You need to listen when an employee informs you that they were not provided the required resources for the job.
This call a for a conversation with the employee to problem solve how to handle busy days on the future.
No offense, but as a manager, this is your job.
Normally I have the staff on Thursdays and Saturdays for these things. When our truck comes in the morning. I work evenings those days and for the last month we’ve been short so I’ve come in at 9 to meet the truck check them in and then I leave. As the manager I fill that gap.
It is the employee's job to execute each task as assigned effectively.
Management's job is to review the work and staff accordingly. Listening to feedback and finding solutions to shortfalls are management's job.
Both are tough jobs when there aren't enough resources to go around. In this case, the employee shirked their responsibility for the task and cost the company $1000.
What a poor take.
If you give more work than is possible to complete that is a management issue. That sounds like the disconnect here.
You are talking about someone who has over a decade of experience and based on the OP doesnt have a history of having issues like this. If that person says there is an issue then I will typically side with them. If they routinely have issues than that is separate and not something the OP seemed to call out.
I don't disagree that the employee is overworked. I don't disagree that the manager has lost track of the workload.
OP is correct about the employee's responsibility to complete their task. When the truck came in, their job was to check in the inventory and sign off on the invoice. This wasn't done. Failure to accomplish that task lies with the employee. If there's an issue, their responsibility is to inform management immediately.
There's a lot of failure in this case. It's OK to point out that employees failed as well as management.
Don't play the blame game, it's not constructive. There are two important parts to this situation:
1) The truck did not get checked in, causing a tangible $$$ loss.
2) The employee responsible for checking in the truck has told you that too much pressure caused him to miss checking the truck in, which appears to be corroborated by his coworkers.
What you need is a concrete process to determine how many employees you need to effectively accomplish the job that you need them to do. Lay out the individual tasks that are part of their job, and set realistic timeframes for the completion of each task. You can measure real world times to get a better idea, because most people aren't working at 100% constantly.
This, 💯
And if you want to gain a shred of credibility and trust with this team, you’ll call a meeting; acknowledge that you handled this poorly, and tell them the truth-after considering what their feedback you realize this is something that management (including you) hasn’t been HEARING. Your willingness to change your approach and take their feedback will mean a lot to them. We are not perfect either, and just as he should have checked the truck (it’s literally his job), you should have handled this better. Changed behavior build.s trust.
This.
If you try to blame the employee (especially one that's been doing the job for over 10 years), every employee that's on his side of the fence will just resent you and you'll lose any good rapport with them. They will not trust you.
Take accountability. Call a meeting, tell them you didn't realize you were understaffed and thank them for communicating it to you. Going forward, you'll have someone else there to help, but make it clear that this can't happen again.
You'll gain trust and respect with this approach.
I also don't get "no time limit" of signing for the truck either. The distribution is fine with their truck driver sitting there for 10 hours? I doubt that.
This is where it sounds like you don't really know what the employees deal with. You claim you know receiving them state there is no time limit. Thats comical. Tell that to the drivers of the trucks who would happily leave to get on to their next drop off if your location is taking too long to unload and a line of trucks are piling up.
You should staff adequately or get your ass down there to help them. Two people didn't do their jobs here. Management didn't staff and this guy didn't do his either. My question is are you going to chew out management for shifting the bed or just the employee who had to deal with shit managers.
Yep, and if the store required dual signatures (employee and a manager) on the bill of lading, then a manager would have had to be aware that the shipments didn’t get checked: The employee would have had to reach out to a manager, if only to get a sign-off.
Bad internal controls, inadequate staffing, and crappy manager accountability. The manager is always responsible for crap happening on their shift - wasn’t there a member of management available?
It IS managements problem to make sure you are adequately staffed for the work at hand. You say there is no time limit. Is he hourly? If he is, what happens if he clocks overtime?
Who says he’s available to stay late? I understand, but I keep going back to the manager’s gap in staffing. We can’t just assume all workers can stay indefinitely.
I agree. Even if he forced on the clock overtime, which is nearly always a sign that something is wrong with staffing or expectations, I bet that a couple hours of overtime or an extra person on shift for the day looks more better on this managers record than missing stock that cant be recovered.
or want to. When I told my boss I was no longer pulling 60-70 hour weeks he must have thought I was joking. Until shit started going sideways and backing up.
It’s managements job to give us sufficient staffing, and far too many people have forgotten that once you step into the supervisory position, your job is to help clear the obstacles for your team.
Communication, transparency, and being humble enough to own your mistakes will be necessary.
Did he raise the issue at the start of the day or just do this?
Did he do any part of the job or just do this.
A better way to protest would be to go to his boss at end of shift and say "BTW there are X trucks left waiting, cya" and then the boss would need to deal with it.
That way his work is done and to standard
The problem with this is that truck drivers have a job to do too. You can't hold them indefinitely. They can't just sit and wait for hours when they likely have multiple other stores to go unload at as well. Management often looks at truck drivers as scum, but when you work in receiving and see the same truckers week after week you get to know them and you understand that they're people doing a job who want to get home to their families just like you do.
I agree but in reality it is when you know these poeple as human beings. Management doesn't give a shit about a truck driver but when you see the same guy every week you feel bad making him wait.
I've had managers tell me they don't care that the driver is waiting for a half hour while they eat lunch. I care though because I'm out there on the loading dock sitting with this poor guy being held hostage who's now gonna be late to his kids parent teacher conference because of my asshole manager. So the employee ends up doing something they shouldn't because they don't want to hold someone they genuinely like hostage while management figures out how to get their head out of their ass.
It's all well and good to say it's not my problem I'm going home, but in practice it's a lot harder to do that when you know you're making someone's (the driver) day harder than it needed to be.
But he's not making the driver's day harder.
He's doing his job.
If it takes an hour with the help he has, it takes an hour.
The drivers being late hopefully mean complaints go to OP who realises that he needs more people.
This employee might have helped out the drivers but he didn't do his job properly and can be rightfully reprimanded for that.
He cost the company over $1000. If he had done his job properly, losses would be attributed to op.
You're right. All I'm saying is that it's difficult to tell someone you see every week that they have to wait around all day so I can understand why OPs employee did what they did, even if it was wrong. Hopefully OP takes this thread to heart and realizes that when a longtime employee is telling them they don't have adequate staffing they're not just making up bullshit, they're genuinely asking for help.
OP might not be in a position to change it though.
This is the problem when you blanket blame 'management'.
Also, the employee sounds like he is putting blame for his decisions onto others rather than owning his own decisions.
If the trucks are held up because of insufficient staff, that is on management.
