Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: A few months ago, we had to do an “about me” presentation during a department meeting— we had to post pictures of our families and give a brief description of our interests/who we are. I’m not a big fan of these things for several reasons. One is that I would prefer to keep my family life out of work, and one is that it can cause discrimination, which is the reason I’m writing. I’m white, my husband is black, and my kids are obviously mixed. Literally the day after my presentation where I posted my family picture, my manager, supervisor, and some coworkers have changed how they treat me. I don’t jump to discrimination right away, but I don’t know what e…

A reader writes: My question is around my work as a professional industry trainer. I do training sessions open to being booked for participants across the industry, as well as targeted training in webinar form for single businesses. These sessions are about key aspects of our work, including safety and legislative issues. The recent letter about students in academic settings whispering in class has really stirred up thoughts about a pattern I’m seeing in these sessions. Participants, often including managers or leaders within a workplace, despite being asked to put their cameras on and participate, keep their cameras off and don’t respond to questions and activities des…

A reader writes: My fiancé and I just broke up after 6.5 years together. The underlying factors contributing to the split had been percolating for a long time, but the actual break-up happened very suddenly and unexpectedly, and I’m in a lot of pain right now. I was wondering if you had any scripts for how to broach this subject at work. I’ve talked about my partner, his career, our upcoming wedding, etc. a lot to my coworkers, and many of them have met him. I don’t know how to now announce that we broke up without trauma-dumping, but obviously I can’t just pretend that we’re still together. I’m sorry! You don’t need to make a big announcement at all. You can simply s…

A reader writes: I have been managing a corporate team for a little under a year, and I’ve gotten to know them all over the last few months. One employee, Sally, is smart, quiet, and a hard worker. However, when I talk to her, I started noticing that I was getting a lot of silence and a glazed look back. I tried a few different ways to ask questions and have a conversation over the months, but nothing has led to a change in her demeanor. At one point, I was wondering if she was high at work, since she seemed to me to be so checked out during conversation. Then a few months ago, I learned about the Gen Z stare – and I think that’s what I’ve been encountering! Sally is Ge…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I am one of the lucky few who have not been greatly affected by layoffs in my region. While I am working from home, I am still working. I work in an industry that is fairly well insulated, considering the circumstances. I have a friend who has been laid off from their job in a very different field. This friend emailed me the other day asking me if I had any leads on jobs that they could apply to. The only person I know in a field anywhere close to theirs is in the same position, laying off workers. I have no idea what to say to this person in response. Can you help? I answer this qu…

A reader writes: My workplace occasionally recognizes staff birthdays, but isn’t consistent. Sometimes there’s cake, sometimes bagels, sometimes nothing, and it’s often a last-minute announcement which can be frustrating to people who already have food planned out for the day. Someone brought up the idea of bringing back a past practice: the monthly celebration of all January (for example) birthdays in one go. This could allow for consistent “observance” of birthdays, planning ahead on whether you bring a lunch, and less worrying about the impact on the budget. I know not everyone feels the same way about their birthday so I turned to AAM for insights on how to start s…

A reader writes: This month, I started a new job that offers excellent benefits, including a policy stating that employees who “self-identify” on an addiction issue can take time off to get help without penalty. As a high-functioning untreated alcoholic, I’m very grateful for this, but unsure how to navigate it. (Kudos to all the authors of personnel policies out there who wrote language like this. Sincerely, those folks need to know how grateful some employees are for those clauses! Thank you! You are helping people!) Here’s the situation: I’ve had a long-term drinking problem and know in-patient treatment would finally help me address it. Out-patient didn’t stick, and…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I recently had a recruiter reach out to me about a job. I’m not really looking right now, but I figured I’d see what they had to say. I had my first interview virtually, and progressed a few days later to an in-person interview. It went well, but towards the end, the hiring manager asked if there was anything that would prevent me from accepting an offer if it were extended. Am I wrong to hate this question? Side note: the recruiter had been very clear that I shouldn’t ask any questions about what the company can do for me in the interviews, as they would handle all negotiations for…

