Employee Turnover Rate High! Bad Management/Bad Attitude or Cultural Difference?

[blayzeit]

My Situation:

I manage a small software company in Pakistan. The head office (and our Project Manager) is in the U.S.

The Director of Engineering (Project Manager) is Indian and is running/managing our agile team of engineers in Pakistan through Live Meetings on a daily basis.

I have been experiencing the following complaints from our engineers in Pakistan:

(PM) Director of Engineering’s Attitude towards team
• PM is treating our team with disrespect
• PM does not act professional at times
• PM does not seem to trust his team of engineers
• Some of the language used by our PM is inappropriate
• PM does not allow engineers to speak a times


Director of Engineering is not managing the team/project tasks correctly
• Contradiction: PM micromanages team, yet he blames the same team for mistakes when mistakes occur
• Mistakes are not allowed
• When mistakes occur, that person or team is not treated in a respectful manner
• Cross department communication seems discouraged
• Meetings are cancelled without notice from the PM. However, when meetings are canceled from our engineers side, the PM yells at them.
• Team is kept well past the designated hours of operation
• Nobody is managing the PM, he has all the authority

Here are the following complaints from the Director of Engineering (PM) in regards to our Pakistani engineering team:

• Poor Code Quality
• Testing team not becoming agile and stuck on finding customer facing bugs
• Commitment and attitude of certain team members
• Unplanned absence or too much planned absence
• Lack of self initiation to improve the skill levels
• Always depending on someone else to solve their technical issues

Our engineers say that if the PM's attitude is fixed, that many of his concerns may go away or become less of a problem!

Help! What do I do!

Is this a cultural problem (Indians vs. Pakistanis)?

Any other forums i can post this for better responses!?

[JPnyc]

OK just to be sure I have this correct, the project manager is in the US, but he originated from India, yes? Is there anyone else in the company you can go to to very gently and discreetly discuss what you perceive to be problems with his attitude?

You suspect there is some religious prejudice at work here? (I.e. Hindu, Sikh, Muslim?)

Any possibility that the project manager's complaints, at least some of them, may be legitimate? Although even if they are, it doesn't excuse blatant disrespect. Still, if he can prove any of his complaints to be factual, it'll weaken your case.

[blayzeit]

Originally Posted by JPnyc

OK just to be sure I have this correct, the project manager is in the US, but he originated from India, yes? Is there anyone else in the company you can go to to very gently and discreetly discuss what you perceive to be problems with his attitude?

You suspect there is some religious prejudice at work here? (I.e. Hindu, Sikh, Muslim?)

Any possibility that the project manager's complaints, at least some of them, may be legitimate? Although even if they are, it doesn't excuse blatant disrespect. Still, if he can prove any of his complaints to be factual, it'll weaken your case.

1) Yes the project manager is in the U.S. (he is of indian origin)
2)Yes, i have approached the CEO of our company with a report on what i percieve to be an attitude problem. The CEO has flown to Pakistan and listened to the engineers side of things. He has taken corrective measurements to make sure that the PM's attitude becomes more professional. This worked for about 4 months. However, now the PM's attitude has returned.
3) I suspect there could be cultural (and thus religous) predujudice in play, yes.
4) Many of the PM's complaints are completely VALID, thats what makes this a difficult situation!


I reported this issue to the CEO of our company 7 months ago. The CEO flew out to Pakistan and met with the engineers to hear their voice (he already knew the PM's perspective). After his trip, the CEO had a long meeting with the PM and told him that he needed to correct his behaviour. This worked! But only for about 4-5 months and the attitude has returned.

I suspect that there may be a cultural predjudice here, but it is probably not the MAIN problem. (Im just not sure!)

The PM's complaints are definitley legetimate, however, we feel that some of these problems can be solved by an attitude adjustment from our PM's side.

[JPnyc]

well speaking for myself, I think I would probably contact the CEO again and say this fellow is up to his old behavior. I mean he got involved once and it helped, I don't see any reason to assume he wouldn't get involved again. Might even get the project manager replaced. If the CEO acted on your behalf once, well if something works... stick with it.

I don't think it's necessary to mention to him that you suspect religious prejudices behind it, because it really shouldn't make any difference to his actions, and also because you have no real evidence that is the problem. Maybe this fellow is just a nasty human being and isn't acting with any kind of prejudice. Maybe he treats everybody like garbage. In either case it's not something you should have to put up with just to earn a paycheck.

However if you do get some evidence that he harbors religious prejudice, and if he's a Hindu, you should remind him about the words of a fellow named Mohandas K. Gandhi. He had some pretty good things to say on the subject.

I've had bosses who just did not know how to deal with people. They were great with computers, but had no human interface skills. Now I have some of the nicest bosses going. It makes a huge difference in your life and how you feel about your job.