Recently I have received a no. of staff grievances, anonymous letters, reports from local HR personnel re local poor discipline and even acts detrimental to company interests e.g. theft and dishonest acts, some even attached with video to show the evidence, saving us from checking the CCTV footage, from some of your locations. The persons concerned in the incidents are not only ‘your staff’ but also ‘you’.
Nowadays in this digital world, whatever you say or do, if it is not right, you will be recorded, it’s not hard to gather evidence. Nowadays, we don’t need to be a movie star or celebrity, we can be easily captured by somebody’s hand phone. Hence, if you perceive yourselves as a good leader, you don’t need to worry at all, as what you say or do is either Good or Right.
Each incident makes me worry about the local management, esp. those newly established locations. Regardless of old or new operations, I am telling you all here How does the HK HQs HR Dept handle all these incidents.
First of all, we have to have the right mindset for all these incidents which represent staff’s grievances and frustration towards the local management.
It’s just like handling a complaint from a customer – a customer’ complaint is very subjective “I am right, you are wrong’, that’s why the complaint. It’s natural that a person always thinks from his angle and seldom put in adequate empathy when he judges a person or a situation. Ask yourself – are you FAIR and EMPATHETIC enough when you make a judgment?
When I handle a customer complaint, I can never be subjective – thinking it must be our staff’s fault. We investigate seriously, we talk to the staff concerned to get the FACTS before replying to the customer. Not surprisingly, it’s not uncommon that the customer gives false accusations towards our staff. How do we tell the customer that they are wrong when replying them, is another skill. But if we take the easy way to reply the customers, we can pick a template and reply the customer, just 5 mins, why spending 5 hours or 5 days to investigate so as to give a FAIR JUDGMENT to our own staff, to your locations?
DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND WHAT WE HAVE BEEN DOING WHEN WE HELP YOU ALL TO ANSWER THE COMPLAINTS?
Same attitude applies to handling INTERNAL COMPLAINTS – The principle of FAIR must be upheld at all times if we are a good leader / manager.
F – Facts (What are the FACTS? Find out the FACTS!)
A – Analyse (Analyse the facts, don’t just take the facts superficially then make the judgment)
I – Independent thinking, Intelligent (Being a good leader / manager, we can’t be affected by hearsay, gossiping, rumours, favourism, nepotism, etc. whether from a naïve staff or bad staff with bad intention)
R – Reward or Reprimand accurately as a result
Local PICs should be a Good Leader with Good Management Skill so that Respect is earned by what you do not by what position or power you possess. If a leader is using his power in an abusive manner, the company will not hesitate to terminate him or her.
I have been in the company for 15 years, I had handled group resignations, incidents like staff trying to bring down the local PICs, all pointed to poor leadership/management which had made the local teams suffer hence the grievances. However, all these crises didn’t turn into real actions at the end as fair judgment of the situation was seen by all levels of the local operations. Fair judgment means good people stay, bad people be removed.
Under normal circumstances, I’d send the internal complaints to the local PICs so that so that they have a FAIR chance to know what the accusations are and to explain to me what happened, for himself or for his staff concerned. Then we tackle the internal complaint together.
If I choose to keep it to myself and guess what you guys have done or investigate by myself privately, that means we do not trust you anymore. This is not a situation I’d like to put myself in.
I believe a righteous leader would not be afraid of being asked all the questions by me, instead he or she should be happy and grateful that he or she is being trusted to handle the incident together. If you think otherwise, PLS RAISE YOUR HAND.
Starting from tomorrow, I will contact you accordingly for all the incidents sent to me from your locations.
Meanwhile, pls carry out the following instruction in your locations on behalf of me :
- Print this email
- Get an Attendance Register form
- Explain to your team members (all levels) and ask them to sign on the Attendance Register
- Return the signed Attendance Register to hr.reg@plaza-network.com by 31 Oct 2015
Again, if you perceive yourself as a good leader, you would take the initiative to show and explain my email to your team members during local regular meetings, to improve your communication with them, to encourage them to share their feelings with you, to tell them that all are equal (esp. PICs, we are not more superior than others, we are supposed to have better work knowledge, leadership and management skills to lead the team, instead of creating grievances for our team members), we are all under one family to work in Plaza Premium Group, to create a conducive, amicable and fair work environment together.