I recently became a shift manager and used to be a casual crew. I changed my availabilities...
The biggest problem here is the process. In the past (when you were casual crew), if you wanted to change your availability you would have first needed to communicate this to your managers. This might have been an email or informal chat, but it would have been a discussion and you would likely have entered into this discussion before the next period roster was allocated.
I would suggest that your manager is not necessarily mad, but you have certainly caught them off-guard, blindsided even. Understandably their response is always going to be short and sharp, just as your change to availability was short. (zero notice is very short indeed!)
- What is often worse is that these issues a commonly raised by your subordinates. Perhaps they noticed an increase in weekend work, but that you were no longer on shift, perhaps it was during a shift that they wanted to complain but you were not available when the previous manager was...
Just because you are now a manager, does not mean that this process no longer applies to you, in-fact in many workplaces if you are a shift manager you now have greater responsibility to cover shifts if there are no-shows or otherwise high demand, and you will need to do so with less or zero notice.
Generally, this expectation should be documented in your new employment contract, however in many workplaces it is an established normal practice. Think about it, when not enough crew show up for a shift, who is left to step in?
You can't just change the roster and not expect to have to justify or discuss this action with anyone.
By changing the roster/availability before authorizing this change, you are flaunting your new power over everyone else and you are sending a message that you are above reproach.
Having the privilege of managing the roster does not make you the final step in the chain of command, you still have a manager, at all levels in employment hierarchies if you need to alter your workload this will affect your direct manager, when you cannot perform your task then they will need to do so. This is why we call this a chain-of-command. We are all linked loosely, if we all do our job then the chain doesn't pull too tightly on upper management, but each link along the chain aggregates the links before it. If a manager feels that one of the links in the chain below them is not working, or at least is not contributing to lightening the load, then that link is usually the next one to be replaced.
My family asked me to be free on weekends as they need my help
In many industries, to accommodate a request like this from family when there is a general expectation or requirement to work on the weekends, would require us to step down a level. Lots of people would love the opportunity to take weekends off, but in some industries and services this isn't really possible, especially if the weekends are an important revenue or productivity stream to the business.
This all doesn't mean that you can't take the weekends off, but as the shift manager and a position of power and authority over other staff members, you will be under more scrutiny than before. Than means you have to pre-empt reactions to any changes you might want to make, you have to mitigate the issues before they arise. You are after all a manager now... The biggest thing we have to manage is expectations.
Unfortunately that won’t work with the roster as it isn’t fair to not help out on weekends for the rest of the team.
You really should have seen this response coming, put yourself in the shoes first of your subordinate crew members, what message does it send when the manager tells them to work every weekend, but the manager is never there. Then put yourself in the shoes of your manager, when someone calls in sick on Sunday, who is going to open the shop or answer the phones? Who is going to pick up the slack?
If you want to keep this role and take the weekends off, then you need to implement a process to deal with your absence. Once off here and there is fine, you're a team that can adapt, but this adds a lot of stress to the system. If it is a regular or known occurrence, then we just need to plan up front that all actors in this plan can be ready for.
Find a way to make this a win-win proposition and take this to your manager, requesting the weekends off. Perhaps you will put in extra time in other areas as a trade-off, in Australia we often refer to this as time-in-lieu, overtime without taking any extra money for it. They might decide not to accept your proposal, they might have one of their own, or ultimately this might mean that you are no longer a candidate for the role you have been promoted into and may need to step down.
But it is a common courtesy that you engage in an active discussion about a change that you want to impose on everyone else before you apply that change. To do otherwise is to be a dictator, even autocracies are based on a concept of consent. Consent is essentially the difference between Autocracy and Dictatorship. If your organisation is one that champions democracy, then consensus is the difference.
- So far you have not sought consent nor consensus on this change of yours, so your actions in terms of leadership style are by definition, that of a dictator.
So your manager might be mad, they didn't realise or expect that they were promoting someone who would turn out to be a dictator ;)
