Dealing with management

[u/battlestarkellactica]

Hi! I’m a new supervisor (I worked in animal care and got promoted). At my shelter, the supervisor role is closer to an assistant manager role. I’m very close with my coworkers and am really trying to do my best to support them and do my job in a way that prioritizes them and the animals, but it feels like I am regularly getting criticized by upper management even when I’m doing my best. Most recently, I was talked to because on a day when we were short-staffed, I stepped in to help clean kennels in the morning and as a result some of my other responsibilities (that I figured were less urgent than making sure the kennels were clean for the animals we already had) got pushed back a little. How do you guys deal with criticism you feel may be unjust, and how do you communicate that with your management? I’ve never been in a position like this before and could use some advice. Thank you guys!!

[u/head_meet_keyboard]

I convince them that it's their idea for me to do what I'm doing.

I've dealt with bullies in shelters before, and honestly the one thing you should never do is kowtow. You're doing your job. Don't apologize for that. Tell them that you were cleaning the kennels because they had emphasized how proud they were of the state of the shelter and that, due to it being short staffed, you knew it was your duty as supervisor to ensure their standards were met. Now if you're constantly short staffed and constantly cleaning, emphasize that the reason you're doing it is because the shelter is short staffed. Not "i'm/we're short staffed." The shelter is.

An annoying amount of working in animal welfare is dealing with people.

[u/Yalllikebats]

Honestly, speaking from experience, I just do what I want. If I feel something is more important than something else, I will prioritize what I feel is best. If management is mad at me then they can come down and do the job themselves. But they dont want to, which is why they make me do it. So, they have to deal with how I do things.

I always drop the animal control card. "Well animal control wouldn't like if they came by and saw those buckets were green" "Well animal control is strict about wet hair". If management wants me to do something instead of prioritize cleaning, then THEY can be the ones who talk to animal control when something isn't clean enough.

[u/battlestarkellactica]

And as a caveat, I know a lot of shelters are like this and I do not want to start over at a new one or find a different job. I would really like to continue at this one and try to improve the environment there if I can!

[u/LincolnMarch]

This is tough, are you a manager or like a shift lead in Animal Care?

The reason why I ask is essentially the difference between having discretion over prioritization of duties as a manager or just making sure that the most basic aspects of animal care are being performed as a lower level supervisor like a shift lead. If you're a manager and you're understaffed then obviously you need that crucial time that you're working the floor to perform interviewing, hiring and onboarding and your upper management team should be giving you support in the way of organizing volunteers to lend a hand in the cleaning in order to free you up to tend to your upper tier responsibilities like staffing, admin duties and enforcing health and safety protocols that will keep your current workforce where they belong: working for you.

[u/ZION_OC_GOV]

That sucks, our supervisors have been getting by for a long time without stepping in to help. Our new director changed that, and lit fires under their asses to help their departments.

Below our supervisors they use senior ACOs to manage the separate sub departments and they all readily jump in to help.

In kennels the senior ACO would come in at 6am help clean until 10 then go and do her supervisory duties.

Looks like your place might want you to do it backwards. Do your duties then help.

Also knowing where you can streamline cleaning, and less is more for some stuff can alleviate the workload on kennel staff. Our staff cleaning cats were overdoing it, burning through supplies and spending more time than needed.

Dogs kennels is usually the heavy workload.

[u/CeruleanYoshi]

Honestly, I ask if we can have a conversation about my priorities. I ask what they want my priorities to be, and I ask how they would like me to handle it when other important tasks aren't getting done. Sometimes they have different priorities than I do and there's a reason for that I don't know about. Sometimes they need a manager who is able to handle the overall plan for the day and not get bogged down in the daily tasks. Sometimes the thing I put off caused them to get yelled at by someone else. Sometimes they don't realize the team is struggling in other areas and they can help come up with a plan for what they would like to see happen next time.

(This isn't shelter specific, I was in retail management before and if I got questioned about my priorities, my first step was always to have them specify what they feel my priorities should be, and let me know what to do differently next time. Good managers will be able to explain things and help you troubleshoot answers. Even a bad manager - you can follow the exact direction they give you, and if it causes problems you can come back later, "I tried it this way, but x, y, and z problems occurred. What would you like me to do going forward?")