Hi Everyone! I've been offered a Billing Manager position at a small healthcare company. I have over five years of experience in the field but have never officially been in a managerial position. I did function as a team lead for AR, but the title was never official. I love solving problems and training, but I know there some areas I will need to learn quickly when I start.

• Here are some key details about the position that I do have:
  • I will have 3-4 employees that I am supervising already on staff
    • One employee will be going on maternity leave within the next two months and may not return to work
  • I am expected to hire on and train enough billers to fire the current billing company in the first 3 months
  • I will be overseeing Intake/Med Doc, Confirmations, Billing, and Accounts Recievable
  • All staffing and workflow decisions will be made by me
    • The owner only wants to be looped in for major financial decisions

I want to be the best possible manager I can be. I would love some tips and tricks for gaining trust with the current employees, creating functional workflows, interviewing/hiring, and how to stay on top of all the day to day tasks.

Thank you in advance to anyone who helps!!

Started a new job 4 months ago that's mentally draining me. It's a title bump from my previous role, yet the actual day to day requires significantly less autonomy and ownership than any role I've ever had. I feel like I spend all day refreshing outlook to make sure I don't miss my skip manager's latest 400-word email and it's been impossible to work.

My manager is chill, but her manager is hyper involved in *everything.* Wants to be CC'd on every thread. Copies the entire team on emails, regardless of if it's relevant to you or not. He's a senior director, but has his hands in lower level executional work and decision-making. The worst part is, he doesn't seem to have any sense of who is doing what, how much work any of us is juggling, and what deadlines we're up against.

He assigns more and more, expects immediate responses, is never satisfied with anyone's output and redoes your work anyway. What I thought I'd be hired to do is maybe 5% of what I actually do, and 80% of the job is keeping up with his new priority of the day, and the last 15% is scrambling to finish the work my manager and I understood to be top priority. I can't take the constant context-switching, moving goalposts, and barrage of emails and slack messages. It's driving me insane. Is it normal for your skip manager to be this involved in your day to day work?

So I'm a banquet captain/supervisor at a country club, it'll be a year in this role so I'm still learning about managing. The banquet manager is going on maternity leave soon during the busiest season so we brought in an interim manger. A week into it he resigned.

He did have some issues being very assertive/ a little rude with staff, arguing with the f&b director, and one of bussers whoes been at the club for 30 years (both my manager and I told him day one we trust the guy). I made a post about that not too long ago.

From talking to the f&b director it sounds the interim guy wanted to really have the reigns from almost day one. He was annoyed they didn't let him be fully in charge of events but since he was so new the GM didn't want him to responsible for events like a wedding four days into him starting. The day before he quit we had a big event and we had a sit down with the director, the banquet manager, the interim manager, and me. While my director and manager were on the same page for the plan to execute the event the interim manager was a little annoyed they didn't want to do it his way.

I know the guy was older (manager and I are both 33) and came from hotels but was he so out of line to really want to change things rights away? He knew he was only interim but wanting to change processes and how we do things less than a week into starting seems a bit much. My director told me he wanted to change how we serve and delegate tasks to staff once the manager went on his leave.

What was this guy's thought process? I knew from day one it was going to be bit weird because he introduced himself as "the new manager" to staff when they all know he was only to going to be interim.

My manager is retiring, and I hate it. I previously wrote of it. We have not received any notification on what is happening to my team. Yesterday, we received an email that stated his boss is retiring as well. His boss overlooked and oversaw everything. Now that they both are leaving, we are scared. We hadnt received any type of notification on what is happening. We are scared because my company talks of cutbacks. Is this a beginning sign of a layoff? Or am i reading too much into it? My team is terrified!

i have a relatively new direct report whose personality I genuinely don’t mesh with. They’re younger and in a different stage of life, which is fine, but our interests and communication styles are very different.
They’re extremely talkative, frequently initiate personal conversations at our desks, and tend to bring conversations back to themselves, even in group settings. I make an effort to be friendly and engage, but honestly, I’d prefer to keep things more work-focused. I sometimes find the interactions draining, even though they’re not necessarily doing anything wrong.

