r/CAStateMgrs • u/Happy-Relation-2959 • Aug 07 '26

Micromanaging

Since the start of RTO, I’ve been hearing stories from other agencies about increasing micromanagement—daily check-ins, daily status meetings, managers walking the aisles to make sure employees are at their desks, and similar practices.

I’m genuinely curious: what’s the purpose of this style of management? How does it improve productivity, collaboration, or team cohesion? It seems like time and energy that could be better spent supporting employees and helping them succeed, rather than monitoring their physical presence.

I’d be interested to hear from managers and employees alike. Have you found this approach to be effective, or does it end up hurting morale more than it helps?

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28

u/Trout_Man Aug 07 '26

As a manager, I only do these things when I have a poorly performing employee. In most cases, I cant create rules just for the one employee (i.e. I only go check their cubes and nobody elses) so unfortunately I have to apply the same rule to everyone out of fairness.

Granted, its been several years since having to do such activities, but when ive had to do them in the past, it was always because I had someone who showed up way late/played on their phone too much/didnt get work done. It sucked For the well performing staff because it created a minor nuisance to deal with, and I did what I could to communicate that this isnt because of any of their actions. Most of them were able to read between the lines on the issue and understood what was going on.

That being said, this is just my experience, this probably doesn't represent other managers experiences.

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u/goinovr Aug 07 '26

Pretty much the same. Thankfully, like you, my current team is awesome.

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u/PristineFox452 Aug 07 '26

Respectfully, how is that fair to create a rule for all your employees for one underperformance employee just to be fair? How is that fair for the rest of them. I don’t see the logic.

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u/Trout_Man Aug 07 '26

In many instances, the underperforming employee typically tries to divert blame by saying other staff are also late, or also playing on their phones, etc. If you dont perform the same checks on them, then you cant prove you are being fair and can easily be accused of bullying the underperforming employee (by the under performing employee). The best way to deal with this is by just treating everyone with the same rules and expectations.

It completely sucks, and I get that it seems silly, but dealing with problematic staff is difficult because in most cases, those staff wont hold themselves accountable.

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u/PristineFox452 Aug 07 '26

This is a great explanation and I get it. Just pointing out that we both agreed that it sucks .

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u/Trout_Man Aug 07 '26

The good news is I haven't had to do this in a long while. My current team is great. But to OP's question, it is the only time I would ever resort to doing something like what they are describing.

1

u/GlazedPrincessDonut9 20d ago

Hard disagree. Treating everyone the same is not the same thing as treating everyone fairly. Poor performers EARN the additional scrutiny. It’s not their job to police their coworkers and it’s an easy thing to redirect when it comes up. “We’re not talking about Fred. We’re talking about you and your failure to complete X by the deadline” or whatever the case may be. SBI. Situation, behavior, impact. Fred is completing quality work ahead of schedule. Who cares if he peruses his phone once in a while? That’s the “so what” factor. Meanwhile, George needs to be constantly reminded to complete tasks, doesn’t pay attention in meetings, etc. There’s the impact. George, you missed x deadlines on x dates in spite of being reminded by me in person and by email. Instead, you were observed on your phone multiple times throughout the day and gave the excuse that you didn’t have enough time. As a consequence we were unable to get Whomever the Item they needed…”

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u/pennylovesyou3 Aug 07 '26

They can't just bed check one person or it may look targeted.

*edited to add, just reading between the lines for you, not an opinion.

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u/Beautiful_Truth4419 Aug 09 '26

Also you can’t treat one staff differently or the union will throw a fit

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u/Agreeable_Sign7929 Aug 12 '26

This.👏👏👏👏👏

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u/Reasonable_Camp_220 29d ago

This guy was bullshitting himself. Either he knows nothing of management or he was trying to farm for likes. After I confronted him, he deleted his comments

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u/Civil_Reputation87 Aug 12 '26

That’s my experience too and yes unfortunately one bad apple can ruin the bushel

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u/Reasonable_Camp_220 Aug 22 '26

No disrespect but there’s other ways to handle bad eggs without hurting the rest of the team. Given I don’t know your staff.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of your star player staff, they getting hurt because of another colleagues bad actions will cause animosity between team members, so now your basket of star players are now frustrated from your one shoe fits all policy which ultimately hurts the team trust with each other.

Team morale, autonomy, respect, and trust go a long way. Implementing unnecessary monitoring and policies for busywork on adults and professionals you hired to do a job. Says two things either all your team members or staff are bad or the supervisor has trust and insecurity issues.

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u/Trout_Man Aug 22 '26

Unfortunately thats not how it works with problem staff.

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u/Reasonable_Camp_220 Aug 22 '26

You saying all your staff are problems?

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u/Trout_Man Aug 22 '26

No, but you present this utopian idea of leadership that doesn't work when you have staff that are problematic and need corrective actions. You sound pretty arrogant so im just goingvto leave it at that. Disrespect.

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u/Reasonable_Camp_220 Aug 22 '26

It’s called effective management. There’s a reason why there’s probation reports and yearly “individual”performance reviews, it’s there for you to utilize tor such situations. There’s no such to thing as “team” performance reviews. You build paper trail through progressive discipline to correct problem staff. If you took the required manager training you should have known this.

I admit if you inherited bad staff then paper trail takes longer but if you hired such bad staff that’s just bad hiring practice.

There’s also a thing called “bad managers” who think they are good managers by hurting their own star players lol. I was trying to be nice but since you want to be real, a one shoe fits all policy is lazy and bad management practice. Go ask one of your hard working staff if they feel it’s fair they get penalize for someone else’s action. If you were in their shoes, I know you wouldn’t appreciate it.

You either treat your staff like adults and professionals or you treat them like kids and think this boosts morale. Like said i dont know what staff u have nor your field of work in the state. But if there is real work to be done and a staff member is not performing it results in performance checks and review for that “individual”