‘I turned around and went home’: Why managers making ultimatums to employees never works

Another story of an employee standing up for themselves has been spreading around online. In this situation, an 18-year-old retail worker showed up for her shift six minutes late due to traffic. Her manager yelled at her and humiliated her in front of fellow coworkers and even some customers. The manager laid down an ultimatum: “If you don’t show up on time, don’t come in at all!” The retail worker called her bluff.

The following week, the retail worker realized she was going to be five minutes late when heading over to her job. Knowing this, she "turned around and went home." She texted her manager, “Per your instruction, I’m not coming in since I couldn’t be on time.” The manager freaked out and the retail worker ignored any calls from them. The next day, the retail worker came to work, explaining that she was just following her manager’s instructions. The manager hasn't bothered her about being mildly late ever since.

Likely, this isn’t the only story you’ve read on the Internet about an angry manager being forced to eat their words by an employee they’ve yelled at or provided a firm ultimatum. There was the IT professional who was firmly told he was not allowed to work from home, but had their bosses reconsider when he shut off his phone and email during non-office hours. Maybe you heard about the manager who told his employee to choose between graduate school or his $10/hour job when the manager sternly refused to allow the employee time to go to class. Among those, you could have just read one of several Reddit threads about employees that called their managers’ bluffs.

Ultimatums can do more than just create unnecessary escalation and tension between employees and managers. Even if the manager isn’t concerned about keeping a friendly relationship with their employee, ultimatums breed resentment and could encourage the employee to work poorly or commit smaller passive-aggressive payback if they don’t quit first. Depending on the problem or lack of accommodation of certain legal rights, the conflict potentially could lead to a lawsuit. Per several business experts, the ultimatums usually just end up with someone getting fired, the employee or the manager. It’s not worth threatening a person’s job over something usually very small and otherwise manageable.

Instead of “do this or you’re fired” threats and the like, business professionals and HR experts agree that ultimatums really should be the absolute last resort, and avoided if at all possible. So what’s the answer? While there are many depending on the situation, Harvard Professional and Executive Development believes that empathy is a great start to whatever comes next. The issue with many of the managers in these stories is that they lead with ultimatums, which aren’t just ineffective between managers and employees, but are ineffective in business deals and romantic relationships.

There are several ways the retail manager in the story could have gone before picking the nuclear option. Instead of yelling and humiliating the 18-year-old in front of other staff, the manager should have pulled the employee aside to address her being late privately. Instead of scolding the employee, the manager could ask why the employee was late and if it’s a common occurrence, brainstorm solutions together. Maybe adjust the schedule or have the employee stay later. Maybe point out that the good work the employee does when they’re here and that they’re important so it not only lets them know they are valued but could motivate them to leave a little bit earlier to beat traffic. Or just not be bothered when a person is six minutes late, knowing that it's not intentional on the employee’s part and it’s not as big of a hassle as rapidly trying to find a replacement if you were to fire them or if they quit.

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Like with many conflicts, communication, collaboration, and mutual respect are seemingly more effective than angry spurts of power trips. Work life is much easier when they realize that consequences impact everybody involved.