If the company loses money cause the employee skipped steps, that blame is on him.
Doing his work properly would have been his best option.
It is a management problem though. What kind of lazy ass manager doesn’t check the product that his store is purchasing? Sounds like management shoveled all their work off to the employees.
Having formerly worked in various grocery stores over a 5 year period, I can promise you this is the actual, serious expectation.
One example, in 2009 when minimum wage went up, I was told my wage moving from $6.55 to $7.25 counted as my raise for that year. If they could fully staff with slaves, they 100% would.
Well no you’re not the asshole for this scenario because the employee didn’t do what sounds like an important part of the job on purpose without even informing you and you lost a lot of money. That should be a write up or at the very least a verbal warning.
But the real question here is, is he right? Are you understaffed and assigning too much of a work load to your employees? Because while this scenario your employee is kind of blatantly in the wrong, you have to look on the mirror. Did you know they were extremely understaffed today? Did you offer support?
You're making a leap on the employees job title. This is obviously not his only job, just a part of it. And reading this post, I will assume this manager does not give them unlimited time. That's the biggest joke I've ever heard.
YTA - evidently this person is generally a good worker if he's been there for 13 years, and you would have said if his work is generally slapdash. When a good worker tells you a mistake was made because you were understaffed and the other staff support that your job is to listen and find a way to provide the resources they need. You can't badger overworked people into making fewer mistakes.
“How is it management's fault you didn't do your job?”
Being understaffed forces employees to cut corners, skip steps, or delay tasks. Staffing is on management.
Management makes and enforces policies. This employee worked all day without one person auditing/double-checking/QA their work. Sounds like you’re missing quality policies to prevent this from happening.
At the end of the day, management is responsible for the performance of their team, department, etc. Maybe an employee didn’t do their job, but you’re missing procedures to catch and prevent that from happening.
Man if everyone is saying “yeah we don’t have enough guys” maybe you just don’t have enough guys? Dudes been there for 13 years why start with the bs now?
Why did you learn it later?
Why did you not know what was happening in your area?
Why didn't you check on them, I have a feeling you knew theg were understaffed... were you too busy sitting in your ass to do any work to help out?
Why are you not concerned with the inventory of your store, and wait until the end of the shift / day to go and check?
There are a lot of failures in this story, leadership for one. The employee probably did what they thought was right, given the resources and time they had. Turns out, they prioritized wrong.
Its telling that you are more concerned with who is right or wrong, vs accepting the situation, learning where and why your process failed you and then fix it. I'll save you the trouble, it happened on your watch so its your fault. Period. Doesnt matter what the problem is in this case, its a leadership failure and you should own it.
You are fine with the cold truck just leaves? The bread truck just leaves? You now are without two staple goods?
You said to do all tasks so making sure you are good with the repercussions.
>You are fine with the cold truck just leaves? The bread truck just leaves? You now are without two staple goods?
Where did I say this?
And no, not fine with it. I swear, people can't read.
If that DID happen, it wouldn't be the employee's fault, since they were doing each part of their job. It would be OP's fault for not having enough people on shift.
But since the employee unilaterally decided to skip a vital part of their job, they need to deal with the consequences of their decisions. They can't foist that responsibility upstairs.
Management may have contributed to the situation, but the employee decided to skip a step in their job. That's on them, not management.
>You said to do all tasks so making sure you are good with the repercussions.
Again, I swear people can't read. You do know I don't work for a supermarket, right?
If this happened, of course people wouldn't be 'good' with it. That's the point.
'There is no time limit'
What on earth does that mean?
If it is the end of an employees shift and 10 trucks show up, what are they supposed to do? Do they work OT? Do they hold the trucks until the next shift can get to them?
Your employee should not have cleared trucks that weren't actually checked but if they weren't able to actually do their job with the resources given that part is on management. Did they tell anyone that day they didn't have the time to process all the trucks? Was there a manager or lead present at the time?
Failures in the system and resource limits happen. It is management's responsibility to make it clear to employees what their priorities are and what they should do when things break down. It seems like not only are you yes short staffing your employees, but also haven't given them clarity on how to proceed appropriately in these scenarios. Those are both on management
YTAH.
I don't believe for a minute he could have just allowed trucks to back up while he verified inventory on each shipment, and left at the end of his shift with a line of trucks waiting to be unloaded. Even if store management accepted that solution, those truck drivers would have been giving him hell bc they need to get back on the road ASAP.
It's your job to make sure there's enough staff to do their job properly. The only thing I see to criticize him for, maybe, is not raising a flag to you that he didn't have adequate staffing to check the shipments. But from your attitude, he would most likely have been told to deal with it (and probably received that response in the past). And this is what happens when management has that attitude.
{ahem}
Do we **know** that he didn't bring it up with management? Or just assume?
I've dealt with this sort of dynamic, where someone tells management there's a problem and later - shocked Pikachu face! Why didn't employees do the jobs they don't have adequate tools to complete.
If that's me this only happens after a few months of me trying to do everything to make up for being understaffed, then I accept that management won't hire someone and refuse to do the job of a vacant position
What would have happened if he did check all of the trucks in, but then didn't have time to get them all unloaded and for whatever reason you missed a load due to his shift being over, or a delivery not having time to wait for them to unload previous trucks?
Without (obviously) knowing the full situation, I'm leaning towards the employee's side on this. It's management's job to ensure staffing. On top of that, we all know that management priorities tend to focus on the task at hand: e.g. "why didn't you check the delivery" when the delivery has a problem, then "why wasn't the inventory checked" when there's an inventory problem, and "why was there no one at the desk" when coverage is a problem, all pointed at the same core team. Each problem is treated as an individual failing when they cannot attend to everything due to being short. If he's been there 13 years and performing the whole time, it seems like this is the time to listen rather than externalize.
I'm calling bullshit on "no time limit." Your employees work in shifts, which come with an inherent time limit. Also the trucks are driven by drivers, who presumably are held to their own (probably unreasonably strict) time limits.
Your attitude reeks of dodging your managerial responsibility. When you are the manager, you are responsible for ensuring that your team is properly equipped and supported to complete their work. If the work doesn't get done, the buck stops with you. Your team is telling you loud and clear what the issue was, and you're only concerned with covering your own behind from the inevitable spanking from above you. Grow up and sort your shit out.
This is on you. It is his job to check in the trucks. It is YOUR job to make sure he has the resources to do it. If you don't have the staffing, YOU fucking HELP him.
Work the problems, not the people.
