4

I work for a company that has > 200 employees, and in recent years we've noticed that management hasn't consulted with relevant teams for major projects, resulting in confusion, frustration and extra money spent.

For example in 2016 the company built a new office across town. The leader of the team who would be working there was asked by management about furnishings and gave their requirements, such as longer desks (to accommodate printers or a space for clients to spread out documents). When the building was 3/4 built the team leader asked about the requirements and found many had been changed or denied, such as desk length or shelving. As a result the company had to spend money on end tables, and some people have client meetings in an unused office just to have some more desk space.

In 2017 the company moved from key-based locks to card-based locks. IT was consulted for some of the technical aspects, but only after a system had been decided upon and quotes agreed upon by management. They hadn't considered things like our copiers which would need updating to work with the new format of cards, on top of turnaround times when a visitor came on site (as a keycard would need to be printed for them). The result was a mad rush to buy a new card printer and upgrade our existing copier card scanners.

And two weeks ago we discovered that management had been talking with an external company for the last 6 months to redevelop the company's (in-house) website. Our current webmaster was only informed when someone from the external company called up asking for login details so they could switch the website over, and now there's a mild panic such as will the new site integrate with other systems we've got? Who will maintain the content on the website? questions about why the change was necessary, why wasn't anyone (except management) consulted about it, and so forth.

We've raised this issue with our supervisor a few times, who have raised it with management a few times, but nothing seems to change. Projects keep going and those who are making the decisions don't consider the finer details of the project.

Is there anything we can do to ensure management speak with people before deciding on things? I worry that at some point our customer system will be replaced on a whim by management who sat through a five minute demo at a conference and we'll be struggling to understand why, or keep up.

I'm a firm believer in "let them fall flat on their face", but clearly that hasn't worked.

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    As I see it, if the decisions are not impacting you (as employee) or your work, there is very little say you'd have in this. For example: "The result was a mad rush to buy a new card printer and upgrade our existing copier card scanners." unless you are someone in the finance department responsible for justifying the expense , or, your work depends on getting the prints and scans done and until the new purchase was made, you were stuck with your work, - I dont see a room for complain here.
    – Sourav Ghosh
    Commented Mar 15, 2019 at 5:44
  • @SouravGhosh there's wider impact here as well. For example some employees aren't putting everything they have into projects, because, as one person put it "management had this decided the details before we started so why bother?"
    – Jim
    Commented Mar 17, 2019 at 21:27

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

You can't really do much else besides what you already did.

Every time there is an issue,point out the additional time and money wasted and a potentially better system.

If management doesn't care about that you just have to suck it up.

You have no say or authority and if they don't want to include or hear your advice, that's their prerogative.

Improve this answer
0

Is there anything we can do to ensure management speak with people before deciding on things?

If you've ever wondered why the comic strip Dilbert is popular, now you know.

I'm a firm believer in "let them fall flat on their face", but clearly that hasn't worked

But it is working... its just a slower process than you imagined

On a more useful note:

We've raised this issue with our supervisor a few times, who have raised it with management a few times, but nothing seems to change.

Just keep doing that, it may be working slowly.
If not, there's always hope that it will begin doing some good in the future - if only to keep things from getting worse :-)

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .