Hi guys,
I would appreciate your input on an issue am experiencing at work. I am not sure if I see it correctly, maybe I am missing something and I would appreciate if you guys could help me understand it better.
I work for a large jewelry company managing sales department which includes about 10 people. My boss is the owner of the company.
We don’t do anything in person, all our sales are online which is important to mention here.
All the people I work with are very hard working, we don’t have any issues and turnover at all. I make enough mistakes in management and they’re very forgiving. I am very blessed with my team.
We have been growing a lot, we hit our sales goals most of the time, I’d say 9 month out of 12.
However, summer is naturally slow for the industry and comparing to other folks we do well, mainly because we know it will be slow so we increase wholesale for that period and also have a lot of long time customers.
I advised many times to lower sales goals for summer as everyone knows it’s a slow season, and setting unrealistic goals is discouraging for my team, but my boss refuses. He believes if we shoot for the moon at least we end up in the stars.
Here is the issue I am experiencing. During pandemic we went completely remote, and while it took some time to get used to it after a few month we did great. The sales were flying, everyone was happy (including myself), there was no problems whatsoever.
As of now, my boss wants the whole office to go back to in-person working. Please keep in mind that we are online store, there’s absolutely no in-person kind of business (besides repairs which are a different department). I live close by and I don’t care about going back, however I don’t see any need for it. We are doing just fine remotely, all of my team is opposite to it and I can’t make them to go back if I can’t justify it. I just don’t see any benefits of it.
The way I feel about it is that the only reason my boss wants it is because he is not a good manager. He has a hard time with performance evaluation, and it’s just easier for him to have people in the office and see them sitting at their desks so it’s easier to believe they’re working.
I fell that if we set correct performance evaluation system and sales goals, it does not matter how they’re reached. I really don’t care about hours people put in at all. I expect them to attend company wide meetings, but that’s about it.
Another thing my boss keeps bringing up is that he is spending $30k monthly in rent for no reason if we work remotely. Which I see as pointless as we are spending it regardless of if people are there or not.
I know I can be stubborn and have a tunnel vision sometimes, please help me understand if I am missing something. I am genuinely concerned maybe I am, I know my boss is not the best in communicating so maybe he has a point which he just has hard time explaining.
However, I am for sure not asking my team to go back if I can’t justify it. I avoid attitude “because that’s how we want it” all my career and I am not about to change even if I have to quit. To me it’s going down as a manager and sort of professional degradation.
I have to mention that I had a few job offers during last year, there’s 3 companies who have given me offers constantly and this kind of attitude also comes from the fact that I believe I can get a similar position fairly quick and easily.