A reader writes: I recently accepted a new job where I will be managing a newly created team. I have been a manager before, but this new job will be a new challenge. The team I am managing has been tasked with leading a culture change in the company. The company has had many employees leave. In some cases, they left without another job lined up or took a job somewhere else with less pay or a lower title. Most gave little or no notice and left on poor terms. It’s been a problem for a long time, but things have been getting worse recently. Some former employees did agree to exit interviews but all of the ones who left over the problems had the same complaints: * Parents …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Here’s a round-up of advice about how to deal with rude coworkers. how to deal with a coworker who’s rude to you dealing with a cranky, unpleasant coworker how to work with a jerk who raises his voice, when “that’s just how he is” new coworker is a rude know-it-all my coworker is rude and insubordinate my rude and intrusive coworker makes me feel horrible dealing with coworkers who are rude in meetings my intern is a rude jackass my coworker is a rude, inconsiderate bully — but am I being too sensitive? when a colleague is being rude to someone else what to say when your boss is rude to a co…

A reader writes: One piece of your advice I’ve made use of many times is to think of a person struggling in their role as “miscast.” It’s not like they’re a terrible person or failing on purpose, they’re just in the wrong role for their skills. When the conversation turns to ending their employment, I can be kinder and more compassionate, as you’ve written, even when they have frustrated me greatly throughout their time with us. But I worry I’ve gotten stuck when the reason someone is being let go for attitude. I’m thinking of a time, a while back, when I fired a person who no one could stand to work with — arrogant, smug, judgmental, and no self-awareness whatsoever of…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I need help figuring out how to point out to someone they haven’t answered my question in a way that doesn’t sound rude. I’m a 40-year-old woman who has recently been diagnosed with both ADHD and auditory processing disorder. I’ve found that this is the reason why I have a hard time holding a lot of verbal information in my head. And this is why for my entire life I’ve been dealing with a communication problem that I don’t know how to handle. The problem is this: I ask someone a question, but they don’t answer my question. They reply with a word salad of vagueness and unnecessary in…

A reader writes: You’ve recommended that interviewers consider lunch interviews in some circumstances and advised candidates with dietary restrictions to review the menu in advance and choose a known safe item. I’m hoping you can help me navigate a more difficult version of this situation. I don’t eat any food prepared by restaurants because I can’t reliably avoid getting sick unless I’ve tested the exact item multiple times at home. Even if I review the ingredients, I might identify something that will make me sick, but I can’t be confident that it won’t (unless the only ingredient is water). While nothing I eat would cause serious injury, I’m not comfortable risking …

A reader writes: I’d love some advice about how to help out a very timid staff member, let’s call her Jane. Jane and I have 1-1 weekly professional development meetings where I can offer support, mentorship, and advice. She is not my direct report and we don’t work in the same department so our workflows never cross; our company culture is that each senior staff member (i.e., me) has regular mentoring meetings with some junior employees. Jane is very, very timid. She doesn’t feel like she can advocate for herself in her own team, and she doesn’t push back when she’s given unachievable deadlines. If she knows she can’t meet a deadline, she tries to anyway because she doe…

A reader writes: Sending in a question I truly never thought I would have to ask: what are some things that my organization, as an employer, can do to help ensure staff safety in areas of increased and contentious ICE action? We have staff of Hispanic heritage (“present” Hispanic, names clearly of that background if ID or car registration were checked) who are frequently on the road for our organization. This includes many areas where they are an ethnic minority and which have colloquial reputations for profiling (but staff do not report previous issues) — and areas with increased, visible, concerning ICE enforcement. We’re talking large scale “operations” which seem to…

A reader writes: Earlier this year, an employee of mine suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. He was excellent at his job and extremely well-liked by the rest of our department. His partner also works here. We are currently interviewing for someone to fill the now-empty role. At what point (if ever) is it appropriate to relay any of this to the candidates? So far, no one has asked why the job is open. While folks in the department are wonderful people, I have no idea whether any leftover resentment, awkwardness, or other weirdness may happen when our new person starts their job. There is some interaction between this position and the partner’s position, so I’d like to …

