Pressured jobs

[oldbanger]

I enjoy my job a lot. However the pace of work is pretty frenetic, with many competing priorities, many of which I'm still learning. This means that I make mistakes, waste time and sometimes don't give things the correct priority.

Basically I am a people manager, am setting up and running and internal training programme, act as a commercial manager, am partially responsible for process improvement across the department and am also responsible for quality assurance. I also act as a marketing person and have various events to attend, often to speak at.

Whilst I have a little guidance from above, it's not much, and my boss is very much of the view that you learn things as you go along.

I enjoy learning. However the only bit I was very experienced in coming to the role 8 months ago was process improvement and quality assurance, plus the technical aspect of the job my team does.

Attemps to delegate some duties have met with mixed success, so far.

For the next few weeks I am also covering for my boss, who is head of deparment.

Partly I know I'm the type of person who just loves to be busy, loves having fingers in many pies and who can't help taking work baggage home. However there's got to be a better way, surely. Does it get any easier?

[mikebradford]

well you could look at it that your better of than some
think of those low paid low skilled workers, who are the salt of the earth types
work hard etc, in a boring job
very little prospects and low pay
no alternative, and knowing they have to just keep their heads down and graft just so the bills get paid

to me thats a pressurised job

i have to manage lots of aspects , people etc . but to me its realitivley stress free
just a game, whereby the win is defined by everyone being happy

keeps life stress free
the only time i have any element of stress is when clients do daft things, and i have to resolve it in a short period of time
and it interferes with my usual do what i want when i want day lol

[MitchT]

mikebradford said:

well you could look at it that your better of than some
think of those low paid low skilled workers, who are the salt of the earth types
work hard etc, in a boring job
very little prospects and low pay
no alternative, and knowing they have to just keep their heads down and graft just so the bills get paid

to me thats a pressurised job

I agree 100% People with highly paid jobs love to complain about the pressure of work, but 'easy', low paid jobs result in an incredible amount of pressure outside of work. Maintaining the will to live is a real struggle some days.

[oldbanger]

mikebradford said:

well you could look at it that your better of than some
think of those low paid low skilled workers, who are the salt of the earth types
work hard etc, in a boring job
very little prospects and low pay
no alternative, and knowing they have to just keep their heads down and graft just so the bills get paid

to me thats a pressurised job

i have to manage lots of aspects , people etc . but to me its realitivley stress free
just a game, whereby the win is defined by everyone being happy

keeps life stress free
the only time i have any element of stress is when clients do daft things, and i have to resolve it in a short period of time
and it interferes with my usual do what i want when i want day lol

I was on minimum wage less than a decade ago, so I know where you are coming from. However, knowing you could check out at the end of each day did have a certain appeal, at least for a while.

[oldbanger]

MitchT said:

I agree 100% People with highly paid jobs love to complain about the pressure of work, but 'easy', low paid jobs result in an incredible amount of pressure outside of work. Maintaining the will to live is a real struggle some days.

I wouldn't say I'm highly paid, but it's more than twice what I was on 8-10 years ago so I'm doing OK.

My main thing is needing to learn how to prioritise properly and how to do the various less familiar aspects of my job. I don't really have access to any colleagues who would be able to act as a sounding board, so I guess I really need to cultivate some.

[dal2litrefrogeye]

Why do we have to feel sorry for the low skill low pay types ? Nothing is for nothing , if you have low skills , kick ya ass and get some , good luck if your job is high pressure and you love it , mines demanding and busy, and I whinge and moan about it , but I know when there is a bit to much down / quite time I get bored very quickly , good luck to all that are busy/ pressured and well paid

[dustybottoms]

OP, As you are new to some aspects of your role, instead of concerning yourself with what you don’t know about the deep detail of every aspect of the role, can I suggest that you view all aspects of your role from a different perspective?

