bullying policy that you feel is not being followed? Do you suspect nepotism? Is it laziness? In these instances can you take the issue higher or to another manager.
ALL managers have a duty of care to act so if your direct manager is ignoring an issue and you are in a situation that is psychologically not safe – take the issue to someone else.
Can you appeal to your HR team, WHS or Union representative to advocate on your behalf? Be prepared to go outside the organisation if you need to, you can contact WorkSafe Tasmania on 1300 366 322 or The Fair Work Commission www.fwc.gov.au. WorkSafe Tas have a great document on workplace bullying, and a notification of bullying in your workplace document.
Try not to get caught up in negativity and gossip about the behaviours, as a team this is the time to support each other.
Define your boundaries and prioritise your mental safety, is staying in this situation harming your mental health? Unfortunately, in some cases you might not be able to evoke change, know yourself, trust yourself and if it’s a bad organisational fit be prepared to walk away.