A junior supervisor at a government agency oversees support staff work but lacks hiring, firing, and disciplinary authority. The staff have long performed the same tasks and previously received sign-off without meaningful review. The supervisor has increased constructive feedback and repeated instructions, yet the same mistakes and sloppy work continue. The supervisor can see the staff can perform correctly when directed to fix specific issues, but errors recur on subsequent similar tasks. One staff member sent an aggressive email to the supervisor and senior leadership claiming the feedback is excessive and dismissive of experience. Senior leadership disciplined the staff member and backed the supervisor, but the workplace situation remains uncomfortable and the supervisor feels scared.
"I am a woman in my early 30s, and I have worked at the same government agency since graduating with a professional degree. I have never had any other full-time employment, as I did my undergraduate and professional degrees without taking a break in between. Without getting into too much detail, my agency has a major impact on people's lives; therefore, I consider my work to be extremely important, and I take pride in getting things right."
"At work, I am a junior supervisor, so I have supervisory authority over employees' work product but no hiring/firing/disciplinary power. I have been in this role for a year. Part of my job includes supervising the work of some support staff members. From what I can see and what I have been told, these support staff members have been doing the same job for decades, and seemingly, the prior person in my role signed off on everything the staff did without reviewing it."
"This past year, I have been giving a lot more constructive feedback than they're used to. I have been repeating the same instructions over and over again. The same mistakes and sloppy work keep happening, and I know they can do the work because when I tell them to fix or follow up with something, they do. However, when they do a basically identical task the following day, the same sloppy work happens again."
"Recently, one of them took it upon herself to aggressively send an email to me and the "boss boss" that they all find my corrections excessive and dislike me, that it hurts their feelings to have to keep redoing work, and that I am discounting their years of experience. The "boss boss" disciplined the employee for the comments, backed me 100 percent, and that employee got written up in her personnel file. But things have not gotten better, and I feel scared and uncomfortable going to work."
#workplace-conflict #supervision-and-management #performance-feedback #government-workplace #employee-accountability
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