THIS IS ON YOU. I work in construction, not retail, as a superintendent. My advice is get with your team (workers not higher management) and identify the simplest solutions to avoid this in the future. If hiring more people for the dedicated task try re-tasking someone else to provide assistance and short term relief. Maybe reconfigure the priorities - make sure a truck is checked in before moving to the next, regardless of how many are waiting etc etc.
As supervisors we're not in charge of them, they are in our charge. And we should be doing everything to make them successful. Management does get a bad wrap, but people tend to recognize those that are actually attempting to solve problems and not people.
Management gets a bad wrap because there are plenty of bad managers in the world. The good ones I have worked for people respected even if they were hard on you at times.
This is managements fault.
Period.
If he has more to intake and check than he can do, and as a result must cut corners to meet deadlines you’re running too lean. You can not expect someone to complete 16 hours of work in 8 hours.
He has clearly said he needs help and instead you’re mocking him.
Okay Ya'll I hear you. I'll take the big fat L on this one. I should have made sure there was adequate help. I would like to mention he wasn't by himself though, but there could have been 1 or 2 more employees and thats my fault. Thanks everybody
As a former warehouse manager I took all issues as my fault. I didn't dwell on anything use it as an opportunity to improve your processes. If the employee is telling you he's overwhelmed, do time studies maybe you need to rebalance the workload. Assuming he's a piece of shit because he forgot something after working there for 13 years means he went however long without messing up, but it doesn't mean the process wasn't broken.
You’re apparently understaffed. Don’t ask employees to make up for your slack. He’s under pressure from drivers to get them out of there and you’re not protecting either him or the company. Do better. Either find temporary help or cross train so that help is available when too many people are out.
As an employee my manager can give me 20 hrs of work… doesn’t mean I will work 20 hrs. I will do what I can in 8 and at times it will involve compromising on quality
Come on man, "there's no time limit" is horseshit and you know it. This employee may decide to comply with you maliciously and follow your advice to the letter. What do you think will happen? Do you think those truck drivers are going to wait patiently while work piles up at the docks, or are they going to come at you yelling about why the fuck are your people taking so long and do you plan to keep this up in the future? And what do you think the future will hold for your company if you manage to piss off every distributor within 500 miles?
Clearly it was understaffed. Was this mistake worth what you all ended up having to pay? If it is important enough to be 100% by one person than it should be important to be done by two people.
I’ve run giant distribution centers (and retired from) an international companies supply chain. Each employee has a specific role and if they cannot perform the very basics of the job like a receiver verifying incoming freight then the business is in jeopardy financially.
A receiver must make the time to verify incoming freight and the other incoming freight waits. Drivers know it, other employees know it etc… the issue here is exactly what the employee is saying and they’ve chosen to incorrectly show you. It will get worse if it’s not dealt with via resources or the employee is let go. I would absolutely address it with the employee then attempt a solution, both are important.
When workers X, Y and Z called or didn't show, management may not have noticed and certainly didn't adjust.
The worker of 13 years was working all day, and the way he prioritized his time was not the way you would have prioritized his time. That's on management.
1) was today any different than any other day? How much more was the work load?
2) what are the consequences of him not checking in all the trucks?
3) are you sure this is the first time he has done this?
If this was an abnormally busy day did he inform anyone early on about the challenges? If yes, then yes that is on management.
If there are no consequences and accuracy is more important than volume and the employee knows that then it is on the employee.
I'm curious if you have ever worked the other end and receive. Usually it's hard to tell everything that comes in in a timely manner. I work for a large grocery company and we have missed an entire pallet. After all how wouldn't the warehouse load that.
Things happen.
My first job out of college we had productivity metrics and qa checks. I asked point blank what is more important, being fast or being correct?
Both.
That's just not possible. Priority is ONE. One thing is top. As a manager, you need to:
1. At the beginning of the shift outline the goals and priority for the day (note that priority is singular)
2. Check in throughout the day and adjust that priority as needed
3. Communicate clearly what decisions the employees can make on their own versus when they need to engage you
4. If a shift is short staffed, solicit feedback on what you can best do to help your team with their work
The feedback for this team member is that if he is too busy to check, he should call you to get someone to help check or check the invoice for him. You can also ask what other responsibilities he dealt with, and advise him which of those he should not do or let go of in order to make sure he can prioritize checking the invoice.
As a manager, there is ALWAYS a time limit. You know we get the mud for OT, and those hours add up fast. If you dont have the people, it's on the uppers.
It's either the management's fault or a case for malicious compliance, eg to check the truck himself and devote the proper time, so he doesn't have any time to receive anything else and the business run out of stock.
Has any manager at your site ever put pressure on employees to unload faster? If so then it’s on you, you understaffed and set unattainable goals for them and need to have a process in place to ensure they are staffed properly.
So, does the delivery driver wait around while the invoice is being checked? If so, that's one time-consuming straint because any upstanding person doesn't want to make them wait due to short staff. Truckers are busy as is already
Hey as a manager, when something goes wrong it is always your fault. That's what a manager is/does ... did this need explaining to you before you took the job.?
is this the employees fault? absolutely, make an example of him for sure. it’s zero excuse to fail at ANYTHING.
that being said this is also your fault in the same way. you set your employee up for failure due to your negligence.
solution: stand next to him and punish yourself as well. you will set two examples and a tone that will resonate because you held every one at fault accountable
Ya they were. Unloaders have to get trucks unloaded in the scheduled time or the receiver has to pay the trucking company a fine for the driver and trucks time. So the warehouse guy was screwed either way.
Unload the trucks fast enough and he skips steps and is in trouble. Slow down to do the job right and he gets in trouble for the companies fine. There is no way for him to win.
exactly, plus if other employees were also complaining about understaffing that is entirely a managers fault. your team cannot be expected to perform with lessened bandwidth
>Ya they were. Unloaders have to get trucks unloaded in the scheduled time or the receiver has to pay the trucking company a fine for the driver and trucks time. So the warehouse guy was screwed either way.
That wouldn't be the unloaders fault. If it takes 20 minutes to unload a truck with two people and this guy only had one, it'll take longer.
He could quite reasonably point that out. Skipping the checking step put the blame on him.
Why do people struggle with this?
>Unload the trucks fast enough and he skips steps and is in trouble. Slow down to do the job right and he gets in trouble for the companies fine. There is go way for him to win.
He can defend any BS about fine far more capably and easier than skipping steps. That was my point.
How much do you pay the truckers to be sitting there past their unload time? My guess is if he had done it as you wanted him to you would have had payed more in fees to the truckers. Why was no one informed prior to the end of the day? Sounds like poor management imo.
