While the list can be a mile long of ways you can anger your staff, here are a few things that you may already be doing or planning on doing that will drive your staff crazy.

1. Hire Incompetent People

If you have a talented staff then the last thing they want to see if you hire a few slackers.  Hiring is without a doubt one of the hardest jobs for any manager and hiring only the best feels nearly impossible sometimes.  If you hire people that bring down the talent level then you ultimately reduce office efficiency and send the wrong message to your staff about where your company is headed.

While there is no system in place for hiring the cream of the crop at all times, you can find ways to get office buy in before hiring someone.  Form a committee of people each time you go to hire.  Ask each of them to interview and report back accurate information on how they feel about the candidate.  Remind them that they will be working with this individual and if they can’t see it as being a fit, they need to be honest and forthcoming that the person is a NO HIRE.

Your office knows exactly how long a new employee will last.  They know it long before you do as their manager.  A good office can predict within months how long someone will be on the job and you should rely on them to assist in this process. Hiring worthless employees will only reduce office morale, make you look like an out of touch manager and anger your staff for the future.

2. Not Keeping Commitments

As a manager, you are tugged in a variety of directions each day.  You have meetings upon meetings, superiors to answer to, employees to assist, and a mountain of other work to tend to.  While your calendar may get booked up weeks in advance, it is easy to cancel a meeting with a few moments notice due to a higher priority coming into line.  It is also easy to look at the calendar the day in advance and think, “do I really need to be at this meeting?”

While it is easy to cancel a meeting, you have to consider the ramifications of telling your employee that was expecting your presence that you will not be making it.  I admit, I’m guilty of this, and some employees handle it much better than others.  The key is understanding when you can and can’t keep a commitment.  If you have told someone you would attend a meeting months out, and you know it’s an important one, then I suggest you keep that meeting.

A staff wants their manager to be accountable and cancelling on them is not an accurate accountability method.  You will begin to have your credibility questioned over time if you can’t hold simple meetings and or times that you have agreed to.

3. Screw With Their Pay

Whether your staff works on commission or they are straight salaried, anytime you effect someone’s paycheck you will have hell to pay. Often this is unavoidable though as a salesman may fall short of goals one month or the team was a few points away from achieving a bonus.  These are uncomfortable conversations that effect their lives much deeper than the 8 to 5 in which you see them each day.

If  you have to make adjustments with an employee’s paycheck then make sure you have honest and open conversations the minute these changes need to happen.  Often times you will find that they are mature and understanding as to why their pay is being effected but if they open their check on Friday before you have a chance to speak with them then it becomes a PR nightmare.