As a manager, how can I deal with employees challenging me?

Question

I manage a software team and have normal, reasonable expectations. Recently I've been having a problem with the younger new hires. I require everyone to be in by 9am, and whenever I ask one of them why they got here at 9:10, they'll say something like: "This is at-will employment. Let me know if I'm fired".

I get the same kind of answer if they take over 30 minutes for lunch, something like "Are you going to fire me for this?"

They do fine work, but they don't respect my authority. Does anyone have any tips for how to handle younger employees with attitude, without necessarily firing them?

Answer 1

You asked,

how can I deal with millennial employees challenging me?

I think the answer really is, deal with them the same way you deal with other employees.

At it's best, employment is mutually beneficial - the employer and the employee both receive something positive. At the root, both parties are motivated by what they get in that exchange. Intangible things like "respect" are easiest to get when you understand that.

As a practical example, many employees consider fixed working hours to not be directly related to their productivity. To put it another way, they don't believe that fixed hours produce a better result for either party (i.e. they think they can get their jobs done without strict business hours dictating when they do it). If you believe you have a clear reason for requiring employees to be in the office at a specific time (for instance, they need to be available for client support, or a specific meeting) then, instead of saying

you have to be here at 9 because I'm in charge and you have to respect my authority!

you can say,

being here at 9 is important because there is an expectation among clients that they can reach us at 9.

And - as an obvious follow up, if you can't come up with a good reason for enforcing a policy, consider changing the policy. Although it makes sense to have strict rules in a lot of cases, enforcing a policy just to enforce a policy is a great way to completely ruin anyone's respect.

If you do feel that you have a strong case for certain rules, and your employees are in broad disagreement, consider refining your hiring process. Some employees will happily describe the "culture" they want to work in during an interview. Others might not explicitly mention culture, but they may talk about it if you ask neutral, leading questions. Ultimately, some people won't want to be in the office at the same time every day, even if there's a good reason they should be. Those people may not be a good fit for your team, and it's better to rule them out during selection versus hiring them and then getting upset that they don't respect you.

So:

• Rather than trying to enforce policy, and then getting upset when people don't respect you, consider doing some reflection first to determine the reasons behind your policies
• Once you know the reasons, link them to something that motivates your employees. Be ready to explain that link. Doing so will help people have confidence in you as a leader, which will lead to respect. Or it'll help them decide to go work somewhere else, legitimately, because your firm isn't a good fit for them.
• Reflect on your hiring practices, and make sure you're giving employees enough information about your team and the guidelines you have for your staff, so they can evaluate if you will be a good fit for them. Hiring employees who will be happy working for you is better than hiring randomly and then trying to conform people to your style.

Answer 2

You are in a very difficult spot, one entirely of your own making, for which the blame falls squarely on your shoulders. Once an employee has become so disgruntled that they are asking their manager to be fired, and doing so publicly, the manager is left with no choice but to fire that employee. If you don't fire this person, you are essentially letting the rest of the team know that (a) your requirements do not need to be followed, (b) you lack any backbone to stand up to an employee. This will quickly lead to you losing all authority over your team.

Unfortunately, after you fire this person, not only will you lose someone who does "fine work", everyone else on the team who disagrees with your "reasonable expectations" will start looking for a new job, as you've now proved yourself as someone who will fire over what they likely think are trivial violations of unreasonable expectations.

Being a successful manager (at least of knowledge workers) isn't like commanding troops in the army, or some movie caricature of a boss: you do not give orders and require 100% obedience.

Instead, think about it this way. Your boss has given you a set of tasks that you need to accomplish, but where you need other peoples' efforts to achieve. As you cannot possibly be successful unless you have a good, strong, team helping you, you will need to figure out how to hire, motivate, and retain quality people, and how to organize them so that they are productive and all pulling in the same direction.

Making arbitrary rules which do nothing to improve output is a bad way to motivate and retain quality employees, and make it ever-so-harder for you to be successful at your tasks. Imagine explaining to your manager that the reason a project is way behind schedule is that you fired a guy because he showed up 15 minutes late.

Answer 3

Times and views about work are changing. If you don't change with it, then you are going to have these problems.

