01/29/21 at 3:44PM UTC
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How to describe an unmanageable team on interviews?
Additionally tips on how to deal with their insubordination daily?
I have been given a team to manage that has a long history of burning through managers. I am the 5th manager in 5 years. These employees are part of a collective bargaining unit and do not believe they require supervision or management. They operate our buildings and perform maintenance tasks. Each employee has spent 20+ years with the organization and is well known and liked by employees. On the flip side, HR agreed these employees will not listen or respect me or my decisions and it will not be held against me in reviews or evaluations.
The other teams I manage have proven that I am a good manager, my staff has been promoted, some have left for new roles that offer more challenges and I scored well on my 360 review.
Now however I face leading a team that does not want to be led. Combined with industry factors I am on the hunt for a new job. I was recently asked to describe my biggest management challenge in an interview and I paused before explaining this situation knowing it would be a red flag. I offered up a challenge around headcount ceilings and using contract labor.
Real life examples in the last 6 months of managing this team include them performing tasks off hours without approval in order to be paid overtime, not reporting building issues to me such as frozen pipes until after the event was over and not completing assigned tasks. I have kept everything in writing and HR is aware of the challenges but says their hands are tied because of the CBA.
R.C. Salyer
20
01/30/21 at 10:48PM UTC
You have to be aware of several things here.
1. Often times Managers do not have the Technical Training that those they are Managing have.
2. Well all know what passes for Education in so many Colleges and Universities is no more than Socialist Indoctrination. Just watch some of Jessee Water's earlier tapes, interviewing College Students on Spring Breaks for Water's World, and you'll quickly understand how utterly stupid and clueless those College Grads are now a days. These are your Manager's of today.
3. I taught Technical Training for a top Silicon Valley S/W Company for years in every major city in USA. At time, even at many of the Fortune 500 Company Headquarters. You know how these IT Techs and Engineers rated their Management? I'd quiz many a class, and asked them on a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your Management? Resounding majority of the time they said 4. Well, I'd comment - well not too good but at least even at that level they should be able to keep the doors open and you guys get paid right? The students most comon answer; "you don't understand on a scale of +1 -+10, we're talking -4 here!
User edited comment on 01/30/21 at 10:50PM UTC
Anonymous
01/31/21 at 5:05PM UTC
I have the technical skills and industry certifications to know fully well how a maintenance operation should work, I also have 20 years in this business. I am not some ivy league grad who thinks she knows how to do a blue collar job, I have been blue collar and have a tech school background. Some of the managers before me did not even have college degrees so your argument doesn’t seem to lend anything to the advice on how to proceed here.
EmpoweredGirl410467
27
02/02/21 at 5:25AM UTC
That's because you were too busy getting offended to find any value in his comment. Try again.
User edited comment on 02/02/21 at 5:26AM UTC
Anonymous
02/02/21 at 6:58PM UTC
And what advice specifically do you draw from his comment? It would appear that he has some bias against college educated people and some sort of unbalanced bias against those who do not share his political views (of which he did not clearly articulate).
Anonymous
01/30/21 at 2:34PM UTC
My ex-brother-in-law ALWAYS abused his Union maintenance contract. Every weekend, he needed to “go in & check in some emergency.” If he stayed at least one hour, he got paid for four hours at time & a half. He was then injured & had knee surgery which didn’t go well, so he was “unable” to return to work & collected disability, but he was ok enough to all sorts of paid construction/repair jobs around town. I wanted to call the insurance company so badly, but my sister-in-law & nieces needed the income & health insurance. (Yes, all these weekend “emergencies” required him to drive about an hour each way to work & back, work for at least an hour & generally a little more to be less obvious of gaming the system & then, of course, & stop off for some brews at the pub, thus leaving my sister-in-law home alone on the weekends for several hours with pre-school age twins. Not that this helps you at all, except perhaps to know it’s common! (& selfishly to vent!)
galrosEngineering Manager for food manufacturing site
913
01/29/21 at 5:03PM UTC
I hate saying this, but that sounds like a lot of maintenance teams I know. Ways I've found to deal with it are to look at downtime or lost money due to failures. Start looking at KPIs like PMs completed on time, CM's completed, backlogs of work. Do you have a system for recording their work at all? A CMMS of some kind? Plus, with overtime - no unapproved overtime is a basic requirement in such teams and have the people who can approve this overtime limited to you and possibly one other. Get HR lined up on that before hand so payroll won't just automatically approve it.
It will come down to whether HR have the stomach to address the issues or not - it is possible to turn them around, but you need organisational backing to do it. On the other hand, it's a lot of pain to do it for yourself as well, and if there are other factors leading you to look elsewhere, I'd go do that. I could write a book on this crap at this point :)
Anonymous
01/29/21 at 4:45PM UTC
When asked in an interview to describe your biggest management challenge... they probably don't need to know all the actual problems and outcomes, they probably want to know your strategies for overcoming those type of things. So think of the things you've done to attempt to make a difference. Even if those things didn't work with this team... those things might work with other people. So you don't have to mention the success or failure, just mention one strategy for one example situation (maybe two for variety). If that strategy would work for the new team, then perhaps you're the one hired at the new place.
Anonymous
01/29/21 at 4:28PM UTC
Anne's spot on the tactical. Lisa is giving you winning advice however, I want to challenge you to grow in this. There is a book called ZAP IT! I encourage you to get it and see if it helps you with this team.....Good luck. Teams can be turned around - no one is truly unmanageable.
Liz BronsonAuthentically helping from a human perspective.
102
01/29/21 at 4:28PM UTC
Sounds tough, but also the team knows that HR etc aren't going to hold them accountable. In the role, perhaps have a "real talk" about treating each other like adults, setting clear expectations and consequences. Trust them to do their jobs, but according to their contracts....The reason for this is that you can then explain in interviews what you inherited, what you did about it, and why, without backup/muscle from the company, you are looking for a new role. I'd be honest about not knowing what you were walking into, how you proactively tried, but between the CBA and the company not wanting to fix it, your hands are tied.
Lisa B SivyChief of Staff Atlanta
34
01/29/21 at 4:01PM UTC
I love Anna's ideas on the day-to-day. In terms of using this experience in an interview, the common questions come to mind: "dealing with difficult personalities", "conflict resolution" and "negotiation". I have to believe that you have had interactions with members of this team that you could use in a behavioral interview to cite how you successfully handled that particular instance with a particular employee.
This flip side could be to use the scenario to demonstrate that you are proactive and want to grow. Something like, "rather than being complacent and coasting in a job where the team prefers to manage itself, taking work off my plate as the manager, I am seeking this new opportunity because I want to grow, to have an opportunity to develop my people, be innovative", etc. etc. Whatever the behavior is that you need to demonstrate.
Anne Krookowner and principal, Practical Workplace Advice
334
01/29/21 at 3:49PM UTC
1) get a copy of the current collective bargaining agreement. 2) start keeping a log of incidents for each individual, with dates and descriptions of their behaviors and which part of the CBA it violates. 3) meet with HR periodically to review the logs. Document your meetings with HR if they are part of the problem. Basically treat the whole thing like an extended internal audit.
I am so sorry, because this is exhausting. Good luck in your hunt for a new job.
Saudia Santure
205
01/29/21 at 6:57PM UTC
Agree with this! The CBA is in place to protect the workers, as well as the union. No union member wants a bunch of bad apples ruining the collective reputation.
Perhaps a conversation with the union rep or leadership would also be of value?
Perhaps they would consider swapping out a few of these employees and changing this small groups culture.
Good luck to you!
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