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Manager CommunityPosted Jul 26, 2022


MANAGER MAILBAG #1: RETENTION, UNFAIR POLICIES AND NO SUPPORT

8 min read

Welcome to the first ever edition of Manager Mailbag! This month, Brennan
tackles strategies for dealing with employee retention, unfair work policies and
lack of support from management.

Brennan

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This column is part of the new Hypercontext series, Manager Mailbag. Every
month, we collect questions from managers about their greatest challenges and
share advice on how to tackle them. In this first-ever edition, Hypercontext CEO
and Co-Founder, Brennan McEachran, gives advice for anonymous questions
submitted by Reddit users. 

If you have your own questions you want to ask anonymously, you can fill out
this form. We’d love to hear from you!



In this edition of Manager Mailbag, I answer the following questions:

 * How do you retain your team if you don’t have the ability to reward great
   employees meaningfully?
 * What do you do when you’re asked to enforce a policy you don’t agree with?
 * How do you become a better manager without support from your own manager?




Q: HOW DO YOU RETAIN YOUR TEAM IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE ABILITY TO REWARD GREAT
EMPLOYEES MEANINGFULLY? 

The first thing that’s important to point out here is that money isn’t the only
meaningful way to motivate people.

While there’s no doubt it’s important, there are a lot of instances when people
aren’t leaving their jobs because of more money. In the startup world, for
example, we regularly see people take a massive pay cut in exchange for growth,
impact, equity, etc.

To further the point, according to The State of High Performing Teams in Tech,
once people are paid fairly, competitive salary doesn’t actually have a notable
impact on retention. 

So how do you motivate people outside of money? In general, when looking at how
to motivate humans, we can boil it down to 3 key categories:




REWARD OF THE HUNT, REWARD OF THE SELF, REWARD OF THE TRIBE

 * Reward of the hunt: This is the standard way we think about motivation
   — seeking material resources (aka, money). Since we want to look for other
   ways to motivate your team and you’re likely already familiar with the
   concept, let’s move on to the next.
 * Reward of the self: Reward of the self is about achieving mastery — i.e.
   becoming really good at your job. For example, if you have someone on your
   team who aims to achieve inbox zero every day — that’s the type of person who
   feels rewarded by achieving mastery for themselves.
 * Reward of the tribe: Reward of the tribe is what it sounds like — the reward
   of social recognition. A great example of this is social media. We feel a
   sense of accomplishment and reward by seeing our peers and friends engage
   with and like what we share. It makes us want to share more. It’s why those
   platforms alert you of new likes and comments and make those counts visible
   to everyone.

In the video below, I dive deeper into how exactly we implement reward of the
self and reward of the tribe on the Hypercontext team. 

But I’ll leave you with this: People are rarely only motivated by money. If it’s
the case that your best employees are only motivated by money, and your company
can’t offer that — you’re not hiring the right people. On the flip side, if all
your work has to offer is a low income — and it’s time to start looking for a
new job!




Q: WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU’RE ASKED TO ENFORCE A POLICY YOU DON’T AGREE WITH? 

To start, I’ll walk through the reasons this might have happened in the first
place — because more often than not, I’ve been on the other end of this
situation. 🙈

To me, the most ideal policy is no policies. I want everyone to be responsible,
reasonable adults who make their own decisions. Unfortunately, as companies get
bigger, there’s a need to implement policies. 

An ideal policy is objective and allows the company to scale its
decision-making. That’s exactly where this policy is failing. It was highly
subjective and didn’t allow a decision to be made quickly. If the purpose of a
policy is to make it easy and quick for everyone to make decisions without
involving HR, why, in this case, did HR need to get involved? Probably 1 of 2
reasons:

 * The policy still needs iterations. It’s not perfect yet, and they’re trying
   to fix gaps as they see them.
 * They don’t want this to set a precedent. While you know it would make sense
   for your team member to use personal time in this situation, they’re probably
   worried others will take advantage of the precedent. 