Honestly for the sake of 10 minutes, let them have it. Actually, increase their lunch break to 1 hour and let them come in between 8 and 10, and leave between 4 and 6, so long as they cover their hours.

It should be about productivity. Work isn't a prison or school, and you don't own them. Let them work how they want, and you will get better results because they are happier and as a result will have more respect for you because you understand their needs.

Edit: I worked a job for 10 years with strict hours. Recently I started a new job without any set hours. It's entirely performance based, and have to say I have never seen people work so hard. Everyone loves the flexibility so much they are afraid of loosing the job so they all work way more than if it was fixed hours.

Answer 4

The clash over working hours between controlling managers and younger programmers is far from new. I'm a baby boomer, not a millennial. Around 1974, I was a bright young programmer working on an urgent problem.

Back then, computers were big, lived in special rooms, and were scheduled hour-by-hour. I rarely had more than an hour a day of computer time. I had managed to get hold of one for a whole evening, so I worked late, and planned to do the same the next day. My manager saw me arriving about half an hour after my starting time. I explained the situation, but he still insisted I had to arrive on time every day, regardless of how late I was working.

I did not tell him what I thought the way a bright young programmer might now. Instead, I took two actions. One was to start making arrangements to transfer to a group with flexible working hours. I never again had a manager who cared what time I arrived unless there was a good reason, such as a meeting.

The other was a work to rule until the transfer took effect. I would arrive, as I usually did, before my starting time, but instead of starting work when I got there I read a newspaper until it was exactly 9 a.m.. I would use my entire lunch break, to the minute. I no longer accepted the last machine time slot in the afternoon because it extended 15 minutes past my leaving time. The work to rule was a bit immature, but I was in my early 20's.

A very little bit of management flexibility would have kept me in that group, and enthusiastically working a lot longer each week than my nominal hours.

Is it really so very important to have everyone there at 9 a.m.?

Answer 5

The answers above are dealing with start/end time policy. I believe the issue is how to teach subordinates how to respectfully "manage up". There is disagreeing with a policy, and presenting this disagreement in a respectful manner. Hopefully, you have brought to their attention their start/end time policy faux pas in private, and this conflict was not broadcasted.

My response would be along the lines "Firing for a first offense, no, though it will reflect poorly in evaluations if this behavior continues. What do you disagree with fixed hours? or How do you believe this affects our team/client organization with employees not being available at expected times? "

This first part is establishing authority. The second part is being sympathetic and learning as well as teaching as they may not have thought through themselves why fixed hours irritate them so much and how their behavior can affect others.

Answer 6

Take a deep breath and ask yourself two questions:

1. What brought you to the current situation?

I cannot tell from your question whether it is a single odd person or multiple of them having the same attitude, but generally speaking, such a "fire me please" attitude don't come from nowhere. Maybe the mentioned employee(s) has expressed their thought in an improper way, but that doesn't mean other mature employees won't have same complaint without expressing them.

Were you overly micromanaging too much? Were you trying to push too much on certain details without proper (or properly explained) reason? Remember the golden rule of management: the more requests/rules your make, the less powerful all of your requests/rules are.

And that lead us to the second question:

2. What is leading you to make your managing requests/rules?

Are you making certain requests/rules to your team just because your wanted to show them your authority? Or is there a certain reason? If there's a reason is it explainable to your team (generally speaking, 99% of rules you can't explain to whoever have to follow them are bad rules)? If it's explainable have you explained it properly?

The other golden rule of managing: the more your want show your authority, the less (real) authority you will gain. The best way (IMO) to lead is always be transparent and share what you were thinking about every decision you made about the team.

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And after answering honestly to yourself the two questions above, if you still believe you are doing everything right about your rules/requests, it's about time to deal with the attitude of the employees.

My favorite lines that I practically used to the "fire me" employees are:

No, but I have to leave a few lines into your next performance review, please note that doing [Rules] is important because [Reasons].

Or, if you believe it's necessary:

Yes, you can hand in your letter by tomorrow, or I can ask HR to handle it.

