Two different clients in the span of two days mentioned to me the benefits of increased focus on manager training. They both said that they knew I was an advocate, which of course, I am. But I don’t think I have ever specifically addressed the topic before.
Employers, especially corporations and partnerships, are entities. That describes most if not all of you. For purposes of the law, you maneuver through the actions of your “agents,” the individual humans whose conduct dictates your liability. You, as employers, are “bound” legally by what your agents both do and don’t do. These agents include not only the owners, officers, and directors of your organization, but your supervisors and managers as well. These managers and supervisors need not be paid as exempt employees in order to “bind” your company. They only need have supervisory authority, in any capacity. And the actions of these managers, including assistant managers or even “leads,” can place the employer entity in legal jeopardy, even if no one in “upper management” knows anything about their actions.
This is the context for my favorite phrase: You are only as strong as your weakest manager.
It only takes only one errant manager to cross the line and imperil your entire organization. It could be an assistant bar manager who walks a new dishwasher to her car and gives her a hug goodnight. A shift lead who tells an employee that they are not entitled to pregnancy leave in their first year. A department head who chooses to have lunch every day with the same employee, speaking Tagalog in the lunchroom. A law firm partner who constantly emails his assistant on the weekend. A kitchen supervisor who tells an employee they can’t leave the premises for their paid ten-minute break.
It won’t matter what’s in your handbook. This conduct will show up in demand letters or lawsuits as wrongful acts committed by the “employer.”
Of course, we get frustrated when our managers make bad choices. But the truth is, unless we do our jobs and teach them the rules, we cannot be upset about their failure to follow them.
Employment law, especially here in California, is not intuitive. I still recall my father vehemently insisting that employers must give employees a day off for their birthdays. Even trained attorneys, judges, and arbitrators get things wrong, all the time. Now think how easy it is for your managers to misstep. Most of them have no formal HR training, and some did not even finish high school. They are often hired or promoted with NO training in any management skills. Yet, they are the ones whose actions can set in motion a multi-million-dollar lawsuit. Of course, their conduct also influences employee morale, productivity, and retention. Every single day.
We expect our front-line managers to get the best performance out of our employees, yet we fail to teach them how. So why are we surprised when they lose their tempers at their subordinates who fail to perform? We expect them to cut labor costs, without giving them the tools to do any of that. So why are we surprised when they edit time to reduce overtime or meal break pay?
Teach them. Train them. Often, because these rules are complicated and easy to forget. If you expect your managers to help mold the behavior of their staff, we must help mold theirs.
Training can and should take many forms. Formal classes, day to day meetings. They can be all day manager retreats, or five-minute regular reminders. Once a quarter lunches. Use internal resources or bring in outside ones. The most effective training includes combinations of any and all of the above – live, online, zoom, or recorded. One on one, or group sessions. You can even distribute relevant articles (I know many of you forward my MMBs when appropriate).
As for those outside resources, I think most of you know that I do conduct training classes, although this was not meant to be a plug. But over the years, I have developed several courses in response to client needs, in addition to the harassment training required by law. My content includes everything from Communication in the Workplace, to Leadership, HR 101, Basic Wage and Hour Rules, Managing Attendance Issues, Addressing Bias in the Workplace, and probably a bunch more I’m forgetting. Most can be done in about an hour, and all can be done very affordably on zoom and recorded for later use. I can and do also customize classes upon request.
You can also supplement these kinds of trainings with the sorts of online training classes that my friend Jason Berkowitz provides at Arrow Up Training. He specializes in training modules for hospitality, and his courses include workplace safety, which is outside my purview but extremely important. You can find more information on his classes at www.arrowuptraining.com.
However and wherever you source your training, as Nike says, just do it. For all the reasons.
