I love a good story about how off mark a manager has behaved. One of my favorites was the one I read about the supervisor that decided it would be a great idea for him to take everyone’s cell phones when they got to work and give them back when they left (and not for security purposes). I believe in most cases the manager is just trying to get the job done and hopefully has good intentions, just the wrong way to get to the end result. I also know what it’s like to be so desperate to get the job done that you start taking extreme measures, but here goes a classic conversation with a manager and a new mom working part-time:
Manager: Look, I know you want to stay home with Violet, and you don’t want anyone else to keep Violet, but I really need you to be here full-time. I’ve made a list of local day cares that can take Violet now. I’ve circled and highlighted my favorites with notes about their curriculum. I think this one is the best and the staff I met with was very friendly, it’s also very affordable. You should call them.
Employee: My availability is part-time and that is not changing.
Close curtain.
What would you do different in this event as either the employee or the manager?
This isn’t real is it??? What a mess!
Oh but it is! And as Heather pointed out on Facebook, yes a company can determine whether a position is full time or part time, this isnt the best way to ask an employee to go full time. The position she hired in for was part time. The deal was basically part time or no time. Researching daycares for my child without me asking for your help kind of rubs me the wrong way… :-/ ive actually got a similar story thats worse than this that i shouldve included… Ill text you!
[…] Kristina Minyard knows that dumb things still happen. In the HR world there isn’t a single week that goes by without some bonehead somewhere doing things the rest of the world left in 1950 [Ed: my own example this week – someone wrote an racial epithet in an email – an email!] Want to take your company’s game to the next level in 2015? Start reading @HRecruit and when Kristina makes a point, listen to it […]