An employee comes to you and says, ‘I hate my boss’
July 18, 2008 by Jim GiulianoPosted in: Behavior, Communication, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Management, Retention and turnover, Supervisors
Everyone’s under more pressure these days, and that often translates into more tension between workers and their bosses. Can HR do anything to prevent an all-out explosion between the two?
First, remember the old saying, “People don’t leave jobs; they leave bosses.” So if you can iron out boss/worker problems, you’ll be fulfilling part of HR’s responsibility to lessen turnover and keep good people onboard.
So, what steps should you take when an employee walks in breathing fire over a batty boss? Some suggestions from workplace consultant Sam Glenn:
- Don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out who’s wrong and who’s right. There probably isn’t a clear wrong and right. The boss who seems unreasonable to the employee probably can pull out a list of faults that the employee has. Any attempt to dig into the differences probably will end up in paralysis by analysis.
- Tell the employee to make a vow to become the model worker, starting now. If the employee expects your help, he or she should maintain or develop work habits that any employer would love – coming in early, staying late, asking for extra work. The reason, among others: If you’re going to stand up for the employee, you should expect that the person is willing to go the extra mile, too.
- Tell the boss, in plain terms, what the employee’s beef is: “Bob says you’re always yelling at him in front of other employees, and he’s ready to quit over it.”
- If the boss says, “Good. Let him,” that opens to the door to your saying, “We’d rather not do that, but if that’s how you feel, then maybe we should just move him to another department.” Problem solved.
- If the boss acknowledges there’s a problem between the two or says he didn’t realize there was a problem, then you have a basis for having the two of them work things out together – probably without further help from you, unless they ask for it.
That way, HR won’t be seen as “interfering” with the boss’s authority, and the responsibility for making things right falls on the two people with the problem.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I disagree with part of point four, it is a retalitory move to say you’ll move the employee to a different department because his/her boss doesn’t like them. If the boss and the employee are both doing thier jobs well and there is a communication or personality conflict then I believe the best course of action is training. If that doesn’t work and all efforts have been exhausted the only hope is someone will willingly request to be transferd or resign.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
What if the employee comes you and states, he hates you. What should I do?
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
As HR I would have a meeting with him and investgate his reasons behind hating his boss, making sure they were not of any kind of harassment. It is very unprofessional to openly state you hate anyone in the work place, if it turned out that the situation was not harassment then I would deal with it as a training issue. If the person refused to stop haveing a bad attutude which effected his work and the work of others around him I would deal with it as a performance transgression and follow the normal course of corrective action. If the boss was out of line in any way I would also address that too.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Also – be very carefull of the meaning of the word hate. There are serious differences generationally in the meaning of the word hate.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Karen: That’s a tough one — what DID you do?
A well-meaning employee / peer came to me and told me all the awful things her associate had said about me. Though it was probably important for me to have this information (CYA for future encounters), it became hurtful when I would get updates on the latest crap being said behind my back. Fortunately this wasn’t my boss and her job doesn’t regularly affect mine. I’m glad they are both in another building three blocks away.
July 24th, 2009 at 6:57 am
I agree with Christina, not counseling the boss for his inappropriate behavior is asking for trouble.