Yes, I mean it! Despite what you did, staying quiet about such "fire me" attitude is a usual prologue of certain employee(s) holding company in hostage, and if I cannot fix the attitude, I'd rather clear the tumor earlier than later.

Answer 7

Corporate Culture

While you have framed this as your employees challenging you, I would suggest you view it as a scenario where you have challenged your employees, and the result is not looking good for you. I'm not sure if you have noticed, but software engineering has some of the highest worker demand of any field. It also has very short tenures, for the simple reason that it is easy for workers to move up (or even just sideways, to gain more experience in a different area). What that means is that engineers generally have more leverage than employers (and why so many employers are willing to engage in illegal non-compete agreements). If your company were holding its SDEs in "golden handcuffs" (total compensation so high, they could not reasonably find it at another company), then I would expect near-total compliance. Open defiance like you describe may be seen as unprofessional, but it's also an indication that you have not accurately weighed the marketplace and the market value of their skills vs. their comp. If their comp is below market, then I would expect them to be especially contemptuous of petty demands.

The idea that corporations are strictly hierarchical organizations with directives that always flow downwards smacks very much of "central planning," which I hope we agree is a failed paradigm that should have died out in 50's and 60's. It's the idea that the CEO and the rest of the C-suite are the smartest people in the company, and everyone else is rank-ordered in intelligence and decision-making capability by their level. That kind of thinking might have been in vogue 50 years ago, but it simply isn't going to get you very far in a modern corporation with software engineers, let alone a tech company (you didn't say what kind yours is).

Empowerment

If your engineers were building widgets in a factory, then showing up on time so the assembly line can start and operate at capacity would be a justifiable organizational demand. However, knowledge work has no strict assembly line which dictates working hours, and the mental intensity of software engineering will especially reward a certain amount of managerial flexibility in scheduling.

Many engineers prefer to arrive really early or work really late so that they can enjoy a mostly-empty office, which improves their productivity. Requiring that everyone arrive at the same time is the same as demanding that everyone expose themselves to a constant barrage of emails, meeting requests, and impromptu desk interruptions. That isn't good management. That's a power trip.

Team Meetings

The only time you can really expect engineers to show up on time is for team meetings (like a daily standup, for instance). That in itself is the justification for a time expectation. On the other hand, if the team thinks you are setting a meeting time for your own convenience, and at the expense of their priorities, then you will win their hard-earned resentment, rather than respect. It would be best to set such meeting times in collaboration with the team, rather than dictating a time. Obviously, if your engineers need to interface with folks from other teams or clients at a particular time, then there should be no dispute on the importance of being present. You didn't mention any such requirements, so I am assuming they don't exist.

Management Expectations

My last employer went through many iterations of the org chart, constantly changing the scope and expectations of the management org. I would say if there is any general trend in tech management, it would be a steady erosion of responsibility. While managers in most other fields are expected to provide work assignments and priorities, interface with other teams, perform HR duties and recruiting, I would say that in tech, the focus is moving away from the front of the list and towards the back. If this trend has not reached your company yet, perhaps you are fortunate. It doesn't mean that your workers are in sync with you, as you have noted. Quite often, a conversation will include: "Well, at Facebook, they do X" or "At Google they do Y" or "Amazon doesn't do Z, why do we?" Know that your engineers almost certainly have friends and ex-coworkers at other companies, telling them what corporate culture is like where the grass is greener. If you insist on making the grass brown for your team, then you'll find a lot more of your time spent on recruiting. Time to decide what is most important to you.

Going Forward

My first piece of advice is to think very hard about why you expect your software engineers to do something that almost no other competitive employer will demand. Is there an actual business need driving this requirement? If so, then share it with the team and start a discussion; but be willing to listen and to compromise. If the only reason is your personal sense of discipline and corporate decorum, then I must respectfully submit that your values are out of sync with the rest of the industry, and you will need to work extra hard to build a team that aligns with you on this while also providing sufficient value on your deliverables.

