#1 If you are a SVP, there is no need to defer ALL decisions to your boss, especially not routine ones that are part of the day to day of your job. At the SVP level, you should have both the confidence and authority to make decisions.
#2 If you have time to email other people and say "I'm stepping into a meeting in 15 minutes and won't have time, can you email these out to the client?"... YOU HAVE TIME TO EMAIL THEM TO THE CLIENT.
Everything going mostly well work wise but personal life of co-workers is a mess. I manage a few people and the schedule, so I get all of the texts. 2 people sick (one that wanted more shifts but can’t work her existing ones), 1 person with a cat problem, 1 person whose husband is losing his battle with cancer. It’s a lot.
I’ve been asked to speak next week on a Continuing Legal Education panel in DC. The people asked for a PowerPoint, and we had a planning meeting to ensure the three of us aren’t repeating each other. Compare to a speech/CLE I’m giving in January on the same topic in Seattle. I got an email yesterday asking for the paper I’m supposed to write to be published in their bound manual by Dec 18. Um, what? What paper? What topics am I supposed to cover? Then they also asked for a PowerPoint on top of the paper. Wtf. Really?
Everything going mostly well work wise but personal life of co-workers is a mess. I manage a few people and the schedule, so I get all of the texts. 2 people sick (one that wanted more shifts but can’t work her exacting ones), 1 person with a cat problem, 1 person whose husband is losing his battle with cancer. It’s a lot.
Post by covergirl82 on Dec 11, 2019 8:11:41 GMT -5
The integration I'm working on as the SME for compensation is a shit show. The company integrating in can't even keep their job titles straight. Then, they're given a black-out date of 12/6 for data; we can't have data changes after that date. So one of the leaders at this company sends and email on 12/9 to our HR person who is the liaison and says they hired a new employee and they start today. WTF! He couldn't figure out to send that information before the blackout date?? I'm sure they knew about this person weeks ago. The worst is that they have no written pay policies, no formal pay structure, and no job descriptions (which are all the things I need to do my job once this company integrates in on 12/31). Also, the person who does sales commissions is not coming over on the integration, and from what I can tell, there are at least four sales people who probably each have their own commission plan. (Have I said recently how much I hate doing sales commissions?)
covergirl82, I guess he ate a ribbon. Mine does all the time, and I don't even know it until I see it in his poop. Anyway, I think I heard that the cat was fine.
I am certainly not complaining that they are having issues in their personal lives. It's just a lot to wake up to 4 texts a day on why people can't come in. I feel really terrible for the woman whose husband has cancer. Any advice on supporting the person would be appreciated.
Mine is about clients...will you just send me the work timely. I have 4 big payrolls being paid out on Friday, I've got 1 out of the 4. All your pay periods ended last week there is no excuse to wait until Thursday to send me work so I can scramble. I'm just getting super frustrated and annoyed. I guess they are all eating crackers.
Also State of Oregon sending every business this letter about the new CAT tax is freaking people out. I'm fielding way too many phone calls from clients who got a letter from "IRS or OR" as they can't keep them straight and all upset. The thing is it only affects business that gross income is 750K or more which has only affect maybe 5% of the people calling freaking me out on me.
feel really terrible for the woman whose husband has cancer. Any advice on supporting the person would be appreciated.
Having gone through this recently with BIL and SIL here are some things that helped.
BILs team covered for him and did his work so he could be at the hospital with his wife without making him use all of his PTO. This is also helping tremendously now as he is using 4 weeks bereavement and the rest of his PTO for a total of 8 weeks off to readjust life and being a single dad now. He would work weird shifts and check in but he was nowhere near even 50% during her battle and everyone was fine with it.
Dinner trains, door dash gift cards, and sign up lists for kid transportation, babysitting, cleaning, yard work, etc so he could focus on time with the kids and at the hospital with SIL. A friend coordinated this on a website that everyone could sign up to pitch in. We paid for them to have a housekeeper and just knowing that was taken care of without hurting their budget was helpful to them. Same with summer camps or school break care, offering to help with childcare gaps is huge.
sandandsea , thanks for your help. She is on FMLA, so whatever that time ends up being. Unfortunately, she didn't have much sick or vacation time accrued, so it is all gone. Our state/ company does not offer paid leave. I did ask HR about more sick time, but was told no. That's a whole other issue because HR is bemoaning that the state doesn't offer paid leave, hello, you the organization can offer paid leave. And bereavement is only 3 days.
She has a 13 year old, so childcare should be OK ish. We are not close enough to watch the kid probably, still very much an employee boss relationship because she is part of a new team I've only been managing for a few months. Good ideas on the other stuff.
waverly- can she work remotely? Any work she can take with her and do offsite? I had an employee who died of cancer this year. His biggest concern was running out of leave and STD and having to do LTD which only pays at 50%. So we did all we could to help him preserve leave. Work from home, work from chemo appts, work weird hours, whatever we could swing.
mommyatty, unfortunately not really. She works directly with the actual materials onsite. It would be kind of a suitcase to bring them back and forth, and I am not sure that would be approved. A job where they only needed a laptop would be so much easier.
Post by sandandsea on Dec 11, 2019 17:22:14 GMT -5
Another thing I’ve see done after the death of a parent is setting up a college fund for donations in lieu of flowers for the funeral. Not for now but maybe later.
I'm so fucking sick of people not doing their jobs.
