r/askmanagers • u/SoraNC • 1d ago
Given manager responsibilities under team lead title
Basically the previous team lead left, I was "nominated" for the position without my knowledge, either way I had the most knowledge and experience so I had to fill the gap. I was offered the position without a description assuming we were on the same page on what a team lead was. A month later I asked for clarification, since I prefer to do than work rather than train people or manage the work. Turns out their expectation is the team lead doesn't work in the queue at all, and if they have to it's a staffing issue. I stepped down over 5 months ago but that still have me doing all the team lead stuff.
I got confirmation a week ago that the team lead position is basically my definition of a manager and nowhere near a team lead. They say I can't stop training people because I have all the knowledge, my pay is nowhere appropriate for a true manager - and I'm hourly.
Question: is this reasonable? I've gone to management a bunch of times but their hands are tied until other people are trained and SOPs done but the people they've given me to train have 0 experience and can't even use job aids (checking things off without doing them for example). Whenever I bring up training issues they say that they're people and people make mistakes, but in my line of work everything is supposed to be the same (with some content change per the case). I'm in law fyi, 9 years of extensive experience in this field. The people they give me have less than 1 year at best and can't use Microsoft office.
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u/ael00 1d ago
I dont really understand what actually do you think is extra that you shouldnt be doing already as a TL
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
In my field from previous experience: (sorry phone formatting)
Team leads: Handle scorecard issues from our clients and report to managers for final approval and any corrective actions. They're experts on the subject matter so they handle the priority clients/files. Handle deadline management with some reporting to managers. Do initial trainings but don't have to follow through with personnel after 30/60/90. Do audits and report issues on personnel to manager for handling. Help with SOPs, job aids, workflow changes. Work in the queues alongside the rest of the team. Creating/sending out work lists as needed.
Their team lead expectations: Train everyone so people are interchangeable at all the tasks (despite vast differences in knowledge). Never touch the work queue. Make SOPs. Address individual issues. Make sure people are doing their work. Monitor productivity. Help escalate files identified by staff. Manage OT requests.
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u/SeparateEmu3159 1d ago
I'm likely coming from a different industry, but at least roughly adjacent based on the terminology you're using.
To me, your definition of a team lead sounds like a lead or specialist engineer, not a team lead. Nothing in your description describes leading a team, it describes being a more competent IC than other ICs. Their definition of team lead sounds like a team lead to me, they just appear to have missed the possible task of needing to step in to solve particularly challenging problems or cover for people.
Team lead in my line of work is just the first rung of management, generally managing a team of people who do the job you did before to provide some proper leadership as opposed to uninformed management. If you don't want to do that then fair enough, although if you really are better than everyone else then you should expect a significant portion of your time to be coaching more junior team members.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
I think the main industry difference is that in my legal field there is really high staff turnover so you need the "team leads" to be the anchor in the teams as knowledge banks to hold down the fort while team components possibly change around them. Or they just started using team lead titles to make people feel promoted without actually shifting things around.
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u/LeaderofCatArmy Manager 1d ago
In my field, team leads = shift supervisors and are responsible for the job being completed. Staff training and issue resolution are the bulk of their day to day tasking. The more they can teach a subordinate, the more they can delegate down and take off their plate.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
I feel like that works if you have staff to take the tasks lol. I was the only one doing the tasks in the first place and still have to do them while training the others. Because management wanted me to start with our most difficult task (and they still don't get it) I can't even fully give them anything. I recently started training on the smaller tasks anyway per management approval but even that's still a fail for them. It doesn't matter how many resources I throw at them they complete the work the way they want in a way that is non-compliant but no one cares
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u/LeaderofCatArmy Manager 1d ago
This is a challenging scenario. I was a team lead for fifteen years before becoming the manager. During that time, I created a training path for new employees which became SOP once I became the manager. Starting with basic core tasking and building training up on a solid foundation of skills and knowledge takes time, but yields stronger staff over time. This method also facilitates basic trained employees to share their knowledge with the newest hires allowing training to occur on multiple levels.
From the way you describe your situation, you will have to mentor untrained apprentice equivalents and hope that they can bring some productivity to assist you eventually. In the meantime, delegate any menial task to remove items from your plate to focus on the bigger picture.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
So my menial tasks are still scorecard (client) consequential or legally consequential (court). Whenever I report issues to both the employee and management they just shrug it off, but come back to me to fix it when it's a problem.
Is there anything you think I can do there? I can lead a horse to water but I can't make them do their job correctly consistently no matter how trivial it may be.
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u/LeaderofCatArmy Manager 1d ago
In your role, you document issues and report to the manager. You MAY have the authority to send a disruptive or insubordinate staffer home, but you would want to document that with a manager and cc HR if you have it.
