My New Area Manager !!!

[Glammanana]

As you all know we have a new Area Manager for the charity that I work for and I had my first meeting with her yesterday at the shop my daughter manages for the charity,bear in mind all my volunteers are older ladies and have been helping with the charity for many years I find that this managers requests are a little over the top for my ladies,she wants me to sit down with them and do a one to one evaluation of their duties eekkk and to get them to give their comments on their own individual performances, now Beryl is 79 and works on books for just 3 hrs a week she has worked here for 17 yrs and is well loved and can do wonders with a duster on those book shelves and Barbara also creeping up to 80 and very elegant with her French pleated hair just flits from one section to another and chats to all the lonely people who pop in for something to do,I told this AM my thoughts and she said I must try and bring the staff into the 20th century I have 8 staff in total and all these reports are to be completed by next week-end,well I hope she is lucky with that request as I'm not very hopeful why can't these people leave well enough alone when a system is working well.

[Oma]

If its not broke don't try to fix it , These kind ladies are doing this for free they shouldn't have to answer any questions ,I'm afraid I would refuse to do this Glam . I bet she's never ran a shop herself silly woman nothing wrong in being in the last century it's working fine

[Grauntie Mag]

Silly woman. Sounds as if she is trying to justify her role to me. As Oma says these kind ladies are not paid and do not have to answer to anyone. I hope you reminded her which century we are actually in. I wouldn't even try to evaluate your ladies. They would probably worry themselves silly over it.

[Daisy]

Your new AM is a new broom who will have to learn that in a shop like yours soft skills are vital. Nobody HAS to come into your shop for anything - there are alternatives, and part of what draws CUSTOMERS in is these lovely ladies who understand something she doesn't - the importance of being kind and friendly to people. She may have all sorts of qualifications/management experience etc, but in fact she's learned nothing useful - yet. Good luck with educating her Glamm!

[Clover]

I totally agree with all the other comments but perhaps this new manager is under orders herself from the even higher echelons to implement this nonsense.

[Gemini]

Preposterous, that's all I have to say!!!!

[Nanto2girls]

Never heard anything so silly. Agree with all the comments made, but as Clover says, maybe she is under orders from higher up.

[Plantaholic]

I think like the others she is being pressured from above. How can they expect these kind ladies offer there services for free.

[Shemadee]

When I volunteered at a Sue Ryder shop the new broom unfortunately swept most of the volunteers out permanently. Complaining about prices not being high enough, "staff" not being efficient etc etc. Not allowing for local idiosyncrasies at all and having zero local knowledge. This shop was one where hard up people shopped to try and stretch their money but she kept comparing it to one in an upmarket touristy area where middle class shoppers hunted for "labels" and high end bargains.

When they started bringing in workplace assessments one of my colleagues wrote "this is a poxy part time job with no prospects- what more can I say?". No one ever pulled her up on it though the assessments still went ahead!

[Daisy]

If it wasn't so insulting it would be laughable. The awful thing is that as Clover and others have said she is probably under orders from her boss, but I hope she's gone back to her boss and said how things are and that these 'corporate' tactics are counter-productive. There came a point at College when we had a new head of HR who had been recruited from industry. When I left I attended an exit interview with her (I presume if I'd failed I would have had to stay on) but the questions she asked were beyond stupid and irrelevant - such as where had I seen the job advertised. Eighteen years ago? It wasn't advertised - the then Head of Business Studies was chatting to my OH in the pub and said would I be interested in doing some teaching! Needless to say that didn't 'fit' on the form. Some of the questions sounded like snooping on my colleagues - very unprofessional - but surprise, surprise, she didn't stay in the job very long. Hopefully, Glamm, you won't see this AM again!

[Elisi]

I wrote a whole reply on the iPad this morning and it wanted human verification so I lost it!

Glam I was once for 3 years the manager of a busy Charity shop in Cambridge and I know what hard work it is! I also had similar problems with a new area manager and this was 1995!

We took over £3000 a week but the regional manager (whom I disliked) swanned in about 3 times a year and told me I could do better She was (then) on a basic salary of £40,000 and earned commission on all the shops' profits in her region. My (very nice) area manager earned £25,000 and also had commission. Nowadays they would be on double this amount.

Meanwhile, they closed the local Center for the day care facilities of this charity because of lack of funds

I have 2 assistant manager and 70 volunteers, quite a few who are still my friends. We worked as a wonderful team and like Trojans !!! We all got along and social services gave me several people who had learning difficulties and needed training to find jobs. We had great success with this. I remember one girl who could not stop talking and drove us all barmy but in the end, she left us for a permanent job in WH Smiths as a cashier and was the happiest she had ever been.

Then the area manager left and a new one was appointed and she was just like yours! She had all these ideas which no one would accept. She wanted Vols to train in all sorts of things and none of them were interested or agreeable. And, she wanted them all to go through "Assessments" which they refused to do. One by one they threatened to leave, then the two assistant managers and myself gave in our notice. We have to do telephone "Interviews" to find out why we were leaving and so we told them in no uncertain terms.

Needless to say the new AM didn't last very long. But we all moved on after 3 years to other jobs which were not quite so physically demanding., and most of the Vols stayed on for the new shop managers.

It put me off giving to charity for life so now I give to the Sally Army whose Chief Executive earns very little in comparison. I could write a book! In real terms those three years were some of the best of my life, I have such dear memories of the people who worked there.

[Gemini]

Elisi, maybe that is an I pad thing as it happens to Zizi too.

[Daisy]

I was going to say that I haven't been asked for human verification on my iPad. But no doubt it will happen now I've said that!

Elisi - do you leave it logged in to GRU? What a shame such a great team was driven out of the charity by insensitive management.

[Mimi]

Why on earth do your lovely ladies who volunteer in the shop need bringing into the "20th century ' They haven't got to their age without knowing a thing or two and some younger upstart isn't going to tell them something they don't already know.
Life isn't always about achieving targets, it's more to do with connecting with other people. If it ain't broke don't fix it .

[Glammanana]

Thanks for the responses ladies,I'll catch up when I get back from work or over the week-end. glamma xxx