About work: This is mostly to collect my thoughts together, but if you have any say, go ahead. *sigh*
So I'm the General Manager and in charge of Human Resources. I have no solid educational background other than 1 course I took last year at a community college (Management of Human Resources). Other than that, everything is purely from experience off of nothing else, no training, no one to follow, start from zero.
As the company grew, I found the holes and tried to fill them in to the best of my knowledge and research. One of those holes at the time was H.R. We have since grown from 2 employees (not counting the owner) to 7+ (+ indicating our temps/seasonal help from time to time).
I am now at a point where everything I've tried to build, feels like I'm failing. I can't shake that I feel like I really suck at this position. I've just recently been given a raise that is finally closer to what I deserve for the million hats I have to wear, but I feel like resigning because I feel like I'm not sufficient enough.
Our HR is about 3 yrs old. I've been here for 4.5 years. I try to do everything right, but I am bound to the law and the final say of the owner.
For the past 1.5 years, I've been trying to tighten up the leniancies within the company, wanting to be stricter disregarding too much of the personal levels of each employee, yet taking them into consideration as needed. Owner tells me to back off a little due to the fact that (at the time) there were too many (better) jobs available out there and it would be too difficult to lose someone to one of those jobs (hence leaving the rest of us with additional responsibilities) and spend time training someone new. So, leniency and freedom was our "benefit" over what other companies would offer.
That's 1.5+ years of leniency, with mentioned strictness that was very loosely enforced. (i.e. Allowance of 3 mistakes in the policies, was in reality nearly 50.)
Now that the economy is bad, we HAVE to be tighter and the job market being smaller, we have the power to be more strict. However, now we have to deal with "unlearning" the bad habits we had previously allowed. Solution: Reiterate old policies with minor changes but tell employees that we will be more on the ball with the enforcement. However, all employees will be given up to a certain time to adjust to the strictness we should've had from the get-go.
So far... Okay.
But the frustrations of certain employees are already there and difficult to shake off.
My other issue: As the General Manager, I'm mostly in the Customer Service side about 75% of the time, and 25% in the warehouse fulfillment. Thus, I am highly depending on my Warehouse Manager to
manage the warehouse for me and report to me issues that come up and they cannot resolve.
Our current Warehouse Manager is a little difficult to work with, but again, owner gives me the "back off" thing and so this manager has learned to be a manager HIS way. I understand his point of view, but I also don't fully agree with it. I still believe a manager should be there for his/her team during very critical / important times. Given he sacrifices on the back end where no one looks (where his belief a manager should be doing and does not need to be parading around what he's doing when no one looks), but at the same time he's not there on the front lines when his presence is needed (i.e. coming in early every day during our warehouse move).
We try to tell him to be there more, but he thinks we are now harassing him to do work just because the lower employees say so. Thus his argument "you give everyone too much say in everything, you're making everyone into mini-managers which basically means Management is thrown out the window. They shouldn't have to question what their managers are doing. We're supposed to be filling in the holes that they don't complete, and I don't think I have to keep reporting to them when I do each of those things."
This week, one of our employees gave his 2 week resignation.
What triggered his decision:
1) The assistant WH Mgr was on vacation for 2 weeks and returned last week on Thursday (my day off). Prior to his vacation we had agreed that upon his return, that he would not take his normal Friday off so that the WH Mgr could take that day off since he would not be able to take his days off during the 2 weeks the assist WH Mgr would be out. That didn't happen last Friday. So a misunderstanding led to the absence of both WH Mgrs on Friday and Saturday when we were scheduled to do inventory.
2) The resigning employee has had many absent days in the past year, yet when he is here he busts his butt off working as hard as he could to get things done. However, he does end up taking a lot of time off during Mondays, our busiest day of the week, and a lot of times has to do a lot of last minute notifications. Given 90% of those last minute emergencies are warranted emergencies since he is the primary caregiver for his GF who is considered to be on disability (thus often times must go to the ER). It is becoming an issue both for us and for him.
3) Well, the following Monday from the assist. WH Mgr's return, he had to call the day off again. The assist. WH Mgr was pissed because just before he left for his vacation we had just discussed getting tighter on our attendance and everything. He appeared to be mad that we hadn't done anything about it and it was going to seem that all we had discussed before was pointless, but we were going to give him a verbal/written warning upon his return the following day. Well, the next day this guy comes in to work, and the assist. WH Mgr blows off on him.
4) Overall he felt he was singled out and did not like how things were going.
In our exit interview, most of his issues were about the main Warehouse Manager. He said that I am the main reason why he enjoyed working here despite his physical pains/condition because he liked the fact that I am focused and on point,
when the WH Mgr is not here. I explained to him that we are aware of the issues happening and working on making the changes, but certain changes will take time, and results of those changes will also take time. Nonetheless he is still resigning, but for one thing I'm glad he pointed out the areas where we need fixing (backing me on the things I've been wanting to do a long time ago).
Now, everyone below the WH Mgr has been complaining about his absences since the Holidays, or lack of appearance I should say. When we met with him though to discuss the issues, he also felt singled out, and, well pretty much what I wrote above. Right now he is planning on resigning himself. He mentioned if he is offered a job one day, he's there the next and will not give a 2 week notice here (this was told to me in confidence as a friend though so I can't really put it on record, although he has said this many times in the past and never went through).
Given how things have been this week and this year so far with all our changes we are trying and have no choice but to do, I have a feeling the assist. WH Mgr is doing the same thing as the WH Mgr. I'm sure he is also frustrated at how we are.
That currently makes it 3/7 employees resigning or planning on resigning soon. And they are all the ones who have been here the longest. The remaining 3 (not including myself) have been here barely a year.
With that many employees wanting to resign, I can't help but think I am failing in managing and am not sufficient for the job. I've already considered resigning from the position, but right now, no one here is well equipped to take over, and the owner will not want to hire someone new and give them such a high position so quick.
Between the owner, me, WH Mgr and Assist. WH Mgr. it almost feels like there are 4 different managing styles/ideas, and I'm trying to make it in a way that will work for all. But it doesn't seem that anyone below me is willing to discuss (which does include arguing at times until the resolution is found) openly with each other. It's always ended up being said after the fact or when it's really too late.
>.<
Grrr....
Plus side, if all 3 do resign, I am able to restructure from the ground up and be able to rebuild the company the way it should have been from the beginning. But man, if I fail again..... *sigh*
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