I have a manager who has a serious time management problem.

I have a manager who has a serious time management problem.

I have repeatedly gone to him and his manager and they don't see an issue. (This has been happening the entire time we have worked for this manager. Everyone on the team agrees, it's not just me being a whiner.)

This lack of timely feedback impacts morale and stress levels, and therefore the overall productivity of the entire team. Multiple team members have had the same conversation with this manager, and his manager, about him, with no results.

How do we get some action here? Teammates are on their last nerve and updating resumes because of this manager. Do we:

  1. Go to the manager's manager as a group, sort of like an intervention? Will that make her see that we're serious?
  2. Escalate the issue to HR?
  3. Or, your suggestion here, please and thanks.

More info:

The work is very deadline-driven, so we need feedback that's both actionable and allows time to make the revisions within the allotted time frame. When work is completed within plenty of time for revisions, the manager gives the feedback sometimes days later, even if it's 5:15 pm and the meeting is tomorrow morning. (I have personally had email responses after the deadline.) The implication is that we are supposed to drop everything to make it happen even though there may be evening/weekend plans, and if we don't, we aren't committed to the job.

Team members are highly discouraged from negotiating for revised deadlines even when projects aren't priority. This makes it look like we cannot get the work done in the allotted amount of time, but the workload is sometimes impossible to achieve.

Any advice is appreciated.

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2 Comments

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  1. Anonymous

    You have already burned your bridges by going above his head. There is an art to getting people to do what needs to be done. In this case it’s “managing up”. Try booking a 3 min call with the reviewer the day before and walking them through the items that need to be approved. Look up other techniques for managing up. Happens all the time.

  2. Anonymous

    Nope. It's way more than just managing up. Make a 15 minute meeting, he accepts and then doesn't show up. Often he is late or doesn't show at all to meetings that he sets up.

    He has been made aware of the situation on more than one occasion by members of my team and other teams that are impacted by his lack of response.

    We are at our wits end.

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