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When you’re trying to increase your managers’ effectiveness, a little divine intervention can’t hurt.  

OK, maybe we’re not talking about direct intervention from above. But we’ve got the next best thing: management advice from Pope Francis.

Nick Pipitone, writing on ResourcefulManager.com, recently outlined the Pontiff’s rules for getting the best out of an organization. Here’s a taste:

Patience is a virtue.  Things rarely happen as fast as management hopes they will, and bosses need to build some patience into their expectations. Take one of your firm’s initiatives and compare it to making changes in the structure of an institution as old and rigid as the Catholic Church. Your project’s a piece of cake.

Foster an open dialogue. Open communication can be a messy process, but then so’s every other aspect of human behavior. Pope Francis’ first move was to create the “Vatican Eight,” Pipitone writes. It’s a council of eight cardinals from churches worldwide. Their goal: Give advice on how to open up the church’s hierarchy.
The cardinals describe council meetings as â€œfree, frank and friendly” — can your managers say the same about relations with their employees?

Give employees ‘your blessing.’ Yes, we know — few managers are qualified to confer blessings on their charges. But what this piece of guidance really means is that managers need to make their employees feel valued — and protected. Loyalty breeds loyalty.

Other pieces of the Pope’s wisdom:

• Don’t micromanage
• Put the big picture before your personal interests
• Know when to be assertive and when to step back, and
• Stay humble.

Timely ideas

How do the Pope’s suggestions fit with the real-world workplace?

A recent survey from the Society for Human Resource Management cited the following:

• the top contributor to job satisfaction was “respectful treatment of all employees at all levels,” rated as very important by 72% of employees
• the relationship with their immediate supervisor was seen as key by 58% of respondents, and
• 56% said they strongly valued their immediate supervisor’s respect for ideas.

If you’ve got any employees who are logging serious overtime week after week, you’ll want to take note of how the court handled this case.  

Judith Dietz v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal was a case that centered around a Pennsylvania municipal water department employee, Robert  Dietz, who had a deadly heart attack on the job. Dietz was a 48-year-old field maintenance worker who routinely logged more than 40 hours per week and was always on call. He was also a heavy smoker.

Dietz’s heart attack took place during a 14-hour shift.

Long hours or smoking habit?

After Dietz’s death, his widow, Judith Dietz, sued her husband’s former employer for death benefits. The company tried to get the case dismissed arguing that it was Dietz’s pack-a-day cigarette habit and not the long hours and constantly being on call that caused his death.

While Dietz’s widow did acknowledge the smoking habit, she relied on the testimony of a cardiac specialist, who said what killed Dietz was his long work day performing strenuous physical labor, to make her case.

On appeal, the court sided with the widow and said that the long work hours were to blame for Dietz’s death.

As Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt stated:

The overwhelming circumstantial evidence in this case shows that exertion from Decedent’s regular work activities over the course of a 14-hour workday caused his heart attack.

That means the employer is on the hook for up to 60% of Dietz’s wages as well as another $3,000 in burial costs, under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act.

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You’ve seen it happen: A standout line worker gets promoted to supervise his/her former peers. And the struggles begin.  

Liane Davey, a VP at Knightsbridge Human Capital, writing on the Harvard Business Review website, says she “can almost guarantee there will be awkward moments as [the newly minted supervisor] transition[s] from team member to team leader.”

But the hurdles aren’t insurmountable. A quick rundown of her advice for new supervisors:

First, meet one-on-one with each member of the team. The first benefit of this one-on-one, obviously, is that the new manager can take the opportunity to show they haven’t turned into some kind of maniacal manager overnight. Davey suggests the supervisor ask specific questions about where he/she can help the employee succeed, and what the worker’s hoping to achieve over the long term.

Davey acknowledges that the new boss needs “to balance the friendly and inclusive approach with some signs of strength. … You don’t need to provide much detail, but do share your early vision for the team and any priorities that you will tackle first.”

