Management lives in a different reality. I’ve never worked in a back office environment, but everywhere I have worked even “hands on” middle and upper management tends to stay in their bubble. On the rare occasion they do site visits there’s plenty of warning, so store managers scrimp on labor during the leadup and then overstaff relative to normal conditions to make sure everything looks perfect. It is very difficult for middle management and up to get a clear picture of what is actually happening because there’s no incentive to be honest. Being honest actually gets you punished, because when everyone else lies honesty makes you look incompetent.
My leading hypothesis is “management is stupid”. It explains a lot of this sort of thing.
Management lives in a different reality. I’ve never worked in a back office environment, but everywhere I have worked even “hands on” middle and upper management tends to stay in their bubble. On the rare occasion they do site visits there’s plenty of warning, so store managers scrimp on labor during the leadup and then overstaff relative to normal conditions to make sure everything looks perfect. It is very difficult for middle management and up to get a clear picture of what is actually happening because there’s no incentive to be honest. Being honest actually gets you punished, because when everyone else lies honesty makes you look incompetent.