Employee

[Heather]

My husband and I manage a park of 288 units. We have been here for about 3 years. We love our job, we love our residents(most of them) and we love this park. In the 3 years that we have been here, we have dropped the crime rate in half, evicted several bad eggs and overall, did some serious clean up. We still have a ways to go since we are an older park and people get set in theit ways. We have a man that works with my husband full time on projects and up keep in the park. Over the last year and half this man has become very disrespectful to my husband. Telling him that he is stupid and does not know what he is doing. When ever my husband makes a mistake, this man takes it to the general manager. That is our boss(husband and mine). Then the general manager comes to my husband and sides with the helper. He will talk to my husband about it right in front of this guy, so then he is taking away any authority that my husband has with this guy. We have told our general manager that when he does that then this guy sees it as he never has to respect my husband. But nothing has changed. And now the general manager tells us that when we make a complaint about him that we are just out to get him. That is not the case. We feel that he is a hard worker, but he will never do what my husband asks and he never shows my husband any respect. Our general manager will not fire him because he is a good worker and we won't quit. We have worked too hard to get this park up and we want to keep going with it. What can we do? Our boss says that he wants us all to get along. We would love too, but my parents taught me that you have to earn respect. We more than give it and never get it. Do you have any advice or suggestions on what I can do. We don't want to leave, but it has been difficult for my husband to put up with the insults everyday.
Thank you for your time. Heather

[Pendragon]

Heh.. you could tell your boss that this employee is creating a hostile work enviroment and may need to be reported to the department of labor..

Ok, probably not the route you want to go..

You could just start letting the GM give the guy the orders, since he isn't following yours (and obviously doesn't work for you, or you'd fire him), then if he starts not following directions, it's in the GM's lap.

[Monica]

Love your reply, what a great solution.

Hope it works for them

[Chrissy Jackson]

Another solution is to take this entire relationship one more step up the ladder toward professionalism. Begin using work orders for delegating work. Require the employee to sign them when finished and turn them into you. Obviously, you need to get the GM on board first with this concept. One way to do this is to point out the CYA benefits of having work orders: being able to prove routine maintenance is done in a timely fashion, showing other maintenance is addressed that reduces risk, and also allowing the employee room to comment on exactly what was done.

No matter which route you choose, be aware that it appears you have an employee who might be moving toward your position.

[Pendragon]

Love the work orders idea, get it in writing, then you can ask why wasn't this WO completed?

[Heather]

Chrissy,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. However, we are a staff of 3 people and I don't think the work order thing will work for such a small group. I belive that he wants my husband and I out just like you said. Even though he has lived here for 12 years and has had many chances to apply for the position before. I am not sure why now would he want it. Maybe since we have cleaned things up and brought the crime rate down, the job looks good to him now. Hard to say. Anyway, thank you for your time and I will let me GM see what you wrote.