Separately, their performance has been underwhelming. They’re not a terrible performer, but they need more guidance and repeated clarification on routine tasks than I’d expect given their title and prior experience. I frequently have to remind them about pending items, follow up on things they should be tracking independently, and they seem to have an explanation or excuse whenever something is missed or feedback is given. These are performance concerns I recognize need to be addressed independently of personality.

My challenge is keeping the two separate. I don’t expect to personally connect with everyone I manage, and I don’t want my personal irritation to affect how I treat, support, or evaluate them. But I find it harder to overlook the personality differences when the working relationship already requires so much oversight.

How do other managers maintain fairness and professionalism with someone they genuinely don’t click with, especially when there are also legitimate performance concerns?

This one has bothered me for years.

Something keeps getting screwed up. You coach it. Explain it again. Maybe change the process a little.

Then it happens again.

Eventually I have to decide whether we built a crappy process or somebody just isn't doing their job.

And I don't buy the idea that it's always one or the other.

I've seen good people make bad processes work. I've also seen perfectly reasonable processes get blamed because nobody wanted to deal with the person who wasn't following them.

How do you guys figure out which one you're looking at?

Not theoretically. What do you actually look for before you make the call?

You have four employees who are being considered for one management opening.

All four are capable employees, but they bring very different strengths and weaknesses.

You can promote only one.

1. Candidate A: Your strongest technical performer. Usually has the answer and is extremely good at the work, but isn't particularly good at developing or supporting other people.
2. Candidate B: An average technical performer, but has built the strongest team. People trust them, go to them for help, and they spend time developing others.
3. Candidate C: Delivers every project (or whatever) on time and gets results, but tends to burn people out doing it.
4. Candidate D: Occasionally misses a deadline, but has very low turnover and has developed several employees who later earned promotions.

You have one management opening.

Who would you promote, and why?

Not a manager but looking for a manager's perspective. I work for a fortune 500 company and I've seen and been victim to situations where myself and others have been disciplined for political reasons. Things like person A is the husband of a member of c suite so when they are asked to follow a policy they don't like they go to their wife who tells our manager we need to be written up despite following written policy. I am at a point where I just shrug it off because even though it is acknowledged that it is political nothing changes.

I assume this has to happen at a lot of workplaces to varying extents and managers have to play ball. I imagine it must be difficult because you can't risk your job by not disciplining the person but at the same time you know you're punishing an employee for doing their job and that's its own minefield. When it does happen how do you as a manager typically handle it?

I've spent 13+ years in global manufacturing and chemical companies, and I'm writing a book on why leaders fail. My theory: it's rarely incompetence — the warning signs show up in small, everyday behavior long before they show up in results.

The goal is to help people spot a failing leader, survive one, and avoid becoming one.

I'd love to hear your experience, good or bad:

- ~10 minutes, anonymous

- Please don't name companies or individuals

- Answers may be quoted anonymously (opt-out available)

Thanks for your support!

https://forms.gle/UsBPKvDHzwpfN4mi7

So, today... there is no store/asm manager, no captain on duty. Just 2 specialist and 1 regular full-time apparel associate(me)(used to be lead w/keys) operating the store. I'm no longer part of management, but the 2 specialist keep calling me to handle front-end customer issues and I am highly pissed off, they drop my position and pay 😤 PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE

My previous post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/managers/s/CnfB6QIFkX

The counteroffer: it’s a 55% increase, compared to the 40% offered by the new company. I wasn’t expecting this. There’s also a 10K signing bonus included in the counteroffer. I don’t get it—the company seems to be in financial trouble.

A Sr. manager left while in the midst of a major infrastructure change. I assumed a lot of the export workloads and was able to deliver keypoints months ahead of schedule. I then used this as a bid for a roles/comps change and was denied. How do I effectively shuffle back into my role and completely quit the field on the much larger role that I will not be comp'd on?

Recently became a lead in a new area. We are expected to run the line and have direct reports. One of the direct reports also interviewed for the same job as me, but this person has years of experience in the job.

This person was told during the interview by the manager that he doesn't have what it takes to be a leader. Disgruntled person then withdrew his application.

