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9 to 5 Misery No Laughing Matter when it’s Your Boss
By Amy Clarke, Staff Writer
July 18, 2011
In the new comedy “Horrible Bosses,” three friends are so miserable at their jobs that they resort to plotting to kill the supervisors who torture them day in and day out.
The down-and-out men are reluctant to leave their jobs because of the trying economic times, a situation with which many workers can empathize. And while it’s the luck individual indeed who’s never know the trials of a difficult boss, most of us find ways to cope without resorting to murder-for-hire.
While the over-the-top characters in “Horrible Bosses,” including Colin Farrell as a drug-addled boss who instructs his subordinate to fire the fat people in the office and the hyper-sexualized Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston) who blatantly harasses her assistant Dale, aren’t the type most workers would generally encounter, human resources professionals say there are some hallmarks of poor supervisors.
Bad vs. good
A tyrant boss is sometimes also the one who’ll berate an employee in front of others for a problem or a poorly done assignment.
“People thank, ‘I showed them a thing or two.’ That really doesn’t show anything but your lack of management skills,” said Susan Crocker, owner of Susan E. Crocker Human Resources Consulting.
It’s said that leaders are born, but sometimes they’re made. A bad boss may simply be an untrained one, perhaps someone who has been promoted into a management position without guidance.
“Sometimes you can take a great employee and they’re not a good manager,” she said.
But modern training programs have helped make leadership a learned skill.
“The role has evolved over time,” Crocker said. “For example, sexual harassment in the ‘60s and ‘70s was not treated the same as today. Just watch an episode of ‘Mad Men.’”
One way to improve your relationship with your boss, Crocker said, is to give her feedback about how you work best and about the job she’s doing as a supervisor.
But if she’s reluctant to sit down for that annual appraisal, it may be a red flag, Crocker said.
“Bad bosses do not want to do performance evaluations. They don’t want to get feedback. Usually someone who doesn’t want to get feedback doesn’t want to give feedback.”
“Instead of having face-to-face conversation with a subordinate, they use only e-mail, and a lot of times the e-mal is not well thought through,” she said.
Good bosses, on the other hand, communicate well with employees (including listening well), lead by example and share the load.
“They can go to the copier as well as head up a meting,” Yarborough said.
Coping without criminality
Most workers would never resort to trolling the Internet for a hitman, but they still have to get through the day. And that’s not always breeze, whether you’re dealing with a slacker, a micromanager, a megalomaniac or just an inept boss.
Life coach Dianne Greyerbiehl said she’s seen an increase in the number of clients in recent years who are stuck at a job because of the economic climate but are dealing with a horrible boss.
Many workers in that position live in fear of their bosses or of losing their jobs, she said. “The more they think about that, the worse they get. And sometimes, depending on the boss, the boss begins sensing they’re scared, so they begin taking advantage of it.”
One of the best things workers can do, she said, is to stay calm. And while that’s easier said than done, she offered several tips on retraining your brain to keep yourself cool and collected.
Fear and anxiety, she said, initiate pathways in the brain that lead to weak decision-making and even poor health. A more peaceful state of mind, on the other hand, helps us perform better.
Make a point to notice or create small positives in your day: a smile from a coworker, listening to music you like, thinking about a relaxing weekend or even lunch plans, talking to someone you like.
“Those little moments, if people pay attention to them during the day, actually begin to add up…and they find themselves getting calmer and feeling more peaceful,” she said. “It begins to build quite rapidly in making you feel more calm.”
Need an immediate fix? Try focusing on your breathing, which tends to make people breathe more slowly and deeply. Run your hands under warm water, or relax your jaw, tongue and eyes for 30 to 60 seconds. All these steps will engage the parts of your brain that ease tension and promote calm, making it easier to handle fist-clenching situations.
Once you have your wits about you, focus on improving communication with your boss. Try to talk to him or her one-on-one, face-to-face, Crocker said.
But if you feel confronted or attached, remove yourself from the situation. If possible, ask for time to think about the topic at hand and meet back up in an hour or a day to discuss things. If you can’t get out physically, try to step back mentally as if observing the situation from outside.
“Distance yourself from the attack that’s happening because if they’re attacking or in any way angry with you, where you lose a lot of footing is if you allow yourself to be pulled into their emotions,” Greyerbiehl said.