Finally, the manager should ask for the team member for support in a statement similar to this: â€œJuan, you’ve always been the software expert. I need your help to get up to speed and to make sure I’m keeping the software issues top of mind.”

Try to make the first team meeting a special event. Davey suggests a conference center outside of town or a room in your office with couches instead of tables. “If you can spend an afternoon and then go out socially after, it works even better,” she says.

The manager can start by discussing the purpose of teams – he/she’s been a member of this group, so it won’t be hard to discuss specifics about workplace dynamics. Then it’s time for the new boss “to to evolve the mandate in accordance with changing times,” Davey says.

The objective is to engage in a discussion about where the team needs to continue on the same path and where it should change the trajectory.

Finally, the team leader can describe the way she wants the group to operate day-to-day. Davey’s example: “If you know that the team tends to be somewhat passive-aggressive, be explicit about your expectation that concerns be addressed directly: ‘I want to be very clear that all issues need to be shared openly so they can be resolved. Please don’t come to me with an issue you haven’t addressed directly with one another first.’”

And now, the hard part

Davey also warns that there are likely some bumps in the road ahead. Her take on some common new-manager problems, and ways to deal with them:

A decision is made without your knowledge. If you learn that a decision has been made that you should have been privy to, talk with the person and make your displeasure clear. “I just learned that you authorized a reduced price for Acme. That’s a decision I should have been involved in. Let’s go over the types of decisions you can make autonomously and the ones I need to be part of.”

An issue that has been closed is reopened. Resistant team members will often attempt to reopen a decision as a way to test your authority. You can discourage that behavior with this approach: â€œWe made a decision on that issue last week. What is leading you to raise it again now? Let me reinforce that we need to move efficiently and my expectation is that once a decision is made, everyone is on board and executing it. Dissent is welcome, but only before the decision is made.”

A team member resists your leadership passive-aggressively. Often, resistant team members show irreverence with subtle and not-so-subtle body language such as turning away from you in meetings, rolling eyes, or disengaging from the conversation. When that happens, start with a subtle response such as sitting directly beside or across from the person in the next meeting or walking around behind the person while you’re talking. If resistance persists, provide direct feedback in a one-on-one. “In the last couple of meetings, you have been sitting at the back of the room and only providing one word answers to my questions. I’m concerned that you’re not making the transition to me being the leader of the team. What are you willing to do differently to show you’re on board?”

A group of people gang up on you. It’s distressing enough to deal with one passive-aggressive team member, but that stress is amplified if multiple people are questioning your leadership or badmouthing you to one another. If you face this challenge, repeat the process of meeting with everyone individually and then addressing the issues in a team meeting. Be direct in your feedback and don’t be afraid to make people a little uncomfortable: “I am concerned that you are challenging my decisions and that your pushback is encouraging others to do the same. What’s going on for you? How do we get things back on track?” Make it clear you expect people to address these types of issues with you directly in the future.

Wow. When this company does sexual harassment, it really does it up big.  

Bottom line first: VXI Global Solutions, a provider of call center services for major nationwide companies, will pay $600,000 and furnish other relief to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by the EEOC, the feds have announced.

Nothing too unique there, although that’s a big piece of change. But what’s really interesting about this case is that the company was held responsible for harassment of both male and female employees — the rare double delinquency.

EEOC filed suit against the company in September 2014, alleging that beginning in 2009 two classes of employees — female and male — endured a hostile work environment, created by at least 13 harassers, including male and female supervisors.

Female employees were subjected to unsolicited groping and touching, constant or continued sexual propositioning, and grotesque comments of a sexual nature by male supervisors.

The EEOC also contended that male employees were subjected to repeated sexual advances with foul descriptions of proposed sexual activity, unwanted lap dances and physical rubbing by female supervisors. Male employees who refused to participate were targets of unlawful gender stereotyping when they were accused of being gay because of their objection to the harasser’s behavior.