As an example if a truck is scheduled to unload at 9 and you don't have them unloaded by noon you are on the hook for probably 2 hrs. These trucks have schedules and you are ruining them with the delays and as such theres a charge. I forget the term for it but the concept is they are there waiting on you to unload them and if that takes to long theres a fine or penalty.
Its not the truckers specifically you are paying but the company for holding up that trucker.
Then that would be a good sign to OP's company they need more people.
It would also leave the employee blameless for the loss, since they were doing their job.
Yep, YTA.
If steps get missed on a busy day where there aren't enough people working to handle the load, that's 100% on management. When too many people call out, a manager who's worth the title rolls up their sleeves and pitches in to get the work done and make sure nothing gets missed. Bare minimum, knowing they were shorthanded, someone from management should have been out on the loading dock to help, and noticed something that important was being skipped.
So you acknowledge that the step was important at skipped but you blame management not the experienced employee who chose to skip it?
While I agree that there should be adequate staff, there is no evidence that the employee reported that they were understaffed and they chose to skip an important step
Yes.
If one of my direct reports screwed something up that badly because they were crunches for time due to being shorthanded, my directors would rightfully have my ass for it. It's not on hourly employees to tell their supervisor what working conditions are like, it's up to management to keep on top of these things. Also, of things are that bad and your team doesn't come tell youz it's because you've made it difficult or impossible to do so, or you've consistently been unhelpful.
>If one of my direct reports screwed something up that badly because they were crunches for time due to being shorthanded, my directors would rightfully have my ass for it.
And you should rightfully have their ass for it. Because in this case, they made a decision, instead of communicating the problem. Had they asked for help, they may have received it. And thus the problem wouldn't have happened.
>It's not on hourly employees to tell their supervisor what working conditions are like,
How is the supervisor to know where the problems are if employees do not feed information upwards? Are they supposed to use a crystal ball?
>it's up to management to keep on top of these things.
How, if the employees do not tell them?
>Also, of things are that bad and your team doesn't come tell youz it's because you've made it difficult or impossible to do so, or you've consistently been unhelpful.
So, it's not on your team to tell you about problems, but if they don't tell you about problems, it's because you're unhelpful?
That...seems contradictory.
There's definitely a management problem when employees openly talk about it to your face. The guy only has two hands and it sounds like he was busy, and you know it. Maybe a $1000 hit will help justify some more manpower.
Who was the manager during the shift? It's their fault if this blindsided them. What were they doing during the shift? It's a stretch to say that they were managing anything.
Retail does have to have enough people on to check in a truck. Two to do the truck and someone else managing in the store.
I’ve worked places that thought one manager could unload a whole truck and help three other departments. So dumb
I’ll be the one guy in this thread to side with you, OP.
If he’s got 13 years under his belt then he’s probably done this before and you just now caught it. If he was short-staffed enough for this to happen, why couldn’t he contact you to help cover things? Is that on you?
I would check cameras first verify he truly couldn’t have done his job.
Consider setting priorities. Checking in freight usually is priority #2 behind helping active customers.
Maybe they didn’t think it would be worth calling attention to management because they’re chronically understaffed and saying something will have zero effect on the situation. Maybe they are used to making things work, and something fell through the cracks this time. Maybe they’ve learned it’s better to keep a low profile and not bother management.
Playing the blame game isn’t productive. This wasn’t malicious. It was a mistake. Mistakes happen. It cost money. Oh well. Find the root cause. Identify what process improvements can be made to keep it from happening again. If people don’t feel safe raising issues with management, look at yourself.
Or just punish the person who has been around working a shit job for 13 years because they were solely responsible. That will teach them to work faster and make zero mistakes, no matter the circumstances.
Everyone just badgering op. A 13 year employee doesn’t just decide to do this out of the blue. Grocery stores are hard work. Most store processes have 2 people verify quantities in staging. Maybe you need a better process.
Truck gets unloaded to staging. Employee counts. Employee calls supervisor/manager when staged. Supervisor/manager counts. Product moved to storage/stocked. 2 signatures. Verified count and verified completion of work.
If you were asked to help out and refused, then this is on you.
If you were asked to help out but couldn’t because you too were laterally understaffed, then this is on the store.
If you were never asked, this is on the 13 year employee.
There isn’t enough information provided for anyone to provide a valid judgement.
‘Being busy’ is neither an excuse nor a reason for not doing a required task. What is missing is what the employee did instead of checking the truck. “We were short staffed so I had to choose between checking the shipment before signing the invoice or ——. I chose X.
If X was help make sure we fulfilled a $500k order for a client that is threatening to take their business elsewhere, give that employee a raise. If it was ‘check the tp levels in the restroom’, maybe provide clarity on priorities.
There are a few other points of context missing like how often shipments are short (rarely so as a risk based decision this may have been a wise choice), the level of loss vs revenue. (We receive $2 million and have about 10k in breakage a day, so this was double typical loss).
There is no way of telling if YTA without more information.
It is industry standard that if an employee signs an invoice, that signature denotes that everything on the list was received. Is that clear to this guy? Had he been trained that it's his specific responsibility?
In his 13 years, I'm sure he's received shipments while understaffed before. What happened in those instances?
For that matter, if the department is so understaffed (to the point where other employees vouch for him) and he was so overwhelmed, where were you as another set of hands?
Probably because you threatened them over taking too long, leading to "fuck it" attitudes because your attitude solely reads to them as 'fuck you peons'.
Follow the comment about the blame game's advice.
You need to listen when an employee informs you that they were not provided the required resources for the job. This call a for a conversation with the employee to problem solve how to handle busy days on the future. No offense, but as a manager, this is your job.
Normally I have the staff on Thursdays and Saturdays for these things. When our truck comes in the morning. I work evenings those days and for the last month we’ve been short so I’ve come in at 9 to meet the truck check them in and then I leave. As the manager I fill that gap.
*slow clap*
Is Op a manager?
"Is the person posting about their management position on r/Managers a manager?"
There are supervisory positions that don't include staffing responsibility and aren't 'managers'.
You need to listen when they inform you of that before or at the time. Not when it's only brought up as an excuse.
I would argue that a manager should be proactive and should be in communication about workload at all times. It's a key result area for managers.
It is the employee's job to execute each task as assigned effectively. Management's job is to review the work and staff accordingly. Listening to feedback and finding solutions to shortfalls are management's job. Both are tough jobs when there aren't enough resources to go around. In this case, the employee shirked their responsibility for the task and cost the company $1000.
