How Should an Employee Engagement Rep Handle Manager Bias Concerns? Seeking Advice on Team Unity

Hi,

Please help me solve the below-mentioned case. What should be done to improvise things? The team members are unhappy with their reporting manager. Sixty percent of the team members feel the manager is biased, and the attitude is very wrong. The team is completely dissected. Some team members feel that the manager's attitude is harsh because the top management's attitude is harsh, and the manager is under pressure, which ultimately affects the team members. However, on a positive side, the manager is hardworking and intellectual enough, gives very constructive feedback.

One of the team members is the Employee Engagement (EE) representative of this team, and she has personally met those team members who are unhappy with the manager. Even she is of the opinion that the manager's attitude is not right. Now she is stuck; she is EE as well as the team member.

Would it be right on the part of being an EE Representative of her team to communicate the manager's feedback to the Manager's Boss? Would it be right to share her team members' concerns with the management? How can the team unite and work as one team? How should the feedback be shared so that the manager doesn't change her attitude completely towards the EE Representative.

Please advice.

Thanks,
Akshita

It is better to discuss the issue with the management and try to provide some counseling or training to the person (Manager), as it has already been observed that his attitude is not good with his subordinates.

The whole team may not work positively to achieve the company's goals if the immediate boss has a poor attitude. Ground-level staff satisfaction is vital for the smooth functioning of an organization.

Dear Akshita,

The first and foremost thing you must do is to minimize the work pressure both from team members and manager. Wait for one week and observe the change. If positive, give some more time to the team to relax from work pressure. If negative, call for disguised feedback, analyze the results, and think of a solution. If positive, go ahead with the thought-out plan. If negative, go for an open feedback meeting. But make sure it should not be conveyed to them as to why you have called for the meeting. You can just tell them that this is for some regular team feedback session we have started, and everyone will give feedback to everyone, both positive and negative. After getting feedback, everyone will work on self-improvement and team betterment. After two weeks, we will meet again to evaluate the results.

I hope any one of the three solutions will resolve your issue.

Regards,
Mudit Satyadeep