Try to understand and confirm who your KEY stakeholders are for each aspect of your role (and your managers stakeholders if you are covering their job) and manage your conflicting priorities by that list and view. Be ready to re-evaluate your list of stakeholders depending on how the demand changes and triage your workload with this in mind. Don’t try and please all the people all the time, that is not sustainable and leads to wrong decisions, priority calls and mistakes

I'm not saying that you leave things not done I’m saying that you prioritise detail, deliveries, demands, fire drills, emails etc on a stakeholder basis. By establishing your stakeholder in your own mind and more importantly in their mind too; you will have the expectations covered that matter and the escalations controlled that can cause the most damage and waste time, do this successfully and continually and you will buy yourself some time and be more efficient. You will also be viewed better in your stakeholders eyes.
All other distractions and demands can wait a little longer in the list of priorities.


Regards delegation; it helps that you know others strengths and weaknesses very well before delegating if you want it to be successful; also be sure to understand clearly the ask and expectations of the piece of work you are delegating and set checkpoints with deliveries, that way you can manage and guide the person you have delegated to with some better degree of success hopefully.

[Sir Fergie]

MitchT said:

mikebradford said:

well you could look at it that your better of than some
think of those low paid low skilled workers, who are the salt of the earth types
work hard etc, in a boring job
very little prospects and low pay
no alternative, and knowing they have to just keep their heads down and graft just so the bills get paid

to me thats a pressurised job

I agree 100% People with highly paid jobs love to complain about the pressure of work, but 'easy', low paid jobs result in an incredible amount of pressure outside of work. Maintaining the will to live is a real struggle some days.

The other thing that's overlooked with low paid (and supposedly low skilled - although that's not always the case imo) jobs is that quite often the work itself can be quite hard and demanding.

Take (for example) cleaning, its actually real physical type work - and workload can be high - ie a cleaner may have to get a lot done in a very short period of time.

Then you've got jobs that carry a lot of responsibility and really are underpaid - so you've got care staff in nursing/care homes or you've got childcare/nursery staff - wages in low paid jobs don't always match very well to the level of ability and work needed on the job.

Back to the OP - she needs to realise that she will never be perfect at every aspect of her job - but more experience will help develop her skills in the areas where she wishes to improve at the moment.

The other thing to note is that shes actually been asked to take on her bosses role when hes away - to me that's a sign of someone that's well thought of in the company. So while oldbanger perceives that she isn't performing well in certain aspects of the job - is it possible that shes doing better then she thinks and that her bosses opinion of her is higher then her own opinion???.

You see - theres no way imo that a boss will ask someone to fill in on the bosses role if the boss didn't feel that the person filling in wasn't trustworthy enough.

Im probably missing something though - and best of luck anyhow oldbanger.

[rog007]

Some very useful insights have been provided above. From what you've written, it seems you have been put in to a role without the necessary competencies or experiences. Whilst you wouldn't expect to place someone who wasn't trained as a dentist in to a dentist role, I see all too often people placed in to management and leadership roles without the necessary skills. This makes life difficult for them and those for whom they are charged with managing.

So if its safe to assume you enjoy the role and want to keep doing it, the best thing to do may be to do some management study to gain some of the skills and insights you're suggesting are missing.

I would suggest, echoing your own idea, to first find a mentor from somewhere within the organisation. I'd then embark on some learning and development via the CMI or ILM. I'd also look to finding a coach who can help you with your development. If you were to proceed with those 3 things, you will be on your way to getting the skills neccessay to master the difficult task managing effectively. PM me if you need any further advice. Good luck!

[oldbanger]

Thanks for the replies. It's been very helpful to read other people's thoughts.

I've made an approach to a colleague who used to be be a manager but is now a trainer, so I'll see how that works out.

I asked if I could be supported to do CMI when I started but was told no it wasn't something that was considered worthwhile. There was some internal manager training but it's mostly been cut back to little online courses rather than the original workshops.

On reflection, I think my biggest challenges are around commercial management. I have some support in other areas, but this not so much. And I'd say this is what the dept needs from me most of all.