Second, I would suggest you ask yourself what value you deliver to the team. How would the team fare if you simply didn't show up to work tomorrow? Would everything fall apart? Would they just goof off? Or would things continue to run smoothly until they needed to make an important decision that requires your input? If you are personally holding the team together by the sheer force of your will, then I'd say you have an unhealthy, dysfunctional team. If the team could do just fine without you for a week, then they certainly don't need you to man the door with a stopwatch, counting down the seconds until they arrive in order to deliver the value that your team provides.

Hopefully, the value which you bring to the team is strategic, not trivial. Ideally, your team looks to you to make difficult judgment calls, help them weigh risks, provide insight from higher levels of management and connections you have across the company. If so, you're doing well. But that also means you should measure the things that are important, and leave alone the things that aren't. Are the right projects getting delivered? Are you holding the quality bar? How is your team's morale? Are you championing the good work of your employees to other folks? This is what I hope for in a good manager, not whether I punched the right time card slot on my TPS report.

Answer 8

As you say, despite all the long lunches, being late, they are doing fine work. So the best way for them to respect your authority is to just leave them alone and let them keep working as they are. There is very little to gain for punishing a good employee over an arbitrary rule, like being somewhere at 9 am sharp when being 15 minutes late doesn't cause any harm. In short, learn to pick your battles, ease the reins, things will be fine.

Answer 9

I'm taking the opposite tack from my usual, which is normally to side with the employee (unless they're obviously and grieveously in the wrong).

My opinion is that this isn't about bean counting or clock watching. It's not about whether or not the company policies are draconian (having and enforcing a start time isn't draconian). It's about understanding your place as an employee, it's about being professional, it's about understanding that you're accountable to someone else and answering to that accountability.

At first blush, my inclination would be to fire one of them. None of us is so valuable that we can smirk in the face of accountability as if it applies to everyone but us, that we can shirk our professional expectations and requirements as if we're above them.

As harsh as it may sound, firing one of them may give the rest of them the understanding that they're not above the policies that everyone else adheres to.

Answer 10

As a manager you should lead by example and transparency would be one aspect of leading by example. Dictating without providing the reasoning of why the request was made would be perceived as arbitrary, especially by knowledge / IT based employees (if these are).

They do fine work, but they don't respect my authority.

I suspect most likely your employees perceive your demand to arrive at precisely 9:00 to be unreasonable / arbitrary. While the reaction of your team members is not entirely professional either, it is understandable.

I work in cybersecurity, one of the most dynamic segments of the IT workspace. If these employees are knowledge workers and their skills are as good as you say they are, then the demand for their labor in the market should be decent, giving them many options as to who they work for. In addition, it is my experience that many knowledge / IT workers know the value of their work. The financial cost of hiring an experienced employee is not cheap , and the opportunity cost, large. As Dwizum pointed outed in his answer, if they feel they are not being heard and the culture is not good (not open, constraining to their creativity etc.) then they will most likely leave.

So my suggestion is to be absolutely sure you know why you are asking what your asking of your employees. Respect that while they report to you, they are also professionals with a certain degree of control in how they do their work

Answer 11

Your programmers may be right but I think this behaviour is not acceptable. As a manager you must be willing to hear what your employees say and change your policies to make them feel better when at work (if and when possible, of course) but mutual respect is the basis of any kind of relationship. What would happen if today you change the deadline of a project from the 20th of March to the 20th of January and if your programmer complains you just reply "what are you going to do, quit?"? IMHO, you should put a "suggestion box" (or a dedicated email address, it is the same) where everybody could ask for changes; maybe you will find out that it is easy to have all the hours covered with just minor changes and have everybody happy. In the meantime, I can tell you what would happen in my country (Italy): the manager would add half an hour of holiday every time they are late as a compensation, and once a worker has no more holidays the manager starts witholding the equivalent of half an hour from the paycheck. Being constantly late is a legitimate reason for firing an employee. I am NOT telling you "Fire them!", let it be clear, in the end you know the situation better than anybody else and you must decide. Anyway, I suggest you to decide quickly because nothing good will come out of waiting

Answer 12

I would carry on insisting that they are at work at 9:00am on the dot. And them watch them be out of the door at 5:00pm on the dot, even on the days when you have an emergency where you would really want them to be there a bit later. A bit of give and take goes a long way.