So yes, I also felt a need to write about that Away article. The thing is, I have two sets of issues with what I read.

1) From an operations standpoint, a lot if this pain was avoidable
2) From a management standpoint, managing like this is cruel and unsustainable

I hope that the following tips can turn an unfortunate story and experience for these employees into something practical for those of you who have a good heart and want to avoid these situations.

Operations

I’ve run Operations teams in some form for over ten years now. It’s a little bit art, but it’s a lot science. And with a physical product, operations are incredibly important to get right. If you are selling a physical product that is likely to be a common Christmas gift, good planning is essential. I worked at the (partially) eCommerce site ZOZI for several years and successfully shepherded us through the holidays despite the massive influx in orders.

What I read in this article is a complete ineptitude in holiday planning for a physical brand…which is probably tied into the second part, because if you don’t care about your employees then you’re less likely to spend time planning for them.

The tips here are simple:

• Plan
  • Understand your sales projections, estimated support volume per sale, support capability per staff member, etc.
  • If you’re retail, plan for a holiday influx. You will have one.
  • Staff should be allowed to have vacations, so you should plan how to handle vacation schedules early.
  • You should offer in advance, not at the last minute, vacation trade-offs for folks who truly are okay working during the holidays.
  • You should do your best to balance out people’s days off so you can have continuous coverage.
• Invest
  • Not delivering Christmas gifts on time can be a death sentence for your brand, so you should over-invest during this period.
  • If your projections suggest you won’t have enough people, hire more early (full time or temp).
  • If you’re in a pinch, get all hands on deck to help with support.
• Prep
  • You should address any quality issues with your product well in advance of the holiday and implement a code freeze (or in this case product freeze) far before so you don’t introduce any potential issues.
  • You should decimate any backlogs well before the holiday influx.
  • You should set expectations with your customers about holiday responsiveness.

Management

That said, the more important issue here is a complete lack of understanding of what makes a good manager. Managers are there to help their employees do their best work…and employees do their best work when they feel it is rewarding, challenging, and appreciated. Nobody does their best work when being yelled at, or if they do then it results in much quicker burnout. Every tactic on display in these Slack threads shows a fundamental misunderstanding, but here are a few tips that might help.

• Your staff are both valuable asset and PEOPLE. Don’t treat them like gears in a machine.
• Your on-the-ground managers are going to best know how to implement and deliver your directives. This “all communication should be public” thing is naive. Talk to your lieutenants to figure out the right approach, and let them deliver.
• Don’t ever couch a punishment as professional development. It’s insulting and undermines any trust in you to actually help them develop.
• Yelling at people in public only makes them feel worse. These people clearly felt dedication to the company, so any performance conversation would have been motivating to them. Doing it in public just shamed them and showed a lack of appreciation of their hard work.
• If you’re going to get hands-on, ask how you can help, don’t threaten to take away the project. Get your hands dirty doing the same work as your team. People appreciate leaders that get in and help, but not when they do it as an exasperated, demeaning punishment.
• When you are shitty to employees you lose them, have a harder time getting new ones, suffer from abrupt and rough departures, and maybe even get an article like this written about you.

I don’t like dunking on other teams, but I found the situations highlighted in this article pretty offensive…and sadly, I’ve seen versions of this in the real world. Life is too short to be a jerk. Build work memories you’re proud of.