Complaints blocked

Supervisors also allegedly threatened and intimidated the staff to prevent complaints, according to the agency: Numerous attempts to report the harassment to human resources personnel were stymied by their lack of availability. After VXI Global Solutions’ supervisors and/or human resources personnel were eventually advised of the harassment, several of the alleged victims were subsequently disciplined and terminated.

According to the consent decree filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the company will, in addition to providing the monetary relief:

• retain an equal employment opportunity consultant to revise the company’s policies and procedures with respect to sexual harassment and retaliation
• provide training in those areas to all employees nationwide along with additional training for management and human resources personnel on how to effectively deal with such complaints
• maintain a centralized system to track internal sexual harassment and retaliation complaints; conduct surveys at company sites in Los Angeles, Texas and Ohio, and
• post a notice on the matter at the Los Angeles site. EEOC will monitor compliance with the four-year consent decree.

Whether you’re a fan of organized labor or not, you’re going to want to see what the DOL just posted to YouTube. 

On its own YouTube channel, the DOL posted a video called “Start the Conversation.”

It’s clearly pro-union, although it goes out of its way to not use the word “union.”

It’s meant to help draw attention to the White House Summit on Worker Voice (the video actually includes a link to the White House’s page for the summit).

Here’s a description of the summit, straight from WhiteHouse.gov:

“The White House Summit on Worker Voice will provide a historic opportunity to bring together a diverse group of leaders – including workers, employers, unions, organizers and other advocates and experts — to explore ways to ensure that middle class Americans are sharing in the benefits of the broad-based economic growth that they are helping to create. We want both seasoned and emerging leaders from across the country, who are taking action in their communities to lift up workers’ voices — to be active participants in this conversation.”

Whose side is the DOL on?

It’s been clear from the jump that the Obama Administration is pro-union, so it comes as no surprise that there would be a push from the White House get more employees interested in unions.

But what’s troubling here — at least for employer who’d like unions to stay out of their business — is the fact that the DOL itself is now trying to push workers into unions’ arms.

Not convinced? Let’s revisit a line from the DOL-posted video:

“They [employees] are finding that their voice at the lunch table can lead to a voice at the bargaining table, which can lead to a voice at the boardroom table.” (Emphasis is ours.)

Let’s watch:

We must give a tip of the hat to the Labor Relations Institute Inc., a consulting firm that provides aid and advice to employers when unions come knocking on their doors. Its website brought our attention to the video.

It also nicely summed up the reason anti-union employers should be concerned about the video:

“The DOL should protect the right of American people to organize should they so choose. However the majority of working Americans do not want to go through a third party to deal with workplace issues.”

Delegating work effectively is consistently listed as a skill managers say they’d like to improve. While passing off tasks to your team is a critical skill, there are certain things that managers should never, ever delegate.

Because the tasks that managers shouldn’t pass off tends to be less concrete than specific projects (“Can you draft a summary of what was covered at our wellness seminar and send it to everybody?”), managers often thinks it’s OK to let others take over. But as the Laura Stack, the president and CEO of consulting firm The Productivity Pro, Inc., points out that’s a huge mistake.

Here are three duties Stack says great managers should never delegate:

1. The recruiting process

If there’s a skilled, effective hiring team in place, it’s tempting to take a more hands off approach to recruiting and hiring new staffers. But managers are ultimately responsible for creating the most effective teams. So whether managers are in charge of the entire HR department or overseeing a specific group within that department (e.g., the Benefits staff), they should always be very involved in the recruiting and hiring process.

2. Recognition and rewards

Even if managers aren’t directly supervising the deserving staffers on their teams, they should still take the lead when it comes to recognizing stand-out performances.  Whenever possible, supervisors should also include incentives and reward with this recognition.

3. Discipline

On the other end of the spectrum, managers should always handle any discipline that’s needed. When managers hand off unwanted tasks such as setting up a corrective action plan, suspending problem workers or even terminations, it sends the wrong message to their teams and often creates distrust for the person in charge.

How to do it right

When it comes to work managers should be delegating, there are certain ways to make the process more efficient.