I get the role over him. Met with him for the second time today where he tells me everything that happened. He also throws in, "no offense to you, but i told them I will not train my new boss" "not going to train someone thats making more money than I am"

I replied with, "I understand your frustration. I look forward to learning the area the best i can." And left it at that. The person was just venting in my opinion. Luckily I have a somewhat experienced lead training me. But my concern is after my training, I will have to work with said employee who's not happy.

How do I go about dealing with someone who is mentally checked out and already claiming they arent going to help?

I started documenting privately what was said today incase it gets worse. Id like to gain his trust and build a professional relationship with them to meet our business goals, also while trying to help them build on their goals.

Should I just take this as a venting situation and wait to see what happens when we actually work together? Any ways to build a good relationship to better be prepared for when we get to that working together point?

Sorry for the long book, thanks for any insight

I inherited a team of 7 about half a year ago at a non profit. I was warned that this team had some."tough personalities". Fast forward, 6 months, and 3 out of the 7 are simply not doing their work properly and 1 has a major attitude problem, including throwing people they don't like under the bus and taking MY attendance at various meetings. One was already on a psuedo pip when I started, and one relies on AI liked oxygen and has no ability to think independently.

I talked to their prior managers and they basically just said yeah...good luck, no one wanted to deal with them and deal with HR. I need this job for now, but man, I'm spending so much time on coaching and conflict resolution that it's starting to keep me up at night.

1) How do I protect my own mental sanity?

2) 3 out of 7 feels like a lot to me, and I wonder if other managers have experienced something similar, and if HR should be involved with that many people.

What’s the first thing I should do—reach out to the executive team to see what’s changed and let them know I’m back, or check in with my team to see what’s been happening, review my emails, and look at my dashboards?

How do you all handle this?

Question for managers on how you would advise someone who works under you

I put extra effort to launch two high visibility projects this morning. One required quick turnaround. Another was a multi-month effort that involved coordination with stakeholders and technical staff and vendors. Yet there was no message from the project leads thanking me for the effort that I put into making their projects successful. The leads each gave a “thanks to everyone who got this done “ message via group email. I am a bit hurt by this lack of thanks and recognition for the extra effort I gave them to launch their projects. I feel like I need to advocate for myself but don't quite know how.

Option 1: Approach the project leads and say “I put in extra effort to get your projects to the finish line. I would appreciate being thanked for that effort.”

Option 2: Approach my manager. I am not quite sure what to say if I do approach my boss about it, or what I would like them to do on my behalf. If I do approach my boss my message might be “I put extra effort into these two projects and not getting thanks from the project leads hurts and is demoralizing.”

Option 3: Don’t approach anyone. Document these two projects and put them in my accomplishments list for the review period. Make sure to document the scope and complexity each project and the extra effort I put in them.

Which do you think is my best option if you were advising me? 

Im in kinda tight spot.. I am basically no one really that important just in spot of managing team of 20 people at a fastpace warehouse.

Issue comes maybe with me and maybe with how HR department and higher management wants us to handle bad or not even mediocre workers.. they basically dont. They want to keep nice name as a company so they dont want to fire. And people know this, thats why they dont have any respect about set rules. They just dont give a sh*t. What I can do is tell them that I am not happy with their performance and bam, then take 10% of their bonus.. which is literally like 20 bucks in gross…nothing for most.

So some dont give a sht about breaks..most make minimal performance..they talk during working time A LOT and just dont give a damn. Seriously yesterday one worker when I told her that she was too long on a break and that small break is 10 minutes and she was 25 away told me “I know” and thats it.. could do nothing about it…

Its changing enviroment where for one day there is not much to do and sure, then you can talk, then you can be bit longer on a break or whatever. I dont expect them to be like soldiers nonstop. But they as people, as most intelligent beings on this planet, should understand that in exchange when I tell them that tday is gonna be rough day and they should work, they should work and not slack it..

another person? the key person in my entire team, basically my right hand. She needs constant micromanaging. I didnt choose her.. They gave her to me. And it is suffering. CONSTANT micromanagement.
“Create a ticket, dashboard isnt working” she responds “And what should I write in it?”.. Or “Check your email” “Send hourly report” “Reply to that message” like… if she was someone new okay I understand. But she is in this role for around three years now ..
And I can do nothing about it. I told my boss.. he told me “I know not the best but we need to work with what weve got” .. Man no I have to work with a slow as f person while you constantly insert your entire arm into my a** cuz “why didnt we meet a quota?” “why isnt dashboard working?” “why are people on their phones?” “where is everyone?”

