Why is it that even the most successful organizations have difficulty managing in a unionized environment? Unionized employees believe that they can’t be touched, and that if it is not in their existing job description then they don’t have to do it. Sick time is used as an entitlement rather than a benefit and any form of coaching is seen as discipline and therefore challenged. No wonder, supervisors cringe at the site of the Shop Steward, and freeze in astonishment when an employee says ‘no’ to an instruction and walks away!
Most supervisors and managers do not know their rights and do not have the skills to manage these issues when they arise. They become at the mercy of their union and are left feeling disillusioned and frustrated.
Ironically, most progressive Unions also want better management. They also believe that if management knew how to properly manage, there would not be as many problems in the workplace. They also do want better processes, consistency and fairness, but they can’t be the ones teaching the managers!
Most people in management roles have never been taught how to successfully apply management rights in the workplace. The employer typically leaves it up to the individual to learn by experience. The problem with that is, by the time you learn from your mistakes, you would have lost the respect of most of your employees, your team would have developed a poisoned work environment, and you would have been so badly beaten up, that you would have lost all sense of empowerment and in fact would want to quit! Is learning from your mistakes the only way to do it? No! This is why this program is important to you if you want to succeed and even thrive in a unionized organization. Learn what your rights are, and learn how to apply them in order to become confident.
Learning Objectives
- Understanding management rights and obligations
- Setting the standard of expectations
- Learning how to enforce rules in a unionized environment
- Understanding what arbitrators look for in disciplinary issues
- Managing excessive absenteeism
- Developing rational policies and procedures for the workplace
- Building defensibility in your ability to manage a unionized workplace
