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TheManager on 09 Feb 2009

One Response to “TrackTheManager”

1. AngelCakes on 19 Feb 2010 at 1:08 pm #

   Hello AskTheManager!

   With business booming, targets being acheived and the happiest workplace that any manager would dream of I wouldn’t imagine anything changing…..but it has! I have been promoted within the ranks and with “greater power requires greater responsibility.” I have been re-loacted to a higher volume store to take on the challenge of completely redeveloping it into the powerhouse that it once was. Having worked in that centre years back when it was in its prime I remembered how well structured it was and how organized everything felt. Those same feelings are what guided me to take on the task of taking on this store. However, those were not the images I was met with on my first day there. Shambles? Disaster? Pig sty? Those words do not even come close to what I embraced the first day back on old turf. Not a thing had a place, not an employee cared that their store looked like a typhoon hit it….not a ounce of respect for their work enviroment or the expectations set on them. Things desperately need to change…thats why they called me in. At this point I feel like the cleaning lady not the Manager and I know right from the very start that no one is in the mindset to help bring this store back up to its good graces but me. The staff are all underacheivers and perhaps have not been corrected for their poor performance. They are all on gaurd about my being there because the decision to move the previous manager from there into my old store was made within 48 hours notice. I have the full support of my regional supervisor but with the specific request that I “do not come in with a hammer” as he is afraid of them all jumping ship before proper coverage can be made. Forget the hammer I need to come in there with a feather duster.

   So my new questions for you are this:

   1 - To bring the hammer or not? How to set the standard and expecation early on and to change the current downfall of the business.

   2 - Headhunting? As the staff in this current location are not motivated, not driven, and couldn’t care less do I start the process of building a new team early on or do I attempt to motivate the current staff and give them a new oppritunity. They are extremely apprehensive right now, how so I break the ice and their assumptions about the big bad angel coming into their store?

   3 - Accountability Accountability Accountability. There has been no repremand to any of the associates and they seem to do their own thing all the time, that includes sitting around and chatting on their new managers first day (gutsy..) The benifit of the doubt would be to assume that they have never been shown how to do it right, or that they are just lazy. How can I get them to step up to the plate and take responsibilty for their job?

   Appreciative as always,

   AngelCakes
   Saskatoon,Sk

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