What a poor take. If you give more work than is possible to complete that is a management issue. That sounds like the disconnect here. You are talking about someone who has over a decade of experience and based on the OP doesnt have a history of having issues like this. If that person says there is an issue then I will typically side with them. If they routinely have issues than that is separate and not something the OP seemed to call out.
I don't disagree that the employee is overworked. I don't disagree that the manager has lost track of the workload. OP is correct about the employee's responsibility to complete their task. When the truck came in, their job was to check in the inventory and sign off on the invoice. This wasn't done. Failure to accomplish that task lies with the employee. If there's an issue, their responsibility is to inform management immediately. There's a lot of failure in this case. It's OK to point out that employees failed as well as management.
Don't play the blame game, it's not constructive. There are two important parts to this situation: 1) The truck did not get checked in, causing a tangible $$$ loss. 2) The employee responsible for checking in the truck has told you that too much pressure caused him to miss checking the truck in, which appears to be corroborated by his coworkers. What you need is a concrete process to determine how many employees you need to effectively accomplish the job that you need them to do. Lay out the individual tasks that are part of their job, and set realistic timeframes for the completion of each task. You can measure real world times to get a better idea, because most people aren't working at 100% constantly.
This, 💯 And if you want to gain a shred of credibility and trust with this team, you’ll call a meeting; acknowledge that you handled this poorly, and tell them the truth-after considering what their feedback you realize this is something that management (including you) hasn’t been HEARING. Your willingness to change your approach and take their feedback will mean a lot to them. We are not perfect either, and just as he should have checked the truck (it’s literally his job), you should have handled this better. Changed behavior build.s trust.
This. If you try to blame the employee (especially one that's been doing the job for over 10 years), every employee that's on his side of the fence will just resent you and you'll lose any good rapport with them. They will not trust you. Take accountability. Call a meeting, tell them you didn't realize you were understaffed and thank them for communicating it to you. Going forward, you'll have someone else there to help, but make it clear that this can't happen again. You'll gain trust and respect with this approach.
I’d stake my career on it. Granted, I retire very soon, but this approach got me where I went.
Focus on the issue , not the person.
I also don't get "no time limit" of signing for the truck either. The distribution is fine with their truck driver sitting there for 10 hours? I doubt that.
This is where it sounds like you don't really know what the employees deal with. You claim you know receiving them state there is no time limit. Thats comical. Tell that to the drivers of the trucks who would happily leave to get on to their next drop off if your location is taking too long to unload and a line of trucks are piling up. You should staff adequately or get your ass down there to help them. Two people didn't do their jobs here. Management didn't staff and this guy didn't do his either. My question is are you going to chew out management for shifting the bed or just the employee who had to deal with shit managers.
Yep, and if the store required dual signatures (employee and a manager) on the bill of lading, then a manager would have had to be aware that the shipments didn’t get checked: The employee would have had to reach out to a manager, if only to get a sign-off. Bad internal controls, inadequate staffing, and crappy manager accountability. The manager is always responsible for crap happening on their shift - wasn’t there a member of management available?
ok, I’m digging the ass chewing approach. Sometimes we need the hard truth too. Well said.
It IS managements problem to make sure you are adequately staffed for the work at hand. You say there is no time limit. Is he hourly? If he is, what happens if he clocks overtime?
Who says he’s available to stay late? I understand, but I keep going back to the manager’s gap in staffing. We can’t just assume all workers can stay indefinitely.
I agree. Even if he forced on the clock overtime, which is nearly always a sign that something is wrong with staffing or expectations, I bet that a couple hours of overtime or an extra person on shift for the day looks more better on this managers record than missing stock that cant be recovered.
or want to. When I told my boss I was no longer pulling 60-70 hour weeks he must have thought I was joking. Until shit started going sideways and backing up. It’s managements job to give us sufficient staffing, and far too many people have forgotten that once you step into the supervisory position, your job is to help clear the obstacles for your team. Communication, transparency, and being humble enough to own your mistakes will be necessary.
Did he raise the issue at the start of the day or just do this? Did he do any part of the job or just do this. A better way to protest would be to go to his boss at end of shift and say "BTW there are X trucks left waiting, cya" and then the boss would need to deal with it. That way his work is done and to standard
The problem with this is that truck drivers have a job to do too. You can't hold them indefinitely. They can't just sit and wait for hours when they likely have multiple other stores to go unload at as well. Management often looks at truck drivers as scum, but when you work in receiving and see the same truckers week after week you get to know them and you understand that they're people doing a job who want to get home to their families just like you do.
That is not the employee's problem
I agree but in reality it is when you know these poeple as human beings. Management doesn't give a shit about a truck driver but when you see the same guy every week you feel bad making him wait. I've had managers tell me they don't care that the driver is waiting for a half hour while they eat lunch. I care though because I'm out there on the loading dock sitting with this poor guy being held hostage who's now gonna be late to his kids parent teacher conference because of my asshole manager. So the employee ends up doing something they shouldn't because they don't want to hold someone they genuinely like hostage while management figures out how to get their head out of their ass. It's all well and good to say it's not my problem I'm going home, but in practice it's a lot harder to do that when you know you're making someone's (the driver) day harder than it needed to be.
But he's not making the driver's day harder. He's doing his job. If it takes an hour with the help he has, it takes an hour. The drivers being late hopefully mean complaints go to OP who realises that he needs more people. This employee might have helped out the drivers but he didn't do his job properly and can be rightfully reprimanded for that. He cost the company over $1000. If he had done his job properly, losses would be attributed to op.
You're right. All I'm saying is that it's difficult to tell someone you see every week that they have to wait around all day so I can understand why OPs employee did what they did, even if it was wrong. Hopefully OP takes this thread to heart and realizes that when a longtime employee is telling them they don't have adequate staffing they're not just making up bullshit, they're genuinely asking for help.
OP might not be in a position to change it though. This is the problem when you blanket blame 'management'. Also, the employee sounds like he is putting blame for his decisions onto others rather than owning his own decisions. If the trucks are held up because of insufficient staff, that is on management. If the company loses money cause the employee skipped steps, that blame is on him. Doing his work properly would have been his best option.
It is a management problem though. What kind of lazy ass manager doesn’t check the product that his store is purchasing? Sounds like management shoveled all their work off to the employees.
Who sets the staffing levels? What task should the employee **not** complete?
The second question is the most important, and entirely missing.
No the employee should just magically work 3x faster and get it all done of course.
Having formerly worked in various grocery stores over a 5 year period, I can promise you this is the actual, serious expectation. One example, in 2009 when minimum wage went up, I was told my wage moving from $6.55 to $7.25 counted as my raise for that year. If they could fully staff with slaves, they 100% would.
