employee hit me, manager won't do anything

A reader writes:

I work as a supervisor in a call center-like environment. Technically I am a low level manager, but I am essentially powerless. My job is to keep work flowing to our operators consistantly from our various sites and be the communication hub between our sites, keyers, my superiors and our outsourcing company. I am supposed to be listened to, but if I am not the only thing I can do is go to my immediate superior, who then goes to his immediate superior, who is the first one with "manager" anywhere in his actual title. I am basically powerless unless I can convince those above me with actual power to act, and those above me dislike confrontation.

The other day, one of my employees was doing some work for another department. That department's supervisor came over and asked her to stop keying the work for a minute while she explained the plan for the day. The employee answered "No." This exchange repeated, and then I stepped in. I told my employee, again, to stop keying. She said "No." I decided this was enough and pushed the "ESC" key to exit the program. While I was stepping back, this employee grabbed my wrist and slapped my hand, and told me to "never touch my keyboard again." I told her that I would not have to as long as she listened to me when I gave her instructions. She again said "No."

After stewing in my seat for a few minutes, I went and reported the entire situation to my supervisor who reported it to his manager. This manager talked to a couple people who witnessed the incident and then spoke to HR. The next day I was asked by the employee this whole thing started with, "Are we gonna have a good day today?" As far as I'm concerned, this whole thing reeks of insubordination, something we were specifically told to report by the higher ups.

Anyway, the situation was "resolved" by having the employee sign a letter that was put into her permanent file. As far as I know, this particular employee has many letters in there already, and I do not feel it is getting the message across. Anytime I have spoken to the manager who handled this, I have been told the issue is closed. I do not feel that this is a satisfactory resolution, and have been advised to speak with HR directly, and at least try for an apology from the employee. Do you think it's worth the effort, or am I just going to get shut down again? I don't really think I want to work in a place where coworkers can strike each other in anger and not be dealt with in a meaningful way.

Everyone is in the wrong here -- the employee, your managers, and, to some extent, you.

We'll start with you, because your managers are a larger issue that we'll get to in a minute.

First, given the way you described your pretty powerless role, I'm not even clear on whether it was your role to intervene when the employee was ignoring the supervisor who told her to stop keying. But it definitely wasn't a great strategy to lean over and press her "escape" key, or to start bickering with her in front of others ("I told her that I would not have to as long as she listened to me when I gave her instructions").  When an employee is being insubordinate, the thing to do is to talk with them privately, let them know the behavior is unacceptable, and let them know what the consequences are if it continues. Your actions here were the actions of someone who isn't confident in their own power -- and understandably so, since your company has put you in a position where you're expected to oversee work without any actual authority. The way you handled this signals "I don't have more effective tools at my disposal."

I think you need more clarity on the boundaries of your role. Does your manager want you to deal with performance issues like this yourself, or just report them to her to handle? If you're supposed to deal with them yourself, are you actually expected to get them resolved or just to start the ball rolling (with someone else stepping in if this first-level intervention doesn't work)? It sounds like it's more the latter. This is, frankly, kind of a stupid position to put you in -- it would be more efficient for them to give you some real authority. But they've chosen not to, and so you need to work within those bounds.

I suggest that you talk to your manager and ask explicitly how she'd like you to handle insubordination or other performance problems if they occur in the future. Tell her that what you'd like to do is to speak with the employee privately about the issue and explain to them what the bar for performance or behavior is, and where they're falling short. Ask if that's appropriate for you to do. If not, find out what it is that you're supposed to be doing in these situations. But if she says yes, then you two should talk some more to get aligned on what the expectations are of your employees, how serious problems have to be before there are consequences, what those consequences are, and how they will be enforced. Right now, at a minimum, you guys are not on the same page about this -- clearly.

You also need to talk specifically about this employee, who is being rude and insubordinate to you. Find out from your manager how much of this behavior will be tolerated. You don't want to go blind into this situation and then find out after the fact that your managers won't support you. You need to know ahead of time when and how they'll have your back -- or even if.

Now, as for your bosses ... where to begin? Letting one employee slap another? Allowing open insubordination? I mean, they suck, clearly. Either they don't particularly care or they're afraid of setting and enforcing consequences. Either way, they're bad managers.

And either they've put you in a situation where they haven't given you the tools to do the job they're telling you to do, or they've horribly miscommunicated to you what that job is. So yeah, you have bad managers. You should try what I suggested above, but keep in mind that these people suck, so the results that you can get are probably limited.

By the way, that idea about asking for an apology from the insubordinate employee? Don't do that. Forced apologies are silly and meaningless. What you need from her is respectful interaction with you in the future -- but that goes both ways, which is why you need to change the tools you're using with her too. Good luck.