I'm struck by the way you threw out two totally different types of complaints.
Some people will always complain about too much micro-management and macro-management - that's fairly normal. Some people will always not like the guys on the other team, etc. Bugs will happen. Good managers can alleviate these problems and hiring experienced professionals (with the associated price tag) and making a concentrated effort will usually do the trick.
On the other hand, complaints about not having a minimum level of respect in the workplace (complaints about sexual harassment and racism) are a huge problem. If you have multiple people leaving because of sexual harassment or racism, you need to find out who the hell is acting inappropriately and fire them. Make sure your HR is up to snuff; remind employees of the appropriate ways to report these problems; and act appropriately when you receive reports.
Employees will deal with not liking everybody. Money and calm managers will do the trick. Employees leave immediately when they feel they aren't getting the basic level of respect required by law in the workplace (and sometimes file expensive lawsuits).
> Employees will deal with not liking everybody. Money and calm managers will do the trick.
Woah. That's the money quote for me.
Now that you mention it, we haven't had calm managers in engineering in a while. The recent managers were always extremely angry or anxious, and always afraid not to make progress or making mistakes. I believe those fears trickled-down to the rest of the team, changing the whole group personality.
Money is not really a problem (we just had another seed round), but we lack calm managers, indeed.
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> On the other hand, complaints about not having a minimum level of respect in the workplace (complaints about sexual harassment and racism) are a huge problem.
> Employees leave immediately when they feel they aren't getting the basic level of respect required by law in the workplace (and sometimes file expensive lawsuits).
Sorry for not being clear. The complaints of sexual harassment and racism were dealt with appropriately. HR dealt with the offender by firing him and nobody was surprised.
However, I wonder if you're also talking about rage outbursts, screaming during work hours and inappropriate e-mails. Because this is the kind of thing HR (and the rest of the company) is having trouble dealing with.
> rage outbursts, screaming during work hours and inappropriate e-mails... is the kind of thing HR (and the rest of the company) is having trouble dealing with.
This is a major red flag. It's either a symptom of the underlying issue, or the root cause itself.
1) It could be a symptom of the underlying issue, which is typically stress-related. "Shit rolls downhill" approach to management, unrealistic deadlines, fear of mass layoffs, etc.
2) Much more rarely, but it does happen, it could just be someone with an abusive personality. Those sorts of people are capital-T Toxic to your organization and will definitely result in your best people leaving. You want them gone, yesterday.
Start by assuming positive intent and looking at option 1 rather than option 2.
I provide consulting for organizations about engineering teams and culture and it seems like you might benefit from that. I'd be happy to have a free call with you if you'd like to talk further. My contact info is in my profile.
> 1) It could be a symptom of the underlying issue, which is typically stress-related. "Shit rolls downhill" approach to management, unrealistic deadlines, fear of mass layoffs, etc.
Yep, there were some talks among engineers about the possibility of them being laid off and replaced by another team. But that's far from the case, as they've been repeatedly told that's not going to happen, have all gotten raises, stuff like that.
I could go with the unrealistic deadlines, which is something half of the team complains about, but the other half complains of the opposite. It's hard.
The whole team agrees that they're under-performing, though, which might be the reason for the fear of being laid off.
The "shit rolls downhill" thing is exactly the kind of thing all the previous managers did. I'd like to think that they stopped doing that, but that has left some scars on the team.
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> 2) Much more rarely, but it does happen, it could just be someone with an abusive personality. Those sorts of people are capital-T Toxic to your organization and will definitely result in your best people leaving. You want them gone, yesterday.
The worst ones were already removed, but they seem to have caused lasting damage. We should see how it goes.
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> I provide consulting for organizations about engineering teams and culture and it seems like you might benefit from that. I'd be happy to have a free call with you if you'd like to talk further. My contact info is in my profile.
Thanks, I'll definitely talk about it with our CEO and CTO.
In a dysfunctional situation (which, sad to say, it sounds like you could have), the first thing to go is trust. And when that happens, management statements are no longer believed. Ironically, the more you say about not planning layoffs, the more that can be taken as proof that layoffs could happen.
Similar with the scars from previous management and toxic employees. That history isn't quickly forgotten, even if the perpetrators are gone. That sort of abuse can be self-propagating: it becomes a learned behavior that turns victims into new abusers.
The good news is that you can recover, but it takes time and effort.
I've been working as a software engineer at a big corp for four years, I've never even heard anybody shout, or anything that could be considered a rage outburst. Sometimes the volume goes up a little in meetings. I've heard of one or two people yelling through the grapevine, but I didn't personally observe it. In general, I don't think shouting has any place in a workplace. However, I also wouldn't fire somebody immediately for shouting once - a conversation with their manager and recommendation to take a few days off to unwind is a reasonable reaction to a single incident.
> Inappropriate emails
Can you be a bit more specific? My workplace sees a fair number of testy emails "X is totally fucking wrong" / "X totally shouldn't have been done without consulting me" but from experience, peoples perception of what an inappropriate email is varies widely.
I completely agree with your first point. We don't really have reports of people shouting with each other outside of engineering, and that's why people don't really know what to about that.
> Can you be a bit more specific?
Testy is a good adjective for them. One of the worst contained profanities, but was sent using personal e-mail accounts (but it was sent from work and was about work).
There were some company-wide e-mails with thinly veiled criticism and passive-aggressive remarks regarding the (bad) work of other engineerings teams. People pointing fingers and trying to assign blame.
That's a bit surprising. A lot of the things you're saying (shouting, using personal email for work, rage emails) should only happen once per person maximum. When it happens, a calm conversation with a manager should explain that this behavior is detrimental to the success of the company. If it keeps happening, people need to go. Set the standard to separate the bad apples from the batch and then remove the bad apples.
> thinly veiled criticism and passive-aggressive remarks
Unfortunately, this is the life sometimes. It should be discouraged. But, these are probably symptoms of work related problems (lack of expertise, lack of clear responsibilities, managers who escalate rather than de-escalate situations) rather than pure conduct problems. Solving them requires patience and working the problem.
> A lot of the things you're saying (shouting, using personal email for work, rage emails) should only happen once per person maximum.
Indeed. Problem is, HR is desperate because everyone is engaging in such behavior. Which makes the rest of the company to think that it is a systemic rather than an individual problem.
> But, these are probably symptoms of work related problems (lack of expertise, lack of clear responsibilities, managers who escalate rather than de-escalate situations) rather than pure conduct problems.
Thanks for that. Indeed, those things might be the root causes of the problems the teams are facing.
Some people will always complain about too much micro-management and macro-management - that's fairly normal. Some people will always not like the guys on the other team, etc. Bugs will happen. Good managers can alleviate these problems and hiring experienced professionals (with the associated price tag) and making a concentrated effort will usually do the trick.
On the other hand, complaints about not having a minimum level of respect in the workplace (complaints about sexual harassment and racism) are a huge problem. If you have multiple people leaving because of sexual harassment or racism, you need to find out who the hell is acting inappropriately and fire them. Make sure your HR is up to snuff; remind employees of the appropriate ways to report these problems; and act appropriately when you receive reports.
Employees will deal with not liking everybody. Money and calm managers will do the trick. Employees leave immediately when they feel they aren't getting the basic level of respect required by law in the workplace (and sometimes file expensive lawsuits).