Walking on Eggshells (Managing Minorities in the Workplace)

Book Summary

Do not work here. Want to know more about Yorkshire Trading Company? Senior management are unprofessional and unknowlegable of modern day practises. A lot of promises given and very little delivered. Unprofessional management at the head of the company. Not a company that I would recommend due to the rude and very verbally abusive management at the head of the company.

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If you have job security already - do not leave it for this companys pay cheque! It is not only the staff that they are rude to but the customers in the store. You could not pay me enough to work for these people. However, if your career advancement is to be treated with disdain and no respect whatsoever - go for it. The entire job package - not as it may be advertised. You have been warned. Don't work as part of the show team.

In reality you were away for about days, with one day at home before you would leave again. Also when I joined the company was still paying cash in hand weekly, on a Friday. I had to rely on someone at home to pick up my wages and deposit them in the bank for me. Accommodation was actually a lorry, no too bad in the Summer but in October it was freezing, not suitable living conditions. Food was all paid for, but on my team at least the cooking was left to the women to do.

I did work in the warehouse when the show season was over, there was no access to drinking water, it was frowned upon to go to the canteen to refill bottles, it was absolutely freezing, and the management were awful, the MD was quick to anger and people were released or given 0 hours for the most ridiculous of reasons. Overall it was a very unhappy job, you shouldn't have to go to work with a feeling of dread, wondering if you were still going to have a job next week. Extremely long hours, awful living conditions, freezing warehouse, poor management.

Do not trust staff members, very high turnover of staff. Daily searchers, as well as spoken to very badly. Customers can abuse employees with no repercussions. It's a shame really, because the staff on ship floor are nice. Was employed by Yorkshire Trading Co. During this time I was left by senior staff members and allowed to struggle without any help or assistance and understanding, ultimately ending up with my dismissal for not completing assigned tasks while being severely short staffed. I felt used and underappreciated and blamed as a fall guy for upper managements failings.

Productive and enjoyable workplace. I opened and closed the premises and tills. Gave staff the duties for the day.

Joanne Lipman: Diversity Training Fails American Companies | Time

Served customers and any queries if they arose. Dealt with the banking and staff rotas. Ordering of stock and incoming deliveries. I learnt to deal with staffing issues that arose in an appropriate manner, manage my time efficiently. The management were very approachable and supportive which made my job easier. I got on with my colleagues and enjoyed working with them, as they knew I was fair in the jobs I assigned everyone. The hardest part of the job was disciplining two members of staff for continually not doing the jobs given them.

The most enjoyable part was with my colleagues getting the shop looking clean, tidy and full of products for the customers.

It was quite a demanding job physically but rewarding. Also I was asked to work at weekends at a local show ground selling stock, and on numerous occasions worked in the catering tents. They were long shift but very satisfying and rewarding. A challenging yet fun environment. On a typical day at work, I would arrive 30 minutes before my staff to organise workloads and make sure the staff were provided with a station appropriate to their capabilities.

When the staff arrived, it was my responsibility to ensure they began work promptly and continued to work productively and adhered to health and safety requirements. Any issues which arose through the course of the day were brought to me for resolution and I would either take ownership of these issues or delegate to a member of staff who was capable of dealing with them. This often required my leaving my department to discuss situations or problems with my management team so I would then have to ensure that A.

I learned a great deal of man management skills from this environment but unfortunately felt completely unsupported by my management team. I lost count of the times I had asked for assistance in disciplinary measures and did not receive it and was promised several training opportunities which never arose. My staff were as a general rule, fantastic people to work with who helped to create a fun and happy working environment but were very resistant to change.

The hardest part of my job was dealing with people who had worked there for many years who were utterly resistant to changes I implemented. Not co-operating and simply trying to just ignore the changes and carry on working the way they had for several years, even though it created problems. They were however in a minority and with gradual persistence and working closely with each individual, the changes gradually became habits and productivity increased.

An equally difficult part of my job was that the company had a very "gung-ho" attitude towards its staff and people would simply be called into an office and fired for whatever reason the management team decided but were never given a reason either verbally or in writing I have heard of people who were fired because they simply said something in a tone which a particular member of management did not like.

The knock on effect of this would be that I would arrive for work some mornings and find that a member of staff for whom I had provided a particular workstation would no longer be there. In one month, I lost 3 staff in the run up to Christmas who were simply not replaced although the company expected my department to simply pick up the slack and maintain the same level of productivity.

Despite the challenges I faced on a daily basis from these kind of situations, I dearly loved my job and worked hard to prove that I deserved my position as supervisor. My team worked well under me and respected and appreciated me. Unfortunately I fell foul of someone somewhere in the management system as after 7 months of running my department, I was called into the office like so many before me and released from my contract. After asking at the point of release why, I was told, "For legal reasons I can't tell you at the moment, but if you write to HR they will tell you.

The only reason I can surmise is that either the department was undergoing some restructuring and I didn't fit the management plan, or that I was deemed unsuitable because of issues I raised on a daily basis about certain fire exits not being unlocked on a morning it was often asked of me to lock the fire doors on a night at the end of the shift and fire escape aisles being left blocked with stock whilst staff were in the building as well as a whole host of other issues which I brought to management attention and were never resolved.

The Family, management and supervisors are terrible.

They're bullies and get a massive thrill off it. They pay you peanuts. They treat young people like dirt. The work isn't too bad, works work but like I said, when you see and experience the management bullying workers. Researchers have found that when people believe everybody else is biased, they feel free to be prejudiced themselves.

In one study, a group of managers was told that stereotypes are rare, while another group was told that stereotypes are common. Then both groups were asked to evaluate male and female job candidates. The managers who were told that stereotypes are common were more biased against the women.

The evidence is damning. Now companies are searching for more effective, less infuriating alternatives. Take tech firms, which have come under fire for being among the worst offenders when it comes to bias. The irony is that they have also been at the forefront of devising new ways to combat it. Can they turn around a culture where sexism has not only been tolerated but in many cases celebrated?

I sat down with Brian Welle, director of people analytics at Google, who is tasked with helping lead the latest trend: Unconscious-bias training is supposed to arm employees with the tools they need to recognize it and neutralize these prejudices. Welle seized on an insight that has proved to be key for anyone who is trying to wipe out hidden biases: Call it peer pressure, or call it a pack mentality. Whatever it is, it works.

Our own biases disappear. Welle and his team ultimately developed a workshop for Google employees that strives to mimic those conditions. He encourages employees to use consistent criteria to measure success and to rely on data rather than on gut reactions when evaluating others. He urges them to notice how they react to subtle cues. Finally, he encourages employees to call out bias when they see it, even if the culprit is their own boss. Google is also fighting U. In just the past few years, this kind of training has exploded at companies across the country.

Almost all of the big tech firms already offer it, including Facebook, Salesforce and VMware, with more joining by the day. However, how much companies talk about equality and inclusiveness matters little compared with how they act. Incentives speak louder than any speeches by the CEO, or bias-training workshops, or posters on a wall.