Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: My fully remote company just announced that our mandatory, weekly, hour-long, all-staff Zoom meeting will now be required to be camera on and mic on for all 60+ attendees. It seems like they’re trying to recreate the feeling of us all being in person. However, to me, and to I imagine a lot of people, the new requirements sound like literal torture. This seems like a perfect “push back as a group” situation … but I don’t know how to do that in a remote setting. While I suspect my manager would also find this new requirement bonkers, I’m not so sure about his boss. I’m mostly an independent contributor, so I don’t have much incidental interaction with oth…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I’ve run out of a patience with a rude coworker I’ve run out of patience with a difficult coworker, Mary. I’m one of the few people who has to deal with Mary in person, and my work is closely tied with hers. She’s entry-level while I’m mid-level, but I’m not her manager or supervisor. She has difficulty completing her work, which causes many problems for her. I have tried mightily to be her friend and mentor for the past few years, but her struggles continue. We’re locked in a difficult dynamic where I have to sit back and watch her flail, and I bear the brunt of her complaints. On a personal level, most people find h…

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I work in a field that leans heavily towards freelance gig work these days, but I’ve been lucky enough to work in-house for a firm since making a career change into this industry six years ago. I’ve done a bit of freelance on the side here and there, but not a lot, and I haven’t been self-promoting as a person who’s looking for work because, well, I wasn’t! I had a full-time job that I loved! Well … now I’ve been laid off as my firm downsized, and I’m going to have to go freelance on pretty short notice. Obviously I’ll be job searching as well, but it’s hard to overstate just how much this industry is based …

Here are three updates from past letter-writers. 1. A medical tech repeatedly proselytized to me I had an appointment with my doctor this morning and told him that one of the techs had made me uncomfortable by repeatedly discussing her religious beliefs with me even after I directly asked that she not. I used the phrasing a couple of commenters suggested — that she essentially was telling me that if I accepted Jesus into my life, my mental health would improve. My doctor thanked me for telling him, apologized for my experience, and said that he would make sure that this behavior would not happen again with me or other patients. Interestingly, he did not ask me which tec…

A reder writes: Over the past few years, my responsibilities have grown well beyond my original job description. I now manage procurement end-to-end, track budgets, support multiple project managers, and draft reports. This expansion has happened informally — no title change, no pay adjustment, and no formal acknowledgement of the shift in scope. What’s making it harder is that after four years in the role, my team lead has openly said they don’t really understand procurement. As a result, I often feel like I’m operating without informed oversight or support, yet I’m still accountable when something is questioned. Recently, I attended what I thought was a general catch…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. HR wants me to give someone a bad review they don’t deserve, to cover up HR’s own mistake I am a manager for a small team of engineers. One of my direct reports was given a new role that was supposed to come with a promotion and pay bump this year. It turned out that our local HR did not have the authority to actually increase his payband and rebranded the new role as a “lateral move.” Now reviews are due, and I am being told to artificially give another person on my team a bad review so that we can give a larger raise to the person who took on a new role. It feels really bad and unethical to do this. Especially sinc…

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. The post open thread – March 6, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: Lost Lambs, by Madeline Cash. As their parents’ marriage unravels, their three teenage daughters each get into different sorts of trouble. Funny and a pleasure to read. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – March 7-8, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: One of the directors at my company, Meredith, has been undergoing executive coaching sessions for around six months. These are supposed to be to give her management coaching and experience, as she currently has none and has three direct reports, including me. However, it’s come to light that instead of using these sessions to learn how to manage and learn leadership skills, she’s essentially been using them as free therapy/counsellng and has been aggressively running down members of the team instead! One of the members of the team accidentally discovered the full transcripts from Meredith’s sessions on our company cloud — in a public folder, not even h…

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’m a longtime reader and huge fan of Ask a Manager. I wondered if you’ve ever done a column about people who were busted as writing in — people whose coworkers, boss, family, or friends read a post and realized the author was someone they knew. I have not, although I know of a few times when it’s happened: If you remember the manager whose best employee quit when she wasn’t allowed to go to her college graduation, the employee herself recognized the letter years later and wrote in, one of the other interns fired for writing a petition about the dress code wrote in a year later, and someone who thought they …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I don’t want to stay in a haunted hotel on a work trip I’m a junior employee at a smaller firm (100-200 employees). I travel about once a month for work and typically stay in generic hotels. I’m heading to a small town on my next trip and the project manager suggested we stay at a cute old historic property. Not a problem, I go to book, and it says the hotel has a friendly ghost. I am absolutely petrified of ghosts and paranormal things — think years and years of weekly therapy. The two people I’m traveling with are more senior than I am, and I’m a little embarrassed to say, “Hey, I know you’ve stayed here before but …

A reader writes: My manager, Katherine, is a C-suite level executive who joined the organization eight months ago. She was previously my skip-level manager (former boss’s boss), but due to a large RIF/company restructuring four months ago, my former manager is no longer with the organization, and another colleague and I were asked to co-lead the remaining team, reporting to Katherine. Before the restructuring, I had met her maybe twice, and at the time of my recent performance review, this was my second 1-1. Many of the projects I worked on last year are no longer considered company priorities after this restructuring. During my performance review, Katherine admitted th…