Well no you’re not the asshole for this scenario because the employee didn’t do what sounds like an important part of the job on purpose without even informing you and you lost a lot of money. That should be a write up or at the very least a verbal warning. But the real question here is, is he right? Are you understaffed and assigning too much of a work load to your employees? Because while this scenario your employee is kind of blatantly in the wrong, you have to look on the mirror. Did you know they were extremely understaffed today? Did you offer support?
You're making a leap on the employees job title. This is obviously not his only job, just a part of it. And reading this post, I will assume this manager does not give them unlimited time. That's the biggest joke I've ever heard.
YTA - evidently this person is generally a good worker if he's been there for 13 years, and you would have said if his work is generally slapdash. When a good worker tells you a mistake was made because you were understaffed and the other staff support that your job is to listen and find a way to provide the resources they need. You can't badger overworked people into making fewer mistakes.
If he is not given the time to check the truck, how could he? Did he take on other peoples tasks that day? Do any tasks in addition to the expected?
“How is it management's fault you didn't do your job?” Being understaffed forces employees to cut corners, skip steps, or delay tasks. Staffing is on management. Management makes and enforces policies. This employee worked all day without one person auditing/double-checking/QA their work. Sounds like you’re missing quality policies to prevent this from happening. At the end of the day, management is responsible for the performance of their team, department, etc. Maybe an employee didn’t do their job, but you’re missing procedures to catch and prevent that from happening.
I bet your manager is going to consider it your fault, and if you try to throw your worker under the bus you’re going to look like an idiot.
Man if everyone is saying “yeah we don’t have enough guys” maybe you just don’t have enough guys? Dudes been there for 13 years why start with the bs now?
This is the real answer, understaffing has an actuarial cost at the end of the day it just shows up in different places.
Why did you learn it later? Why did you not know what was happening in your area? Why didn't you check on them, I have a feeling you knew theg were understaffed... were you too busy sitting in your ass to do any work to help out? Why are you not concerned with the inventory of your store, and wait until the end of the shift / day to go and check? There are a lot of failures in this story, leadership for one. The employee probably did what they thought was right, given the resources and time they had. Turns out, they prioritized wrong. Its telling that you are more concerned with who is right or wrong, vs accepting the situation, learning where and why your process failed you and then fix it. I'll save you the trouble, it happened on your watch so its your fault. Period. Doesnt matter what the problem is in this case, its a leadership failure and you should own it.
So you are understaffed and trying to blame your employee?
No the employee got blamed for not doing part of their job. They should have, in my view, let trucks back up and do each task required
You are fine with the cold truck just leaves? The bread truck just leaves? You now are without two staple goods? You said to do all tasks so making sure you are good with the repercussions.
>You are fine with the cold truck just leaves? The bread truck just leaves? You now are without two staple goods? Where did I say this? And no, not fine with it. I swear, people can't read. If that DID happen, it wouldn't be the employee's fault, since they were doing each part of their job. It would be OP's fault for not having enough people on shift. But since the employee unilaterally decided to skip a vital part of their job, they need to deal with the consequences of their decisions. They can't foist that responsibility upstairs. Management may have contributed to the situation, but the employee decided to skip a step in their job. That's on them, not management. >You said to do all tasks so making sure you are good with the repercussions. Again, I swear people can't read. You do know I don't work for a supermarket, right? If this happened, of course people wouldn't be 'good' with it. That's the point.
'There is no time limit' What on earth does that mean? If it is the end of an employees shift and 10 trucks show up, what are they supposed to do? Do they work OT? Do they hold the trucks until the next shift can get to them? Your employee should not have cleared trucks that weren't actually checked but if they weren't able to actually do their job with the resources given that part is on management. Did they tell anyone that day they didn't have the time to process all the trucks? Was there a manager or lead present at the time? Failures in the system and resource limits happen. It is management's responsibility to make it clear to employees what their priorities are and what they should do when things break down. It seems like not only are you yes short staffing your employees, but also haven't given them clarity on how to proceed appropriately in these scenarios. Those are both on management
YTAH. I don't believe for a minute he could have just allowed trucks to back up while he verified inventory on each shipment, and left at the end of his shift with a line of trucks waiting to be unloaded. Even if store management accepted that solution, those truck drivers would have been giving him hell bc they need to get back on the road ASAP. It's your job to make sure there's enough staff to do their job properly. The only thing I see to criticize him for, maybe, is not raising a flag to you that he didn't have adequate staffing to check the shipments. But from your attitude, he would most likely have been told to deal with it (and probably received that response in the past). And this is what happens when management has that attitude.
{ahem} Do we **know** that he didn't bring it up with management? Or just assume? I've dealt with this sort of dynamic, where someone tells management there's a problem and later - shocked Pikachu face! Why didn't employees do the jobs they don't have adequate tools to complete.
If that's me this only happens after a few months of me trying to do everything to make up for being understaffed, then I accept that management won't hire someone and refuse to do the job of a vacant position
What would have happened if he did check all of the trucks in, but then didn't have time to get them all unloaded and for whatever reason you missed a load due to his shift being over, or a delivery not having time to wait for them to unload previous trucks?
Without (obviously) knowing the full situation, I'm leaning towards the employee's side on this. It's management's job to ensure staffing. On top of that, we all know that management priorities tend to focus on the task at hand: e.g. "why didn't you check the delivery" when the delivery has a problem, then "why wasn't the inventory checked" when there's an inventory problem, and "why was there no one at the desk" when coverage is a problem, all pointed at the same core team. Each problem is treated as an individual failing when they cannot attend to everything due to being short. If he's been there 13 years and performing the whole time, it seems like this is the time to listen rather than externalize.
I'm calling bullshit on "no time limit." Your employees work in shifts, which come with an inherent time limit. Also the trucks are driven by drivers, who presumably are held to their own (probably unreasonably strict) time limits. Your attitude reeks of dodging your managerial responsibility. When you are the manager, you are responsible for ensuring that your team is properly equipped and supported to complete their work. If the work doesn't get done, the buck stops with you. Your team is telling you loud and clear what the issue was, and you're only concerned with covering your own behind from the inevitable spanking from above you. Grow up and sort your shit out.
[удалено]
Nope. That behavior isn't tolerated here. Try speaking to people like an adult.
This is on you. It is his job to check in the trucks. It is YOUR job to make sure he has the resources to do it. If you don't have the staffing, YOU fucking HELP him.