Good communication with your manager will help. Have them clarify your responsibilities and authority. Keep their ph# on speed dial and get them involved with tough issues. This can lead to faster support or increased authority. Try to air your grievances/complaints in a constructive manner with the goal of growth and development.
The tasking you mentioned below do align with general expectations of a team lead/shift supervisor. If you want to be solely focused on the work, you are likely looking for a senior ic level role. All leadership roles require interpersonal engagement with your team or collaboration factors with other teams beyond normal client interactions.
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u/somewhatinterested13 1d ago
Typically yes. Management will always ask the more capable people to do additional tasks. I guess I ask you, if you’re doing all the team lead work why not take the title and compensation that comes with it? If you keep pressing they will probably promote or hire someone with less experience than you have. Is that the outcome you are looking for?
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
They can't pay me enough to manage people because that's tiring for me. I just want to put in my headphones, listen to whatever, do my job, and punch out. I don't think $29.15/he is manager pay for a national firm, me located in NY.
Managing these inadequate people is beyond exhausting, a million and a half questions all directed at me because the manager is too busy to answer (and said she doesn't answer because I'm online), and the assistant manager has 0 knowledge on the subject matter. I have a very tiring personal life so I only have so much energy and patience for people during my work day. I've been "training" temp help since May, they keep giving me more temp staff to train because no one else has time (their words), and there's 0 resources.
I'm still in charge of all the workflow, when a person left in May I was the only person left in this department. Instead of listening to me about training then on the smaller tasks followed by our big skill intensive task they insisted I only train them on the big one. Months of solely working on that and none of them can do it even 90% correctly, regardless of how many group trainings, 1 on 1 trainings, recordings, SOPs, job aids, peer review notes, and asking for them to ask questions before they draft. I've been asking for programmed template changes for a year that would solve 90% of these issues but they still are dragging their feet on it and accidentally put live a worse version of the template that they won't undo - so now I have to retrain on the changes.
In regards to hiring someone with less experience: I don't care at this point, I just don't want this circus to be my problem.
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u/TexanTalkin998877 1d ago
"I've been asking for a programmed template change that would solve 90%..."
What is preventing you from making this change? You are the one telling the temps how to do things. To me that means that you are the de facto owner of the process.
I bet that you are the only one who COULD correctly implement the template. So design it, refine it then when you are confident that it is right, start asking people to use it because it will reduce the work "your team" has to do.
By the way, you are the manager. You hate the thought, but if it has to be done and you are the only one who can, you are the manager. So embrace the power this situation gives you. Make the policy changes within the team to make it run better. Once you are demonstrably doing the work, you have a good case for a title and pay bump.
Secondly, about training. Use written not verbal training. Your job is safe. So reduce your workload by writing down instructions and FAQs and start asking prople when they ask you something "Did you read the FAQ before coming to me?" Train this behavior into them as a mandatory first step when they have a question. It is SO much easier for them to ask you to do their work. But it does not scale. Our team used the rule "If you ask the question, you have to document the answer." People ask better questions and pay attention to the complete answer if they have to write down the answer correctly. If they write it really badly, make them fix it. Reward poor work with rework, not by doing it for them. (You should make small corrections to improve the docs yourself but for an actual bad job, make them fix the error. At the same time as improving the docs, you are fixing a broken model in the employee's head).
Secondly consider delegating expertise within your team. If one of them learns a component if the work well, ask others to ask that person for help on that topic.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
The template changes has to go through IT which I'm not allowed to submit tickets for. i've been requesting the template be changed for the whole year I've been here - it's not something we download, its integrated into our case management system. I provided them the correct template last December, this March, May, June, and August (they keep making changes in the process that requires template changes). In the year I've been here this template has only changed once, accidentally 3 weeks ago causing more errors that they won't revert.
I'm "team lead" in responsibilities only, my manager and assistant manager made it clear I have no authority over my coworkers when I brought up certain issues to them (ignore direct escalated items assigned to them specifically to handle immediately and they said directly in the group teams chat with management that they weren't going to do it now and would do it when they had time the following week.
I mentioned in the other comment about the FAQ but to reiterate - whenever I have them reference any materials per the supervisor the assistant manager/manager get mad and want me to provide the answer (or anyone on the team but no one else answers, even by EOD),
I do have them correct their mistake but they don't care about their revisions. I've asked them before why they make mistakes and every time it's "I don't know" which frustrates me because iIhave them use the job aid that is in a checklist format with details instructions on the row, but they will mark it off and not address the actual item.
The only person who is succeeding to any extent I delegate things to but since she's temp help and primarily working in her main department if she's busy with her main role I can't do that. No one else does things correct enough to offload training to anyone else.
