Group Dynamics
Group Dynamics
I have been part of many organizations in the past, many in a work context. One of the jobs I had where I experienced conflict with the dynamics of the group was at a retail store, more specifically a clothing store. My job at the retail store was a stock room lead, or the person responsible for unloading and processing merchandise in the back room. While many employees worked multiple positions, this was the only job I was given and I became quite good at it.
A couple conflicts arose. One had to do with team members not pulling their weight when working with me. Another was from the attitude of one of my managers. Firstly, my job was to open pallets stacked high with boxes that contain merchandise, and put them on a conveyor belt that a coworker then unpacks and sorts. Depending on who gets scheduled to work back there with me, the job can be easy or more difficult. If the person working in the back with me is slow at sorting, then the conveyor belt becomes backed up rather quickly and I am at a standstill. When this happens, I need to move from my post and help sort just so I can put more boxes up. On the management side, they need to train the employees better, or continue to shift the best people to ensure success and efficiency at every shift. The back room is always full of pallets, as they get anywhere from 6-9 every morning, and needs to be cleared out daily in order to make room for more pallets and keep the shelves stocked. On my side, I need to do my job as a stock lead and make sure my coworker is working faster. If they have a question, I need to be available to answer it. Ultimately, this conflict can be avoided. However, when it does arise, it generally doesn't resolve all that well. Once we are behind, then we are behind, and it is difficult to catch up. When I have a well-trained coworker that has good work ethic, we reach good numbers by the end of the shift. Usually, my coworkers don't mind too much when they are doing a poor job. They know that regardless, once the clock hits a certain time, they will get to go home no matter how many pallets are cleared. This becomes more of a problem for me, as I am the leader and have to report back to my boss how we did by the end. If we had a solid group dynamic, my coworkers would help out to make us both look good.
Another problem that sprouts from this is my managers stance. One of my managers is very specific with how she wants things done, and she gets angry if we don't accomplish the goal for the day. Many times, it is not necessarily my fault for a poor shift. However, I get most of the blame at the end. This problem can certainly be avoided if we worked harder, since the good days result in my manager being very happy with us. This still resolves fine, as my manager simply needs me to get more done the next day to make up for it, in which case I may have a better coworker with me. I react calmly when this happens because I know that getting angry won't resolve anything and won't gain me the respect from my manager. Even when I have a less-than-desired coworker for the day, I am kind with my approach so they enjoy working with me enough to do better.
One part of the story I didn't quite understand. You, as the lead, worked on the pallets each day. But you had different co-workers on the other end. If there were a few people rotating through the co-worker job, what did they do on the days when then weren't receiving the content from you? Were they doing some other job in the store? Or were they only part time workers? That needs some explanation. Also, how many were there who rotated through this job?
ReplyDeleteWhat you described is an example of the alignment problem. Apparently the person's pay at the other end didn't depend on how much got unloaded during the shift. Did your pay vary that way? If so, you might have shared some of it with the person at the other end to give that person some incentive to perform better.
Alternatively, you might have recommended to your manager that some performance pay be made available. Did you ever have a discussion of that sort?
I gather that the manager (and her boss too, if she one) couldn't tell what caused the slowdown.
So it might be a bit unfair to dock the pay of both of you, if one of you is doing the work. But if you treat it as a bonus pay for getting all of the work done during a shift, might that have addressed the issue?
In the backroom, we were actually all part-time workers. The co-workers that worked with me in the backroom either were scheduled for shifts in the backroom or shifts in the dressing room. However, there was always somebody with me and eventually I knew all of them as they have all worked in the back multiple times. If I wasn't there one day, there was another stock lead doing what I do. There were about 3 leads and 4 or 5 'co-workers' that alternated positions during the week.
DeleteMy pay was also a set pay as well as theirs. To be honest, I had a good relationship with the managers and that gave me incentive to give them my best every day. I understand that my co-workers may not have been in that position. I never had a discussion about performance pay, but I can see how that certainly would've caused us to work harder. I don't think there is a way that they could know what caused the slowdown unless they monitored us during the entire shift, which they didn't. Docking the pay of one or both of us wouldn't be fair then. A bonus definitely could be the answer, especially if they are getting upset when when we don't break down the number of pallets they want during a given day. The problem with this is that some pallets contain more than others, so they would have to make sure they check them before the shift to ensure they aren't assigning us an impossible task with the time given.