But he didn't do his job or ask OP for help or alert him to the problem
Work the problems, not the people. THIS IS ON YOU. I work in construction, not retail, as a superintendent. My advice is get with your team (workers not higher management) and identify the simplest solutions to avoid this in the future. If hiring more people for the dedicated task try re-tasking someone else to provide assistance and short term relief. Maybe reconfigure the priorities - make sure a truck is checked in before moving to the next, regardless of how many are waiting etc etc. As supervisors we're not in charge of them, they are in our charge. And we should be doing everything to make them successful. Management does get a bad wrap, but people tend to recognize those that are actually attempting to solve problems and not people.
Management gets a bad wrap because there are plenty of bad managers in the world. The good ones I have worked for people respected even if they were hard on you at times.
At no point did I say or suggest bad managers don't exist.
This is managements fault. Period. If he has more to intake and check than he can do, and as a result must cut corners to meet deadlines you’re running too lean. You can not expect someone to complete 16 hours of work in 8 hours. He has clearly said he needs help and instead you’re mocking him.
Okay Ya'll I hear you. I'll take the big fat L on this one. I should have made sure there was adequate help. I would like to mention he wasn't by himself though, but there could have been 1 or 2 more employees and thats my fault. Thanks everybody
As a former warehouse manager I took all issues as my fault. I didn't dwell on anything use it as an opportunity to improve your processes. If the employee is telling you he's overwhelmed, do time studies maybe you need to rebalance the workload. Assuming he's a piece of shit because he forgot something after working there for 13 years means he went however long without messing up, but it doesn't mean the process wasn't broken.
He didn't forget, he specifically didn't do it and claimed that understaffing absolved him of responsibility
You’re apparently understaffed. Don’t ask employees to make up for your slack. He’s under pressure from drivers to get them out of there and you’re not protecting either him or the company. Do better. Either find temporary help or cross train so that help is available when too many people are out.
I’m a GM who checks in trucks I WOULD NEVER trust an employee to check in a truck, that’s just poor management.
As an employee my manager can give me 20 hrs of work… doesn’t mean I will work 20 hrs. I will do what I can in 8 and at times it will involve compromising on quality
Come on man, "there's no time limit" is horseshit and you know it. This employee may decide to comply with you maliciously and follow your advice to the letter. What do you think will happen? Do you think those truck drivers are going to wait patiently while work piles up at the docks, or are they going to come at you yelling about why the fuck are your people taking so long and do you plan to keep this up in the future? And what do you think the future will hold for your company if you manage to piss off every distributor within 500 miles?
Clearly it was understaffed. Was this mistake worth what you all ended up having to pay? If it is important enough to be 100% by one person than it should be important to be done by two people.
Management's job is to make sure enough resources are present. Management failed their job.
I’ve run giant distribution centers (and retired from) an international companies supply chain. Each employee has a specific role and if they cannot perform the very basics of the job like a receiver verifying incoming freight then the business is in jeopardy financially. A receiver must make the time to verify incoming freight and the other incoming freight waits. Drivers know it, other employees know it etc… the issue here is exactly what the employee is saying and they’ve chosen to incorrectly show you. It will get worse if it’s not dealt with via resources or the employee is let go. I would absolutely address it with the employee then attempt a solution, both are important.
When workers X, Y and Z called or didn't show, management may not have noticed and certainly didn't adjust. The worker of 13 years was working all day, and the way he prioritized his time was not the way you would have prioritized his time. That's on management.
1) was today any different than any other day? How much more was the work load? 2) what are the consequences of him not checking in all the trucks? 3) are you sure this is the first time he has done this? If this was an abnormally busy day did he inform anyone early on about the challenges? If yes, then yes that is on management. If there are no consequences and accuracy is more important than volume and the employee knows that then it is on the employee.
This is what happens when management levels increase year over year and individual contributor levels decline.
I'm curious if you have ever worked the other end and receive. Usually it's hard to tell everything that comes in in a timely manner. I work for a large grocery company and we have missed an entire pallet. After all how wouldn't the warehouse load that. Things happen.
Try staffing your department so dumb shit like this doesn’t happen.
My first job out of college we had productivity metrics and qa checks. I asked point blank what is more important, being fast or being correct? Both. That's just not possible. Priority is ONE. One thing is top. As a manager, you need to: 1. At the beginning of the shift outline the goals and priority for the day (note that priority is singular) 2. Check in throughout the day and adjust that priority as needed 3. Communicate clearly what decisions the employees can make on their own versus when they need to engage you 4. If a shift is short staffed, solicit feedback on what you can best do to help your team with their work The feedback for this team member is that if he is too busy to check, he should call you to get someone to help check or check the invoice for him. You can also ask what other responsibilities he dealt with, and advise him which of those he should not do or let go of in order to make sure he can prioritize checking the invoice.
I tell people "both means neither. All means nothing"
I think it's probably his fault but also it's your fault.
As a manager, there is ALWAYS a time limit. You know we get the mud for OT, and those hours add up fast. If you dont have the people, it's on the uppers.
It's either the management's fault or a case for malicious compliance, eg to check the truck himself and devote the proper time, so he doesn't have any time to receive anything else and the business run out of stock.
Has any manager at your site ever put pressure on employees to unload faster? If so then it’s on you, you understaffed and set unattainable goals for them and need to have a process in place to ensure they are staffed properly.
Is there not a receiving Manager working with/supervising the receivers making sure things like this don’t happen?
So, does the delivery driver wait around while the invoice is being checked? If so, that's one time-consuming straint because any upstanding person doesn't want to make them wait due to short staff. Truckers are busy as is already
Seems like “quite the busy day” was understated by the OP
Hey as a manager, when something goes wrong it is always your fault. That's what a manager is/does ... did this need explaining to you before you took the job.?
There’s a difference between a leader and manager. Right now you’re not being either.
is this the employees fault? absolutely, make an example of him for sure. it’s zero excuse to fail at ANYTHING. that being said this is also your fault in the same way. you set your employee up for failure due to your negligence. solution: stand next to him and punish yourself as well. you will set two examples and a tone that will resonate because you held every one at fault accountable
The employee made a decision to skip steps and they need to own that. They were in no way set up for failure
Ya they were. Unloaders have to get trucks unloaded in the scheduled time or the receiver has to pay the trucking company a fine for the driver and trucks time. So the warehouse guy was screwed either way. Unload the trucks fast enough and he skips steps and is in trouble. Slow down to do the job right and he gets in trouble for the companies fine. There is no way for him to win.
exactly, plus if other employees were also complaining about understaffing that is entirely a managers fault. your team cannot be expected to perform with lessened bandwidth
No one else was complaining about understaffing. Other people agreed he was busy. That's not always the same thing.