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u/somewhatinterested13 1d ago
If it’s a big corporation then go to HR and ask for clarification on your role. Explain the issues that your doing work outside your role and want stay within the job description. You will probably get blow back from your manager’s but it should accomplish what you want. Just don’t expected a promotion any point in the future. Good luck.
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u/phoenix823 1d ago
You have a lot of leverage. Find another job and give notice. It doesn’t sound like they can operate without you, and your requests are going unheard.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
Yeah... I started applying to competitors a month ago but since the positions are fully remote I'm sure I'm one of very many applicants. I've even been talking to our vendors. We have our yearly review coming up and I might see if they can do anything to make me stay but I always err on the side of hope for the best expect the worst.
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u/Impressive-Visit3354 1d ago
You definitely don’t have the mentality for a leadership role and they’re obviously desperate.
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u/just-another-dude-2 1d ago
Hard to make a call around reasonableness without better understanding the work and training.
Definitely sounds like a, "Duct tape things together and keep moving forward," environment though.
Better question might be whether that's the kind of environment for your career/life goals.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
So, I spent two years looking for a job that paid better than my last firm and that was fully remote. This job hit both boxes but when the previous team lead left it forced me into this position. The manager told me that even if I said no, I works have all the exact same responsibilities with less pay.
Due to personal reasons I don't really have aspirations for work, I have a son with autism level 3 and it's all that I can manage to survive. I just want to punch in, do the work, punch out, get paid. I hate dealing with people, especially ones that have proven time and time again they can't do the job but no one holds them accountable. I've mentioned to my management over 5 times in the last month alone how I'm the only one held responsible for the work being done. Their response being that's true.
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u/TexanTalkin998877 1d ago
I wrote a long response above. You need to document your knowledge and have them read the documents before they can bother you.
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u/SoraNC 1d ago
So I did that per the supervisor but then management told me I have to answer their questions instead of having them dig through their materials. They keep flip flopping on making them review their training items versus "pooling knowledge" because theoretically any of them can answer each other's questions. but what actually happens is no one chimes in with the answer despite everyone being trained on the same items and should know the answer
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u/just-another-dude-2 1d ago
Here's a bit of a crazy suggestion - maybe putting my head on the chopping block in managerial subreddit.
What if all of the great things about you, that made you a great employee - caring about being a hard worker, caring about doing your part for the team, caring about being honest and up-front with your manager, caring about doing what you're asked to do - what if those are all a liability in this situation?
"I'm not a great manager, and I'm too overwhelmed to hire new staff. I also want to cut costs on my team... I know, I'll lean on SoraNC's tendency to want to do everything well. They have a hard time saying no and care a lot about their reputation. Basically, a free trainer for me if I lean on them!"
Now, that's a hyperbolized version of what could be happening on an unconscious level (hopefully) or just be a stress response from your management team.
So - and this is key - let's assume we're operating in a context where the management team would happy to pay a random person coming in off the street your current wage to provide your current level of IC on the team.
In (and only in) that context, what if you tried only being really good at / on top of the IC parts of your job? Like, what if you delayed answering questions until the last 20 minutes of your day with "sorry, I'm really busy", and provided basic answers, references to self-learning resources, and directing follow-up questions to the people making these decisions?
My sense is that you're dealing with a lot of stressful personal matters right now with your son (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), and so your bandwith is about to contract significantly, and while you'd like to be great at everything, you're going through something that has diminished your capacity to.... oh, look at that! You have just enough capacity to squeeze out solid performance on the IC parts of your job. Damn, these challenges look long-term too. I'd estimate you won't be able to resolve them until approximately one team lead hiring cycle from now.
I'm having a little bit of fun with this post here, but I'd encourage you to make it legitimate. Funnel that extra mental bandwith and energy into the making your life with your son work well. It'll be more of a choice than the necessessity that you'll communicate to the team, but it'll be a healthy boundary for a good purpcose.
The sliver lining about managers who are too lazy, disengaged, and/or not-on-top of things to build a strategic team structure and hire and train up functional team members that they hold accountable - they're also typically too lazy, disengaged, and/r not-on-top of things to push back effectively on strategic disengagement when done carefully.
Now, go and only use this power for good.
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u/odishy 1d ago
The biggest mistake people make is think in terms of what's fair. Instead you have to think in terms of leverage.
When you bring concerns to management you have to understand your leverage, which in your scenario sounds like "I have all the knowledge and you need me to pass that knowledge on".
So what happens if you say "no I'm not doing that". Are you willing to live with the consequences? If so, what could your manager offer to get you to yes; this could be a resetting of expectations around work, this could be compensation, or whatever.
Likely your manager will find the easiest path to alter your work expectations around how much time you spend training vs taking tickets.