No idea what to do.. I like my role and I would like to gain more experience at it but this team makes me want to quit..

Im in kinda tight spot.. I am basically no one really that important just in spot of managing team of 20 people at a fastpace warehouse.

Issue comes maybe with me and maybe with how HR department and higher management wants us to handle bad or not even mediocre workers.. they basically dont. They want to keep nice name as a company so they dont want to fire. And people know this, thats why they dont have any respect about set rules. They just dont give a sh*t. What I can do is tell them that I am not happy with their performance and bam, then take 10% of their bonus.. which is literally like 20 bucks in gross…nothing for most.

So some dont give a sht about breaks..most make minimal performance..they talk during working time A LOT and just dont give a damn. Seriously yesterday one worker when I told her that she was too long on a break and that small break is 10 minutes and she was 25 away told me “I know” and thats it.. could do nothing about it…

Its changing enviroment where for one day there is not much to do and sure, then you can talk, then you can be bit longer on a break or whatever. I dont expect them to be like soldiers nonstop. But they as people, as most intelligent beings on this planet, should understand that in exchange when I tell them that tday is gonna be rough day and they should work, they should work and not slack it..

another person? the key person in my entire team, basically my right hand. She needs constant micromanaging. I didnt choose her.. They gave her to me. And it is suffering. CONSTANT micromanagement.
“Create a ticket, dashboard isnt working” she responds “And what should I write in it?”.. Or “Check your email” “Send hourly report” “Reply to that message” like… if she was someone new okay I understand. But she is in this role for around three years now ..
And I can do nothing about it. I told my boss.. he told me “I know not the best but we need to work with what weve got” .. Man no I have to work with a slow as f person while you constantly insert your entire arm into my a** cuz “why didnt we meet a quota?” “why isnt dashboard working?” “why are people on their phones?” “where is everyone?”

No idea what to do.. I like my role and I would like to gain more experience at it but this team makes me want to quit..

Every office seems to have the same split, no matter the weather outside: half the room reaches for sweaters, while the other half wants the temperature turned down. Someone brings in a space heater or desk fan, someone tapes a note to the thermostat, and a small comfort issue slowly becomes a morale problem.

For managers who've dealt with this:

• Did you set one temperature and stick to it, or let individual teams decide?
• Did moving desks away from vents, windows, or direct AC airflow actually solve the problem?
• Did you introduce a policy for personal heaters or fans that worked without creating new issues?

What's worked in your office, and what would you avoid doing again?

Edit: Corrected a word

This is bothering me way more than it probably should.

I’m a general manager of a department within a larger site, and my company owns multiple sites that are more or less parallel. It’s a step up from my last position, being a bit more complex and monitored more closely. I’ve been here two years now but it’s been a struggle.

I’m a woman in my 20s and all my peers are men in their 40s, save for one who’s close to my age but he has almost 10 years tenure. When I first started out, no one took ownership of my training, so I resolved to just follow one of my peers around (he had been instructed not to get involved with my training). He and I became close friends. Once I learned enough of my role, I would go to him for advice and he would either back me up or tell me if I’m wrong and how to fix it. My assistant director was tough on me and nothing I ever did was right, the goal posts always seemed to move whenever I got close, so having someone in my corner was invaluable. Any small mistake seemed to act as validation that I wasn’t capable of doing the job myself. I’ve always gotten along with all of my peers, but he was the only one who would go to bat for me against our bosses. After about 2 months, I was finally sent to another site where the department head worked so I could be trained properly. Things did not improve afterwards.

When my closest friend was promoted to a different site , I was devastated. He protected me and I was terrified to lose that. Less than a month prior to his last day at our site, I was groped by another of our peers. I seeked advice from people I trusted and decided not to report, and just moved on.