Remember the letter-writer who needed to tell a new employee he’s not cut out for the job? The first update was here, and here’s the latest. After far too long, I was able to terminate Tom. As the “fun” project wore on, he started telling me he was overwhelmed, and I started stepping in to do increasingly more of his work. Don’t ask me why I found his requests for help so compelling, I’m still mad at myself about falling for them. After delivering the “needs improvement” conversation, his work improved for a few months. But then something snapped, and he completely fell below the minimum threshold. Multiple important meetings no-showed. Entire afternoons where I was un…

Domestic violence can intersect with work in all sorts of ways. We’ve seen it in letters here, from the many people worried their coworkers may be experiencing abuse at home to the person whose colleague wanted to fire someone for being a victim of abuse. And some years back, we had an excellent letter from a survivor full of things her workplace could have done to help her, but didn’t. I recently spoke with Bella Book and Nina Kanakarajavelu of Futures Without Violence about their work to help employers to support workers experiencing sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, and here’s our conversation. Tell us a bit about the work you do in t…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker is charging personal purchases to our team I work in higher ed on a small team. All of us are able to make purchases up to a certain amount with little to no oversight. I have suspected that my coworker has bought things for herself. It seemed like a few small things here and there, a $30 hand cream, essential oils, things that didn’t seem to have a business purpose. Recently I purchased an expensive item (with permission) for the office. She said someone asked her where it was from and asked if I could send her the link. A week later, a box arrives with this very item. I look up her purchase order, which…

A reader writes: I am conducting interviews next week, and normally my workplace sends interview questions to interviewees 30 minutes prior to the interview. This is in an attempt to provide a more accessible and equitable experience for our interviewees who may need additional time or feel more comfortable when they know the questions ahead of time. This also aligns with how the employee would normally work — having ample time to review and respond to questions. All our interviews are remote. I am working with a new panel member who suggested we stop this practice because they were finding candidates were using the extra time to have AI generate answers to the question…

A reader writes: As a manager, new parent, and generally busy person, I work some strange hours. For example, yesterday I was online at 2 am (as my daughter woke me up during the night and I decided to use some time to clear my work inbox ahead of a busy Monday) and 10 pm (as I finished early to play with my daughter but needed to meet a deadline). I don’t expect these kinds of hours from my team or want to encourage people to work outside of hours if it doesn’t suit them, but sometimes these are the hours that suit me! What can and should I do to make it clear that what I do isn’t what I expect from the team and that following my example won’t have any impact on my opi…

A reader writes: I do communications and marketing and would love your advice on something that happened my first time managing a team. I had a marketing assistant, “Kitty,” who was very earnest and a brand new grad from the fancy university in town. She was good at visuals (so the promotional graphics and fliers touting our products on social media) but less so on writing up the descriptions needed for a company like ours. Typical interactions would go like this: Kitty’s draft: CompanyName just released a new line of teapots inspired by London. The teapot are red. Me, when, reviewing drafts: This is a good start, but let’s try to make these teapots sound like the be…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Is it out of touch to expect student workers to check their email? I work at a fairly small college, and I’m noticing that more and more students aren’t checking or responding to their email regularly. Some of my colleagues say that they have to text the students in order to get a response. I really don’t want to do that unless it’s a time-sensitive situation. My instinct is to tell the students (the ones who work for me anyway) that email is still a really normal business tool and they need to get used to it because it will be part of their professional lives for a while to come. But I also recognize that I’ve worked…

It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers. * If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer. The post open thread – March 20, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: This Is Not About Us, by Allegra Goodman. An estrangement between two sisters over apple cake affects three generations of a family over decades. Each chapter explores a different family member, but all the stories are interconnected. I loved it. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – March 21-22, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker overheard me complaining about them I have a new-ish colleague, Jaime, who I feel hasn’t really been pulling their weight. I was talking to someone else in the office about a project we’re working on and how I thought Jaime would be leading the project but that they were pushing all of the work onto other people when the project is what Jaime was hired for. I know my tone was very negative about Jaime during the conversation. Well, I didn’t realize Jaime was in the office that day and am pretty sure they overheard the conversation. I ran into Jaime later that day and they gave me a sad look, but did not sa…

A reader writes: I know salary negotiation is typically acceptable, expected, and wise, and I even did recruiting for a year or so. But I’m job hunting again, and I’ve never seen this question on an application before: “To ensure equitable compensation, we benchmark salaries against nonprofits of similar size and budget, because of this, we don’t negotiate salaries. The salary for this role is $96,650. Please confirm that this aligns with your desired salary expectations.” (Dropdown: “Yes, I understand that the salary for this role is $96,650.”) Does this mean I shouldn’t ever bring it up? Also, related: Say the salary is below market rate or a huge range, and you kno…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Candidate used a slur during a job interview I’m the hiring manager for a position at a nonprofit. The role has a lot of in-person interaction with clients, so we are looking for people who are well-spoken. One of our candidates used a lesser known slur during her interview. I won’t say what the slur was, but it’s a term to indicate being duped or swindled, and the word comes from the name of an ethnic group. I didn’t address it in the moment, but I can’t stop thinking about it. How would you have handled this? And, should this error carry weight? On one hand, I understand that when you’re speaking on the fly like in …

Remember the letter-writer whose new team thought they were incredibly overworked, but they actually did nothing? Here’s the update. I wanted to send an update as many of the commentators had requested one. I was the person who wrote about the team that spent all their time reading books and organizing their record collections, and yet kept insisting they were Really Very Busy. Alison’s advice was spot-on — I was only there on a temporary basis, so I decided to just enjoy the madness as a casual observer before I went back to my permanent role. There was a lot of discussion in the comments as to why the team was behaving the way they were, and some of the commentators …