I have been in the sales job for 4 years and have recently joined a new company where I work as a Sales Executive. Its been only a month now with this company. I know how to do my job and I am currently working to improve my market base and client relationships. And I have always been rated as a competent performer throughout my career and I never had any problems maintaining relationships with my previous manager. But the manager that I currently work with is a little annoying. He calls for meetings with me every now and then and ended up shouting at me. When I am out working sales leads, he calls me every other hour and asks me for updates.  It is often difficult to take his call in front of clients or when I am dealing with customers. He yells at me in front of my teammates and this is totally frustrating to me to go through this every day.

I don’t think this is happening due to my lack of productivity because I attained my targets already and I would have achieved more if he would have allowed me to do my job without disturbing me.

Do you think I should address my concerns to HR directly?  And what do you think is the normal period of time that a new employee has to show his full potential.

– Jay

Dear Jay,

First of all congratulations for joining your new job and good to hear that you have been one of the best performers through out your career.

I know it can be overwhelming to work with a manager who yells and shouts at you for no apparent reason. A boss who bullies you and doesn’t show any respect or value to others can be disgusting and discouraging to the entire team. And that can consecutively affect your productivity .

I am surprised to hear that he calls you and dictates you even during your sales visits.

Since you are new to the company I would suggest you to do this before you report this to the senior officials/HR .

Study your boss: Is he doing this to you alone or to your other team members as well. If its only you or just a few others out of your team find out what is possibly common between you guys and some trait that your share. Is this happening due a common mistake on your part or a behavioral aspect. Understand it and try to work on it.

Or if it is just to you then try to understand the reasons for him to micro manage you like this. Since you already said that you meet your targets every time, I do feel that its better to let him know that you don’t like being micro managed in this way as you can handle things alone. Also try to find out if this is how he generally treats new hires.

Explain him directly: Call for a private meeting with him and explain that his action makes it difficult to do your job. Tell him that you love doing your job and the reason for calling this meeting is not to question him but you like working with him and you would really want to see things work better between the two of you. Ask if there is anything you can do to help or fine tune things between you guys.

If you guys have not discussed the performance standards that he is expecting from you, then you understand it and have a mutual agreement.

If things don’t get better even after you tried then I would assume he should be getting some managerial coaching from his superiors and then later from HR.

Answering your second question: Generally companies have a 30-60-90 performance review process for the new hires. Since you asked, a 90 day time period is usually the normal standard duration that gives sufficient introductory period for the new hires to adjust with the workplace and to get accustomed to their work.  Employers cannot expect every new hire to be an exceptional performer from the initial month onwards and it takes time for all the new hires to get familiarize with the new job duties and responsibilities, understand the organization culture and develop a relationship with the people around.

As per this 90 days review your manager should explain you the performance standards (beginning of your first month) that he is expecting from you by the end of this 90 day.

Basically a manager should give you a clear picture of the milestones that you need to finish during this 30-60-90 days. And in your situation if you did not have a discussion with your manager regarding this I would recommend you to get it clarified immediately. He might probably have some huge expectations that you might not aware of or might have missed.

I hope things will work better between you guys!.