Bosses

Red alert, ladies. Making jokes about your ability at work is not funny particularly at board level. That’s the advice based on research carried out over 18 months in the UK by linguistics expert Dr Judith Baxter.

While knowing how to laugh at yourself is as Aussie as lamingtons – well it used to be – I reckon the UK research is relevant to our workplaces too.

Dr Baxter looked at the speech patterns of men and women at seven companies including two listed on the FTSE 100. Combing through 600,000 words uttered during 14 senior meetings led in equal numbers by women and men, Dr Baxter concluded that the jokes made by women fell flat.

Continue reading "If you want to get promoted, laugh at the boss’s jokes" »

Dr Peter Rennie believes too many of our workplaces reward a person who FIBS.

FIBS stands for Flatter, Inflate, Break and Scapegoat. The acronym is used to describe someone who flatters those above, inflates their own contribution to a work project, breaks promises to those considered unimportant and scapegoats others to avoid accountability.

The Melbourne-based leadership expert says our workplaces operate on status and hierarchy and we behave accordingly. No surprises there. Many managers take the view, ‘I know. You don’t. My call’.

Continue reading "Too many of our workplaces promote losers" »

Who wants to work for Ken Grenda? Us. (Shhh, don’t tell Penbo.)

The Victorian businessman recently sold off the transit operations arm of his family-owned business Grenda Corporation, and his employees were the winners. Most got around $8500, while a few lucky ones scored as much as $30,000.

Now that’s what we call great boss material. Sadly, that sort of thing doesn’t happen to most of us. But there are things bosses can do to make life better both for employees and the company bottom line. After all, a happy employee is a productive employee. Bosses of Australia, are you reading this?

Continue reading "Seven simple things good bosses should do" »

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas yesterday, whatever you ended up doing. I spent the day, as I do every year, with my large family, which seems to grow every year.

Like many Australians, I’m looking forward to spending the next few weeks, relaxing, doing some reading, hanging out at the beach, catching up with family and friends – and doing a few chores around the house that I’ve been putting off for far too long.

But, of course, many others worked yesterday, and will be working during the summer break. When I was a nurse, I often worked on public holidays, including Christmas, which gave me a real appreciation of the penalty rates unions have won as compensation for those rostered on at those times.

Continue reading "And the Scroogie goes to…" »

Hear us. Trust us. Reward us.

That’s the simple plea from white collar Australia in response to a simple question: How would you get your workplace working better?

Over at news.com.au we’ve been running what we somewhat exuberantly called the New Work Project survey. In the few weeks it’s been running, we’ve received 25,000 submissions from all corners of the country and in all walks of life.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #5: Be nice to your workers" »

Today’s dilemma is a really simple one. In keeping with today’s theme we are asking whether Basil Fawlty was a good boss or not.

Now, obviously most people’s first instinct would be to say that he is a shocking boss, but let’s look a little deeper. He had the world’s worst waiter, the world’s bossiest wife and dithering hotel regulars like Major Gowen, who would drive anyone mad.

On the flipside, he was a manic lunatic with the unique gift of making even the simplest things ridicuously complicated. Hey, but we’ve all got our faults. So you tell us. Good boss? Bad boss?

Hit movie Horrible Bosses has gotten people talking about bosses, and about work culture in general. Here at Punch central, we thought we’d take things a step further and devote the bulk of our site today to the subject.

The Punch is an unusual workplace, in that the boss performs many of the same duties as the junior team members, and vice versa. At various times during the day, the boss will moderate comments, while all staff members lend their news judgement to the story mix.

In this respect, we do not have the typical vertical boss/employee power dynamic. Do you? We’d love to hear your thoughts about what makes a good boss, a bad boss, and whether you’ve ever seriously thought about killing your boss, as in the movie. Hey, even here at The Punch there are days when we’ve thought about it…

In the movie Horrible Bosses, the three bosses are characterised as The Psycho, The Maneater and The Tool. As bad as they sound, I’ve had worse. Three in particular stand out. I’m going to call them Cruel Boss, Angry Boss and Scaredycat Boss.

None of my horrible bosses were good bosses by any stretch. Yet years down the track, I feel like thanking them. That’s not to say I was happy working for them. I was miserable, and that misery often followed me home.

But through pain comes resilience. Through resilience comes strength. Through strength comes resolve. And through resolve comes the determination never to be the sort of person who abuses power relationships in the workplace.

Continue reading "Three horrible bosses, and how they made me stronger" »

Being the boss is no picnic. People come to you with problems, complaints, conflicts and issues – constantly. And then you still have the rest of your job to do as well as a manager of your own to deal with.

I get it, but your compensation is a higher salary (sometimes a lot higher), status, perks and greater control over your work day so suck it up. If you are not up for the job, don’t take it on. And if you are getting overwhelmed, get help.

Australian companies are well-known for selecting managers on their technical ability rather than their people management skills.

Continue reading "Welcome to the big chair. Now prove you deserve it" »

About seven years ago I came into the office on a Thursday to discover that I was the boss.  My appointment would be announced the next day, and I would start on the Monday.

I would be heading an organisation which had 245 staff. Many of them were among my best friends. A couple of them I didn’t much care for. Some of them I had never met.

I’m writing this today because my Punch colleagues have designated this Friday as Boss Day, and they wanted a piece about what it’s actually like to be the head honcho. And anyway, someone has to stick up for the bastards.

Continue reading "Oops, I’m the boss" »

Great bosses send you emails full of praise. Smile when they see you. Give you feedback on everything and take you out to lunch.  A bad boss tries to own your thoughts.

Two different men, in two very different jobs, over the past two weeks were fired for posting stuff on their individual social media accounts that their employers found inappropriate.

Continue reading "Your boss does not own your thoughts" »