Chief
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Hello Fishes,
Need some advice for my cousin.
She has done MBA in Finance ,(2018 passout) after BCOM.
Worked in HDFC bank for 2 years (till 2020).
Due to personal reason left job at end of 2020.
Trained in SAP FICO, now trying for certification.
How could she get into IT company(fresher).Capgemini IBM Tata Consultancy
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My issue isn’t whether it’s done correctly as much as if I don’t do it myself I feel like I am not across the detail as much as I need to be / like to be, and then don’t feel prepared if some starts to ask me questions about it etc. I like to be prepared and across the detail
Rising Star
Yeah, I have this problem too
On a senior management level such as yours, part of what differentiates good talent from the 12-15 year grinders is the innate ability to surround yourself with the right people and to identify the unseen talent in your staff. If you’re having problems such as this with your most basic staff and seniors, then either your firm needs to adjust their recruiting/hiring criteria to surround you with better people, you need to poach better people from other groups in your firm, or you just can’t identify what tasks staff members excel at in order to best serve the needs of the firm and your engagement team. There are really no other options, except the last one which states you might still be uncomfortable with relinquishing control to your junior colleagues (which is also common and appropriate, assuming you can reform the control issues in due time). I’m sorry, but senior managers complaining about low-level staff comes across as sour grapes.
Chief
Low level staff? My comments are more about my Managers and Seniors tbh. Staff have been a mixed bag. Some great, some okay, some bad.
The younger staff just aren’t as good with constructive criticism. They all want feedback but they only want positive feedback. Grade inflation in schools has taught them that they’re all high performers and when they get feedback that they aren’t as good as they thought it’s crushing. Some also think we’re out to get them and ignore what we say because “we don’t know what we’re talking about”.
There’s also a problem with managers being scared of giving negative feedback, so it’s not all the staffs’ fault. Most would rather ignore a problem and privately bitch about it to other managers than talk to the person who isn’t doing a great job and explain what was wrong and how they can improve.
It seems like most people (at all levels) are just very poor communicators. I’ve noticed most people don’t know how to frame constructive criticism into a more neutral framework. You can tell someone something they could do differently or improve on without making it a negative thing. Some people can’t control their tone, and even though the words themselves are fine, their tone makes it much harsher than it needs to be.
Most of the time, people can take criticism just fine if it communicated well. But, that is a really big if.
I hear you, however I think this is really a problem of the pandemic / wfh. The quality of work in wfh has been at minimum at least less than the quality when in office. Hands down and I can’t keep having that debate. I also don’t think we’ll see the full negative effects of wfh until 1-2 years from now (when associates seniors are up for promotion). We’ll have seniors and managers in name only who are still acting at the associate or senior level because wfh inhibited their development so much. Major concern at my firm.
Chief
I think the B4 do underpay people until about Manager 3ish. Unfortunately, those decisions happen at the Partner level (at least in my group).
Chief
Or maybe you not clear enough on expectations? It’s virtual settings and so everything has been harder to explain and coach through
Rising Star
That’s kind of PA in a nutshell generally right there, OP
All the time. Even the ‘make the return look like PY’ seems to be too difficult to get. The prior year work paper will answer 95% of the questions...and it’s often rarely looked at.
Chief
Exactly. So frustrating. And then when I sit them down to show them how to do it better next time they act like it’s an inconvenience for them.
I feel this way a lot and am frustrated about this topic today specifically. Some staff or admin I can trust, but generally yes, same issue. I can spell out directions for admin and they mess something up in delivery and client gets pissed. And for tax work, I got dinged on my performance review for expecting too much from staff and then doing it myself. Yes it’s bad for realization to not push down, but I’m trying to spare their sanity as they’re overworked too, the office acknowledges we are understaffed, most staff was already booked all tax season starting in February, and there’s a political game where all the more senior managers suck up the good staff and I’m left with like associates and interns. So yeah, unless management can come up with a better system, sometimes it’s better to just do it myself. It’s not a me problem, it’s a leadership problem. I can’t hold people’s hands all day long.
I think a lot of people have just stopped caring. Even people who are fairly decent just seem to be taking the try their “best” attitude, but ultimately think the end result is not entirely their responsibility and someone else (you?) will show up and save them.
I'm more frustrated with teams getting me stuff to look at for the first time the night it's due to the PPMD or even client, as if their work is such high quality that I just need to spend 10 min with it when in reality I have two dozen substantive updates that need to be made.
I can deal with a weak team if they get me stuff on a timely basis and are responsive to review comments, it's those who aren't good enough who think they are that drives me up the wall.
All the time. I spend a lot of time explaining to everyone I work with how things need to be done and it's hit or miss. Sometimes people understand and they do it right, sometimes they don't. What gets me is I'll mention this to the partner or the director that I work with and they are all about letting the lower level staff work on it and making sure they know how to do it. They tell me it doesn't need to be "perfect". However, when it doesn't actually show up to them "perfect" or exactly how they've been accustomed to seeing it, they have comments and complaints. Ist's a no-win situation.
It sounds like you either have too specific of standards (just because something is done differently than you would doesn’t necessarily means it’s wrong.), people don’t understand what you are asking (or why), or they are incompetent. If you feel like this is an issue with everyone, I’m guessing either that standards are too specific or you aren’t communicating as effectively as you passingly could. Do people feel like they can ask you questions? If you’re burnt out/always tired people may feel like they shouldn’t bother you and are afraid to ask for clarification.
Yes! Our staff and seniors don’t use their brains sometimes. Doesn’t matter how clear instructions via email, calls etc are, stuff is always wrong. The other people is they never sign online until at least 10am, are done by 4pm and take 2 hour lunches despite communication from many individuals that this behavior is unacceptable
Doesn’t sound like appropriate communications if new staff aren’t intimidated by management reprimands about only working 6 hours with 2 hour lunches. That’s on your partner(s) buddy I mean I really hate to say it but mediocre people are comfortable working for mediocre bosses and that is a reciprocal relationship
We all experience that to some extent but I’m sorry, you sound like a control freak.
I 100% feel this. I could spend 8 hours creating a report from scratch myself or I could let someone else throw together some crap, only remember half of what I asked them to do, use poor grammar and punctuation, incorrect formatting and spend 8 hours writing review notes on things that need to be fixed.
Chief
D5 - 💯
Rising Star
Yeah unless I send an example or create a template that’s plug and play. Or have them work in Google so I can keep an eye on it lol.
Chief
What if I told you that they still would mess up a plug and play template…
It's a constant struggle at the SM rank but will clearly be a differentiation between SM who can figure it out and those who don't. It probably won't stop you from being promoted (we all know the PPED promotes that don't really have a reliable team and they float pulling in random folks) but it will mean you'll burn out faster.
Are you able to keep folks between projects, or are you truly working with randoms every engagement?
Chief
My group has been turning over quite a bit, so a lot of newcomers this past year. It’s certainly not an isolated issue to me, but it’s been impacting everyone. I now have enough pull to keep team members from being “stolen,” but it’s a struggle to find anyone even worth stealing.
And I know that I could muscle through it for 2 - 3 years until my team is experienced enough to run on their own more, but to your point it burns you up.
It also doesn’t help that my Partners all want to be the “good guy” and bend over backwards for all staff requests. At the same time, they look to me on why something isn’t done or why work products that I have to prep and review are having small errors.
Rising Star
People don’t care. They probably don’t want to stay long anyway.
Rising Star
Sometimes
100% feel this way all the time… idk if it’s just me or if our staff are just not performing well. I always feel it is easier to just do something myself than to try and fix what they have done.
Regularly!