I teach middle school. We have a couple of people in admin positions who are both super micro-managers but also know nothing and care not a bit about middle school. So they throw out these big plans but there's no follow through and we end up just running with it because it's good for kids...then they get the credit. So annoying.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
Vent: I'm running on fumes. I lost a week and a half of production during one of our busiest seasons because of meetings and snow days. None of the other managers in these meetings are also individual contributors to the extent that I am. For example, I am still the graphic designer for 75% of the things that go out of marketing. I have to manage my own receipts and expense reports. I am the one tracking headcounts and RSVPs for the holiday party. The tasks I do are all over the place and being involved in all the leadership planning I've been in is killing me. I've worked 10-12 hour days every day this week and I still feel like I'm falling more and more behind every day. On more than one occasion in the past few days I've had to say "No, we/I cannot do that. Marketing needs a break." Which SUCKS. I hate shutting down good ideas because of bandwidth.
I'm trying to figure out how to tell the CEO (who I report to) where I'm at in terms of burnout without hurting my promotion situation. It sucks.
twinmomma- you need an admin. It’s absurd someone in a leadership position reporting to the CEO is tracking RSVPs and doing expense reports. Any chance you can work a deal where you get at least part of an existing admin’s time? I mean, RSVPs are not the highest and best use of your time.
mommyatty, Thank you for that reality check. I was feeling snotty thinking I need an admin. I do have approval to hire 1-2 people this year, but I have more specific skilled work that I have to hire for first so that I can offload some of that. I like the idea of asking for just some of the time of another admin though. I'll have to ask around.
twinmomma- my current boss is the first one in my entire career who explained to me that my being given an admin isn’t some sort of silly power thing. It’s because they pay me X and they pay an admin Y, and every minute I’m spending on a task costs the company hrs times X but if the same task is done by my admin it’s hours times Y. So that RSVP list is costing your company substantially more if you do it than if a perfectly capable admin does it. Now I no longer feel guilty using my shared admin. But it took me... well, about as long as you’ve been alive to understand that.
mommyatty, My view of "normal" company policies is still growing. haha Before joining this company 4 years ago I was at a start up for 7 years that was a complete shit show and had no rules. So every time a normal business policy/strategy rolls out here I'm like "Ohhh right. Yes. That's how you would do things in a real job."
Post by mustardseed2007 on Dec 13, 2019 10:30:43 GMT -5
I'm looking at comp for my team and figuring out that the way my old boss paid my support staff was totally outside of what HR would have prefer that he do (base pay on the low end, making up with a bigger bonus at the end, but the sum being about average although arguably was over paying his assistant).
So now to make HR happy with me I'm working through scenarios of how to incorporate their pay without exceeding benchmarks but still giving them a customary merit increase and it's a pain in the butt. Oh and also he always gave raises in december along with bonuses and no one else in the company does that, they do it in may, and I need to change to that too.
I don't know it's a pain in the ass. I don't want my team upset at me but I don't want to over pay them either. meh.
Post by covergirl82 on Dec 13, 2019 10:46:12 GMT -5
mustardseed2007, if I had a dollar for every leader who overpaid/was more generous to the assistant than to the rest of their employees, I'd be rich.
Without knowing the specifics of what HR wants you to do now... could you given them a small increase now, and then communicate that going forward, their increases will align with the rest of the company in May? Maybe the small increase now plus the increase in May will help you stay within the benchmarks?
Post by supertrooper1 on Dec 13, 2019 11:15:32 GMT -5
I've been working on an issue with a client for over a week now. I exhausted all of my resources and reached out to my supervisor to help me figure out what the next step should be. A couple days ago, my supervisor and I spent an exhausting hour on the phone with the client, thought we had a solution and told the client if it didn't work, she would have to reach out to another branch. The other branch is who she should have reached out to in the first place, but as it was discussed last week, government employees aren't good at responding to email or phone calls.
FF to today. I get another email from the client saying that the problem still isn't fixed. I just copied in the other branch contact info since there is absolutely nothing I can do for her. I feel bad but it's now beyond me and I'm done with this headache.
I have bee ready to pull my hair out over the issues that prompted this thread. I finally lost it yesterday, stormed into my bosses office and told him I'm throwing money at this issue to help solve it. So I've got to engage in two sets of counsel, negotiate two documents with two sets of counsel (that are for another division) and we will take over the process entirely. My guess is we spend at least $10k and a month on it. AND IT WILL STILL BE EASIER THAN DEALING WITH THE OTHER DEPARTMENT.
Post by mustardseed2007 on Dec 13, 2019 12:33:32 GMT -5
covergirl82, that's basically what I worked out, with the paralegal getting a bit higher of a raise so she makes more than the assistant instead of the other way around. In the end I hope the paralegal is happy because I'm shifting her to make more than the assistant. But she doesn't KNOW she makes less, she probably just suspects it. If she knew she'd flip b/c the assistant is very smart and good at certain things, but doesn't have a good internal motivation, so if you're not on her she will literally not be working. And our boss normally wasn't on her.
Opionions please? I sent a client email to someone I work with. That email needs to go to her counsel. We have different attorneys and I am not allowed to contact them. What is a reasonable time frame to expect her to forward the email? Say I sent the email at 7:15am, when would you expect her to forward it?
For more details, there is no analysis or significant commentary that needs to be provided in connection with forwarding. At most, it would be a "Joe - attached is a redline from XYZ Corp's attorney on the referenced matter. Please advise."