BMW Searched for Workers Who Were Team Players
By James T. Hammond
Staff Writer
Greenville News
The woman who assembled the team to build BMW said she was looking for people with experience in life – the best training for today’s work environment.
The people we choose would have been successful in almost any organization they might have gone into,” said Susan E. Crocker, an employment consultant and former vice president for human relations at BMW.
“Often people don’t have much experience working in teams. They’ve never had that opportunity,” she said.
“Anywhere you help lead a group, or help do problem-solving or decision-making – it doesn’t matter whether it’s a church group, Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts – these experiences can help you learn group dynamics and problem-solving skills.”
BMW was seeking applicants who were actively engaged with other people in all aspects of their lives, Crocker said.
“Ninety-nine percent of people with those experiences are successful in the workplace. You can’t win the race unless you are in the race. Volunteer for something. Stand up and take responsibility and follow through. That always helps,” she said.
“The more experiences we have, the better prepared we are.”
Crocker said “job fit and motivation” were most often the issue for those who did not win the coveted BMW jobs.
“In many cases, they had a false impression of what working in an automobile plant was like. They thought it was a lot more glamorous perhaps. It is heavy industrial work,” Crocker said.
“Or they couldn’t deal with the ambiguities of a start-up operation. They wanted guarantees. Today, if you can’t deal with ambiguity,
that’s a problem,” Crocker said.
“A friend of mine once told me that the Chinese character for crisis is the same as the symbol for opportunity. So remember: Crisis equals opportunity,” Crocker said.
“Making a change can mean a better future. Don’t be afraid.”
Employers Explore Trimming Family Benefits to Offset Insurance Rate Hikes
Published in GSA Business
Written by Jordana Magonigal
It's nothing new that insurance rates continue to rise, but an effort to keep employees happy while at the same time remaining fiscally responsible has proven to be a challenge for most employers. More companies are cutting family benefits and many employees are taking on the full cost of family coverage, which typically runs over twice as much per month as the cost to cover an individual.
Small businesses often experience the biggest blow and are more likely to cut family benefits than their larger counterparts. Many will cover part of the employees benefit costs, but leave the additional amount to be covered by the employee.
Susan Crocker of Susan E. Crocker, Inc, Human Resources Consulting, has observed this trend as well. Family benefits, she says, can vary from the company paying all of family coverage cost to half, or nothing at all.
"In most companies they have made the commitment to take care of their employees' personal needs and coverage," Crocker says. "But with increasing costs of insurance, they leave family coverage up to the employee."
There are still advantages to keeping benefit coverage with an employer's group - namely, accessibility and affordability. Even if a company only pays half, it's still money that doesn't come out of the employee's pocket. And group coverage through an employer may actually end up with better rates, plans or deductibles.
According to a 2003 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, 15.2% of the nation's population (about 43.6 million people) were uninsured in 2002. Included in this percentage are those under employment-based coverage, which dropped from 62.6% to 61.3%. However, there are some solutions to the issue at hand and they are not necessarily financial in nature.
Actually, some of the best solutions have been the easiest to implement. For example, employees can look for (or request) a tiered plan which allows for different compositions of family coverage. A staff member may elect individual coverage, individual plus spouse, individual plus child or individual plus family as coverage options. Since insurance rates are dictated by the demographic composition, this is an easy way to save the employee money by not paying for dependents that don't exist (as one might with a standard family plan).
Also, legislation recently opened up limitations on prescription health care savings accounts. Under bill HR 4954, more families can apply for the tax-free savings to pay for medical costs.
Another option that has recently come to light will probably bring about major change in a relatively short amount of time - the debit card. The debit card works like a standard cafeteria or flexible spending account. An employee chooses his spending limit on medical and dental expenses for the year, and the fees come out of the paycheck. The limit is then set onto a debit card, which is available for medical spending - the same limitations on spending that you would see under a standard cafeteria plan.
Since establishing this system with her clients, Crocker has noticed a very positive response. One company noticed that participation in its flexible spending plan doubled.
"The debit card was a way to offer benefit improvement in a year in a very short amount of time," Crocker says. "It's the best thing I've done in a long time."
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