50 Ways a Manager can get Employees to Quit

Those are all questions that I will address over the next few weeks because they are best answered individually. However, there are several things that mid-level managers can do to keep employees happy and there are even more things they can do to irritate them to the point of quitting or becoming a virus.

I polled the other guys in my group and we built a damn good list of things that our IT manager did that led to him losing his $100K/year job. Note that I left a few specific things out because I don’t need anyone getting pinched. If you repeat these things successfully, you too will get your team to hate you. If you are a reporting to someone that does these things, print this and do the old Office Space under the door routine.

• Assign enough projects with tight deadlines so that your team has no choice but to work a 60 hour week while you only work 30 hours 

• Cap overtime pay. 

• Do not offer project pay. 

• Constantly underestimate the time it takes to get things done and then penalize employees’ bonuses because they didn’t hit the goal.
• Talk more than you listen. 

• Tell the team to begin planning for tons of deployments but never obtain the budget to actually implement any of them. 

• Don’t trust written time cards. Make employees email you when they get to the office so you can see a timestamp when they get in. 

• Always take sides in disputes instead of moderating. 

• Avoid looking people in the eye. 

• Reprimand employees in front of the entire team. 

• Hire someone that is very weak to take the place of a veteran and expect the same results from the team. 

• Reprimand Mark but don’t reprimand Tony when he makes the same error. 

• Consistency is good. Never ask you employees if they are challenged enough or want to take on more responsibility. 

• Make promises to internal customers but have no idea on the elements involved in getting the task done. 

• You know that Tony is a slacker, but he is really cool to hang out with so keep him around and give him good reviews.

• Suzy can take 20 minute breaks instead of 10 because she’s a little cuter than Paul. 

• Give your employees 2nd tier systems to work with but expect top tier results. 

• Never cross train anybody on anything. The skills they walked in with are the skills they are leaving with. 

• Mandate a new policy without consulting a single person that will have to live with it. 

• Give employees low raises because the more you save, the higher your bonus. 

• When talking to an employee on the phone, type away at your email. That’s a great time to catch-up! 

• When someone comes to you with an issue regarding another employee, use a lot of big words to explain the situation but really take no interest or action.

• Create a desk cleanliness policy.

• When Suzy comes in late and leaves early, and we complain, do nothing about it. 

• Instead of offering to help hands-on, watch from a distance and provide support over email. 

• Mandate that the entire team use a single to-do list application simply because you think it’s best. 

• Make your best employees train the newbies for weeks at a time but insist that all deadlines be met. 

• Never answer your cell phone.

• Never be the on-call guy to share in the team burden. 

• Have a group of employees that you get a long with and go out to lunch with while those that you don’t like get left out. 

• Send employees lots of chain letters, poems and other crap spam when they are hard at work. 

• Constantly give your employees vague project plans and get pissed when the result is not what you wanted. 

• Refuse to upgrade a system after the entire team asks for it and then be sure not to give a valid reason. 

• Blame everything on your boss because no one will ever call you on it. 

• Make all men wear ties. 

• Do not let employees expense cell phone use but require a cell phone number for the on-call guy.

• Shut off access to Google and Ebay because it’s not “required for work”. 

• Never let employees hangout and use the corp. network to play games after hours. 

• Tell employees to do plan B because you will save $11 even though plan A is the safer, more efficient way to go.

 

• I don’t care what they are working on. No one should get a monitor larger than yours 

 

• Insist employees come to your wife’s silly Barbecue. 

• Give advice on topics you are only partially educated in. 

• When the kudos are handed out, you should take the credit because you managed the team. Do not give credit to anyone else. 

• Monitor all phone use. 

• Charge someone .25 days off for a dentist appointment. 

• Lecture the team at least weekly. 

• Hold team meetings to provide updates even though the updates only pertain to one-third of team. 

• Buy the team lunch and always forget that Vegan in the corner…he’ll come around. 

• Make the team fill out self evaluations but provide very vague feedback on what they type. 

• Sleep with that girl Suzy on the team. No one will suspect she’s getting preferential treatment. 

• Call the redhead guy on the team Rusty. Everyone will laugh and you are sure to win their hearts.

• Make sure the cubicles are as close to each other as physically possible. The open areas surrounding the group will be used eventually. 

• Make the entire team read a book and then set aside 3 hours to discuss it. This is sure to increase productivity. 

• Let a couple people work from the house, but provide no reason for it or ways for others to obtain the right. 

• Insist that employees complete projects that even you admit are worthless.

Like I mentioned, I had more but it was too close to home. If you have any intention of becoming a manager, don’t do these things. I don’t care if you are in charge of the frozen foods at the grocery store…don’t make people feel worthless and don’t undermine their abilities. If you are just starting out as a manager there are 2 books that you should consider reading. One is Becoming a Successful Manager and the other, which is my favorite, is The First Time Manager.