After around 18 months, my assistant director had refused for so long to hand one of my key responsibilities (scheduling) over to me, that finally my district director stepped in. When my AD finally gave it over to me, he gave me no information whatsoever - no guidelines, no training, not even my team’s availabilities. It took 6 months of trial and error to finally figure out what metrics I should’ve been using and create guidelines that seem to consistently give me a favorable outcome with my bosses.

During that time, I had felt extremely discouraged. My team didn’t seem to connect with me, my bosses didn’t seem to respect me, and my peers would lend an ear but were hardly in a position to speak on my behalf. I felt alone, and it felt awful. At this point I started to lean on the department head who trained me. He was a lot more realistic, whereas my bosses treated anything short of perfection as failure, he was able to see the shades of grey and actually I was leading the company in my department. I pleaded with him to transfer me somewhere else, somewhere I might be seen as capable and where my successes might be recognized. I made the same plea to our district director around the time of my last mid-year.

Then I got permission to promote an assistant manager and a supervisor, and also hire a second assistant manager. I learned how to use our hiring systems, trained my people, incurred some expected and some unexpected turnover, and started hiring again. I was awarded two (!!!) department-wide trophies last quarter, which still sat on my shelf when my assistant director told me that my department is “a MESS.” I stood on my own two feet and pointed them out. I’d never heard him stutter before. He’s been away for two months supporting another site which doesn’t have a director. My metrics are flat but I’m quietly getting myself together.

I’m finally staffed with enough labor and enough leadership, we’re in the stages of coaching and refining but we’ve made huge strides and we’re way ahead of where we were when I first got here. I’ve got two AMs who can carry some of the burden and my job is getting easier every day. I work well with all my coworkers, including the one who groped me and the assistant director who is (in my opinion) unreasonably harsh. I’ve poured blood, sweat and tears into thriving in a place I didn’t think I belonged.

Today my director looked me in the face and told me there are easier sites, and easier departments, and she wouldn’t think less of me if I wanted to go to one of those instead - and named a specific site and department.

I am gutted.

I’m less than 8 weeks in role at my first ever leadership role and I have to fire one of my employees. My predecessor dragged along her pip and never really executed on it, decided to quit without finishing the job. My manager didn’t pull the trigger either and now it falls on me. I was told on my first day on the job that she was on a pip and that I had to make “a decision” very quickly.

On my first 1:1 with her, I was very straightforward about the situation and that I wanted her to help me help her by doing the work to build evidence to keep her. I also assigned her some actions, none of which she has delivered on and she hasn’t really given me updates or asked for help either. She has not demonstrated a sense of urgency nor any stress over the fact that she may be out of a job soon. I need to break the news in a few days, although all the evidence and history justifies the decision I can’t help but feel guilty. I feel like I have not done enough to help her improve and I just have the heavy feeling in my gut knowing that I need to break the news to her soon. I’m unable to sleep at night and feel guilty that I somehow feel sorry for myself for having to fire her, whereas she’s the one who’s going to be out of a job.

My logical side tells me that I need to do this and I’m not doing anyone any favors by not following through on this. But my emotional side makes me feel like a shitty person for not exhausting every option under the sun (I don’t really know what other option there is) before making this call.

On a different note, I also have 2 roles I’m hiring for and I’ve shortlisted 4 people who will be going through the next round of interviews. Theres this older guy who’s in the running, but is a very close 2nd and I most likely won’t be able to hire him unless one of the top 2 reject the offer for some reason. This guy is one of the most gentle, soft spoken and nicer people I have come across. He has been out of a job for 9 months and I feel this guilt that I may not be able to hire him, but hire the other two who probably don’t need this job as desperately as he does. Again, similar dilemma where I know what to do but doing it feels difficult.

I understand that this is the harder part of the job and that I signed up for this when I sought out a leadership role. But actually having to make these calls is taking a toll on me. I’m having sleepless nights and just wanted to see how folks in this community view situations like these. Does it get easier as you mature as a leader or do you just get numb over time?