A reader writes: A colleague and I were recently interviewing candidates for an entry-level position and, at the beginning of one of the interviews, the candidate asked if they could disclose something before we got started, then said that they were on the autism spectrum. My colleague jumped in and explained that while they appreciated the candidate’s desire for transparency, we shouldn’t know that up-front because legally we cannot deny employment to someone on the basis of any kind of medical diagnosis, and including that information during an interview makes everything much more complicated. My colleague and I debriefed after the interview, and we ultimately decided…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Is there a professionally acceptable way to push back when someone apologizes for causing problems at work? For example, this morning, my colleague slept through a meeting we had scheduled. Since I’m on the west coast (we’re a remote team), this meeting required me to wake up at 5 am. She messaged me two hours later saying, “Whoops, I totally spaced on this meeting. Sorry!” My normal response would be to say something like, “It’s okay! When can we reschedule?” But … it’s not okay! Not just because I woke up early, but because I was unprepared for my next meeting as a result. This ha…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’d appreciate your and other workers’ advice on how to cope providing service when you are feeling fragile yourself. I work in a somewhat frazzled, frantic healthcare environment seeing around 30 patients a day in an inner city, low income area. It’s … a lot — with very demanding patients. But I mostly enjoy it. It’s not amazingly well paid, but it pays the bills. My family is going through our own problems at the moment due to our teen’s mental health issues. There are some days before I even get to work where I’ve had to cope with an …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: A year ago, my boss was promoted into a new role at my company. I took on my boss’ job, in addition to my regular job, with my grandboss implying that I would soon be promoted into my boss’s old job. Well, you can guess how this ends — I ended up doing both jobs for a year without any extra pay or recognition, my attempts to get updates on the job status were ignored, and this week, my grandboss hired one of his old fraternity brothers — with no experience in our industry — for the job. Obviously, I’m looking for a new job and hope to lea…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Should I say something about past allegations against a colleague? I started a new position about six months ago, working with partner organizations across the state on community projects. On a recent call, I was surprised to see someone I’ll call Brad. I knew Brad from my time teaching in a different city, where he was an activist in the reproductive health rights space. A few years ago, Brad had to leave that work and relocate after being accused of grooming minors. Two friends who work in that space told me about it at the time. Now, Brad is wo…

A reader writes: We received and validated some complaints about language used by a member of my team — off-color jokes, insensitive comments, etc. I agreed with HR that this did not rise to the level of a formal warning, but we would have a documented sit-down with the associate to explain it wasn’t acceptable and should not happen again, and further instances would have escalating consequences. Before this, the employee was a high performer without issues. HR scheduled the meeting on Friday for the following Monday with a very generic subject line and said that she wished to discuss “communication” and included my manager in the invite as a courtesy (she is aware of t…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Our HR person helped her mom get hired in secret I work for a small company of 12 people, led by two partners. In the hierarchy of the company, I am the next tier down from the partners. We are not large enough to have an HR department, so our accountant, “Jan,” operates as the HR person as well as office manager. We have been looking to hire an executive assistant for the company’s partners and Jan has been in charge of placing the ads, screening the resumes, and doing initial interviews. Jan also attended the interviews with the partners and cand…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. HR says I can’t use sick leave for a family emergency Recently, “life happened” and I took a day off from work because I needed to take care of some things and I wasn’t feeling mentally well. I emailed work in the morning and said that a family emergency came up so I needed to take a sick day. That seemed like the most honest description of what was happening at the time without giving too much detail. When I returned to work the next day, I submitted for sick leave. HR emailed me asking for details, saying that sick leave is provided for employees’ illness or injury, and that for other situations we need to use PTO. …

A reader writes: I’m currently 12 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and my husband and I received some devastating news that the pregnancy may not be viable. We will get testing to confirm either way, but if it’s definitely not viable we would make the very difficult and heartbreaking decision to terminate this very wanted baby. We won’t find out until 17-18 weeks, which will make it physically and emotionally quite difficult and necessitate some time off. This week I reached out to the head of employee entitlements in HR and asked about leave options in the event I have to terminate a non-viable pregnancy. Pregnancy loss leave and stillbirth leave are fortunately avai…