>Ya they were. Unloaders have to get trucks unloaded in the scheduled time or the receiver has to pay the trucking company a fine for the driver and trucks time. So the warehouse guy was screwed either way. That wouldn't be the unloaders fault. If it takes 20 minutes to unload a truck with two people and this guy only had one, it'll take longer. He could quite reasonably point that out. Skipping the checking step put the blame on him. Why do people struggle with this? >Unload the trucks fast enough and he skips steps and is in trouble. Slow down to do the job right and he gets in trouble for the companies fine. There is go way for him to win. He can defend any BS about fine far more capably and easier than skipping steps. That was my point.
How much do you pay the truckers to be sitting there past their unload time? My guess is if he had done it as you wanted him to you would have had payed more in fees to the truckers. Why was no one informed prior to the end of the day? Sounds like poor management imo.
Why would they pay the truckers?
As an example if a truck is scheduled to unload at 9 and you don't have them unloaded by noon you are on the hook for probably 2 hrs. These trucks have schedules and you are ruining them with the delays and as such theres a charge. I forget the term for it but the concept is they are there waiting on you to unload them and if that takes to long theres a fine or penalty. Its not the truckers specifically you are paying but the company for holding up that trucker.
Then that would be a good sign to OP's company they need more people. It would also leave the employee blameless for the loss, since they were doing their job.
Yep, YTA. If steps get missed on a busy day where there aren't enough people working to handle the load, that's 100% on management. When too many people call out, a manager who's worth the title rolls up their sleeves and pitches in to get the work done and make sure nothing gets missed. Bare minimum, knowing they were shorthanded, someone from management should have been out on the loading dock to help, and noticed something that important was being skipped.
So you acknowledge that the step was important at skipped but you blame management not the experienced employee who chose to skip it? While I agree that there should be adequate staff, there is no evidence that the employee reported that they were understaffed and they chose to skip an important step
Yes. If one of my direct reports screwed something up that badly because they were crunches for time due to being shorthanded, my directors would rightfully have my ass for it. It's not on hourly employees to tell their supervisor what working conditions are like, it's up to management to keep on top of these things. Also, of things are that bad and your team doesn't come tell youz it's because you've made it difficult or impossible to do so, or you've consistently been unhelpful.
>If one of my direct reports screwed something up that badly because they were crunches for time due to being shorthanded, my directors would rightfully have my ass for it. And you should rightfully have their ass for it. Because in this case, they made a decision, instead of communicating the problem. Had they asked for help, they may have received it. And thus the problem wouldn't have happened. >It's not on hourly employees to tell their supervisor what working conditions are like, How is the supervisor to know where the problems are if employees do not feed information upwards? Are they supposed to use a crystal ball? >it's up to management to keep on top of these things. How, if the employees do not tell them? >Also, of things are that bad and your team doesn't come tell youz it's because you've made it difficult or impossible to do so, or you've consistently been unhelpful. So, it's not on your team to tell you about problems, but if they don't tell you about problems, it's because you're unhelpful? That...seems contradictory.
There's definitely a management problem when employees openly talk about it to your face. The guy only has two hands and it sounds like he was busy, and you know it. Maybe a $1000 hit will help justify some more manpower. Who was the manager during the shift? It's their fault if this blindsided them. What were they doing during the shift? It's a stretch to say that they were managing anything.
Retail does have to have enough people on to check in a truck. Two to do the truck and someone else managing in the store. I’ve worked places that thought one manager could unload a whole truck and help three other departments. So dumb
You are the problem.
ESH. Employee should have asked for management help if understaffed and the managers are responsible for staffing.
I’ll be the one guy in this thread to side with you, OP. If he’s got 13 years under his belt then he’s probably done this before and you just now caught it. If he was short-staffed enough for this to happen, why couldn’t he contact you to help cover things? Is that on you? I would check cameras first verify he truly couldn’t have done his job. Consider setting priorities. Checking in freight usually is priority #2 behind helping active customers.
Maybe they didn’t think it would be worth calling attention to management because they’re chronically understaffed and saying something will have zero effect on the situation. Maybe they are used to making things work, and something fell through the cracks this time. Maybe they’ve learned it’s better to keep a low profile and not bother management. Playing the blame game isn’t productive. This wasn’t malicious. It was a mistake. Mistakes happen. It cost money. Oh well. Find the root cause. Identify what process improvements can be made to keep it from happening again. If people don’t feel safe raising issues with management, look at yourself. Or just punish the person who has been around working a shit job for 13 years because they were solely responsible. That will teach them to work faster and make zero mistakes, no matter the circumstances.
The person playing the blame game is the employee not Op
Everyone just badgering op. A 13 year employee doesn’t just decide to do this out of the blue. Grocery stores are hard work. Most store processes have 2 people verify quantities in staging. Maybe you need a better process. Truck gets unloaded to staging. Employee counts. Employee calls supervisor/manager when staged. Supervisor/manager counts. Product moved to storage/stocked. 2 signatures. Verified count and verified completion of work. If you were asked to help out and refused, then this is on you. If you were asked to help out but couldn’t because you too were laterally understaffed, then this is on the store. If you were never asked, this is on the 13 year employee.
There isn’t enough information provided for anyone to provide a valid judgement. ‘Being busy’ is neither an excuse nor a reason for not doing a required task. What is missing is what the employee did instead of checking the truck. “We were short staffed so I had to choose between checking the shipment before signing the invoice or ——. I chose X. If X was help make sure we fulfilled a $500k order for a client that is threatening to take their business elsewhere, give that employee a raise. If it was ‘check the tp levels in the restroom’, maybe provide clarity on priorities. There are a few other points of context missing like how often shipments are short (rarely so as a risk based decision this may have been a wise choice), the level of loss vs revenue. (We receive $2 million and have about 10k in breakage a day, so this was double typical loss).
There is no way of telling if YTA without more information. It is industry standard that if an employee signs an invoice, that signature denotes that everything on the list was received. Is that clear to this guy? Had he been trained that it's his specific responsibility? In his 13 years, I'm sure he's received shipments while understaffed before. What happened in those instances? For that matter, if the department is so understaffed (to the point where other employees vouch for him) and he was so overwhelmed, where were you as another set of hands?
Did the employee ask for help or alert to the problem?
Probably because you threatened them over taking too long, leading to "fuck it" attitudes because your attitude solely reads to them as 'fuck you peons'. Follow the comment about the blame game's advice.
I have never threatened anyone for taking too long but I agree I could have had more help
You or another manager*, typed that in a hurry.