Here’s a four-step strategy that makes the process much easier:

Break down the tasks

Managers should start by writing down all of the tasks they’re assigned. From there, they can identify which of these are essential and which ones, when delegated, would free up the most time.

In many cases, managers will keep certain tasks simply because they enjoy doing them. So it’s critical for supervisors to be brutally honest about how necessary each and every task is during this phase.

Select the right staffer

Once the list of tasks has been created, it’s time to identify who will be best-suited to take the reins. A few questions that can help:

• does he or she have an interest?
• can it be handled with the employee’s current workload?

Determine the amount

After selecting the tasks that are going to be passed along, it’s time to decide the amount of work that’s going to be done by that worker.

Remember: The entire task doesn’t have to be delegated; employees can do certain elements now and learn other parts later on. Or, a single task can be divided among a number of workers.

Step aside

When the task has officially been handed off, it’s critical for managers to step back and let the employee (or employees) do the work in the way he or she sees fit.

Finally, if you’re wondering just how effective you are at delegating work to your staffers, take this 12-question quiz to find out.

There’s new confirmation of something we may not like to admit about ourselves: Many of us are biased against obese people in the workplace.  

We’ve all read reports of studies that show obese employees are routinely passed over for promotions, turned down for jobs they’re qualified for, and paid less when they finally get hired.

But a recent study out of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania illustrates a slightly different wrinkle: Obese people are often assumed to be less competent then their thinner counterparts.

Here’s a rundown of the research, from the UPenn website:

Using five experiments, [the researchers] document[ed] a clear-cut relationship between obesity and perceptions of low competence.

In the first experiment, they used photos and outcomes from the “Jeopardy!” game show to explore the association between obesity and perceptions of competence.

Ninety-eight women and 104 men were recruited to view photographs of contestants, rate the competence of each, and guess the winner.

The researchers found a systematic bias. Even though the weight of contestants had no relation to whether or not they won, study participants expected overweight contestants to be less likely to win.

The second experiment tasked 100 women and 68 men with rating digital resumes, which included a photograph of an obese and non-obese person. The researchers manipulated obesity by digitally altering the photos to make non-obese individuals appear obese.

Each study participant was asked to assess the candidate’s competence. After they handed in their responses, Schweitzer and Levine recorded each participants’ own height and weight.

The researchers discovered that obese job candidates were perceived to be significantly less competent than non-obese candidates, and also found that overweight participants in the study were just as likely to show a prejudice toward obese candidates as thinner participants.

Experiment No. 3 explored the unique role that cognitive perceptions of competence and affective mechanisms play in linking obesity with behavioral responses. Ninety-five women and 105 men read a two-page resume that a fictitious job candidate had submitted online, and rated the candidate on warmth and competence. The resume included candidates’ height and weight, but no photos.

All of the fictitious candidates were white and 25 years old. Females were listed as 5’4” tall and 132 pounds, and males were listed as 5’9” and 168 pounds, the 50th percentile height and weight for each gender. When the researchers manipulated the weight of the candidates to obese—220 pounds for 5’4” women and 243 pounds for 5’9” men, they found that participants rated obese candidates as significantly less competent.

Two other experiments dealt with how obese people can change people’s opinion of them by displaying a warm, engaging attitude toward colleagues.

An attitude that hurts everyone

Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer and Ph.D. student Emma Levine authored a paper on their findings, The Affective and Interpersonal Consequences of Obesity, which was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

“If somebody [mistreated or insulted an employee based on} race, people would be calling for them to be fired,” Schweitzer said on the Penn website. “Yet because many people perceive obesity to be a choice, discrimination against obese people is far more accepted.”

Schweitzer said all of society is harmed by the obesity bias. Companies who succumb to this bias – consciously or unconsciously — could be missing out on opportunities to hire good workers and promote exceptional employees.

“I think it’s harmful not just to the people who are obese, but to the rest of us,” he says. “We’re not giving them the chance. We’re being unfair.”