by Judy Khoo

Created on: August 07, 2007

Management and Employee will NEVER see eye-to-eye.

No matter what we do, how we look at it, or not look at it, there will never be a day where management and employee will agree on every single task or decision made. And that precisely is why some are managers and others are employees.

I have been on both sides of the fence, having started my career as a low end programmer and ending up as a Managing Director of the firm. When I was an employee, I used to think that my supervisor or manager or managing director is biased and never listens to employees. I used to think that they only think for themselves or their benefits but not of those who were working for them and with them. It is hard to see or feel what the management was seeing or thinking when they make a decision. What we see is the results of how it will affect us.

When management has to make a decision, they have to make it from the point of all in the organization, the customers, the external environment, the suppliers and the shareholders. They cannot make a decision based on personal feelings. Of course, this is not to say that there are no managers who will not act irresponsibly. Responsible managers makes decision based on facts that are in front of them when a situation occurs. It may not be a favourable decision by many.

For example, when times are bad, and the management has to consolidate all costs, difficult decisions needs to be made. Let's say an organization has 1000 employees and the company needs to reduce cost by $50,000 and salary cuts is the only way to reduce it. While the decision might be tough especially for the employees, but to reduce the pay for each by $20 would effectively cut costs by $40,000. If even the management decides to cut managers pay by $1,000, if there were only 50 managers, the pay cut would only be $5,000. So, the rationale might be to cut the employees pay but that would not be a popular decision. However, if the company decides not to do so, it might go under and everyone would lose the job. Which would then be a worse decision? Unfortunately, employees involved would never see that scenario.

Management always realize that they are not popular with the employees. If a manager wishes to be popular with all the employees, frankly, that manager would not be effective. I have seen over my 20 years in career what happens when a fellow colleague gets promoted. Because he does not want to lose out his friendship with his other colleagues, he continues to try and behave

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