Regardless, it doesn’t make it right. So, what can you do? These are 3 steps you
can take when you disagree with a policy at work:

 1. When you’re talking to your superior and HR, it’s perfectly okay to make
    your stance known. You can disagree and communicate that.
 2. But, whatever the decision is at the end of the discussion is the policy you
    must commit to and communicate to your team. 
 3. If the discussion doesn’t change the policy, don’t get discouraged — there’s
    more you can do. While you might not be able to sway the policy in the
    limited time you have before your direct report needs to watch their
    sister’s kids, you can try to enact change going forward. I dive into how
    I’d approach that in the video below!

While it might take time and feel like a high effort, I’d try to make the
changes you want to see at your company. That way, going forward, you don’t need
to uphold an unfair policy you don’t agree with — and no one else is either.





Q3: HOW DO YOU BECOME A BETTER MANAGER WITHOUT SUPPORT FROM YOUR OWN MANAGER? 

Most managers don’t know how to be good managers.

In fact, 38% of managers have never received management training. It’s a sad
truth! That’s why in a lot of cases, it’s up to managers to take matters into
their own hands. 

Below are 4 things you can do to get more support (from your manager and
elsewhere) and improve your management capabilities. I go more in-depth on how
to apply them in this video. 




1. INVEST IN READING

Take a peek at our new manager gift guide, where we recommend books like Andy
Grove’s High Output Management and Kim Scott’s Radical Candor.

There’s a reason some of the most successful people in the world read a lot (cc
Bill Gates). Books allow you to learn from managers who’ve taken the time to
write an entire book — which takes an enormous amount of thought and effort. No
chance you don’t get at least a few helpful insights. 




2. HAVE ONE-ON-ONES

According to The State of High Performing teams in tech, the effective and most
common cadence for one-on-ones is weekly for 30 minutes. 

When I say have one-on-ones, I’m not only talking about one-on-ones with your
direct report and manager. I’m also talking about lateral one-on-ones with your
peers and skip levels with your manager’s boss. 

But one-on-ones with your manager are particularly important — especially for
managing up and exchanging feedback! If you’re struggling to get time with your
boss, you want to put extra effort into demonstrating that you’re not going to
waste their time. Here are a few things you can do :

 * Send the agenda in advance
 * Anticipate the information they’ll need and share it upfront 
 * At the end of the meeting, if it helped you, communicate that it was really
   valuable

In the video below, I dive into the importance of each one-on-one, and how to go
about them.




3. SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON GOALS

By working on goals at the outset, it’ll help you carve out more autonomy. 

Make sure your goals and key results are super clear so that even if you’re not
talking to your manager often, you can stay aligned on the work you’re doing.
That way it’s indisputable when you do a great job.

👉 Check out our goal example library for inspiration.




4. BUILD A PEER NETWORK

Find people in similar roles, career stages and industries and meet with them
regularly. This is a great opportunity to share your challenges, get a new
perspective, cross-pollinate ideas, and build a network. 

That network will only get more and more valuable as time goes on. 

Peer groups exist in every industry! You just need to find them. Leaning on
social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter is a great place to start. 

Unfortunately, you’re not alone in feeling a lack of support. Your own manager
probably doesn’t feel support either and their manager might not even feel
support. It’s why we’re here doing manager mailbag and also why we built
Hypercontext. 

The good news? There are other places to turn! All in all, I would say try to
find as many inputs of support as possible — starting with the 4 I outline
above.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for sharing your questions with us! If you have challenges you’re dealing
with and want advice, we’d love to hear from you.

GET MANAGEMENT ADVICE STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX BY SUBSCRIBING TO HYPERCONTEXT
EMAILS 👇


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In this post:

 * Q: How do you retain your team if you don’t have the ability to reward great
   employees meaningfully? 
 * Q: What do you do when you’re asked to enforce a policy you don’t agree
   with? 
 * Q3: How do you become a better manager without support from your own
   manager? 
 * 4. Build a peer network

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