Performance Tracking and Feedback

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…

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 five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My husband says it’s inappropriate to dine or carpool with my boss I have a great relationship with my boss. He is incredibly supportive of my professional growth and is a good mentor. We work well together on projects and complement each other’s skills. We’ve built a great team and are very intentional about culture. Relationships are incredibly important in our field. Some context: He is a man, I am a woman, and he’s about 10 years older than me. My husband hates my boss, and he’s not shy about it. He says my boss doesn’t look him in the eye or shake his hand when they run into each other at work functions. He alway…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. The wife of my husband’s employee called me to complain about a work trip The wife of one of my husband’s employees called me to complain about a one-night trip he’s taking for a meeting with a client. This employee doesn’t work overtime and has only been out of town three times since working for us in the last nine years. We started my husband’s architecture company 20 years ago and have built it from the ground up to nine employees. The employee has been with the company for nine years and in that time has only been away from his family due to work three times. We live in a very small town, and they attend our chur…

A reader writes: I have seen you and other people say that you shouldn’t usually accept a counteroffer. I wish I had listened to you, but I didn’t. The backstory is I have worked at my company for almost a decade, and for the first several years I was extremely underpaid. I know this because I made a lateral move that resulted in a significant pay increase. With each transfer, I have been clear that growth (and money, of course) are very important to me. Recently I was recruited (I did not seek this new position, it came to me) for a position that would have increased my pay slightly. It would have changed my work status from fully remote to hybrid, but most importantl…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I accidentally peed on a fabric chair at work I’m close to tears writing this. I was drinking some water at my desk and some of it went down the wrong tube, which led to a coughing fit. I coughed so hard that I peed. This is the first time this has ever happened and I’m mortified. Worse still, it happed on a specially ordered orthopedic chair with a cloth seat. And yes, the urine soak through. What do I do?!? I’m afraid if I tell my manger they’ll be horrified and wonder how I could possibly be incontinent. I don’t want to be the coworker who peed o…

A reader writes: You’ve talked about how inappropriate it is for employers to ask candidates about their salary expectations without giving out any info on salary themselves. I became a small business owner without having received training in that aspect of things, but learned early on when I am hiring to always ask the candidate their salary expectations before giving any information out about the range I am willing to offer. Why? Firstly, the money comes directly from our pockets and frankly if we can get away with paying $20/hour instead of $22/hour, why wouldn’t we? It also gives us room for raises, bonuses, etc. without taking too much of a financial hit. You alway…

A reader writes: My employee handbook has a policy where if you want to switch to full-time remote work, you have to give three months notice. My partner is starting grad school and we are planning on moving, so I asked my work to switch me to full-time remote in over three months. The handbook says they may not be able to accommodate this, so I was prepared for the potential “no.” However, after giving the “no,” they met with me and said that as I’m moving in three months and they would not accommodate a shift to remote, I would not be able to work at my company anymore. I continued to express my gratitude and interest in continuing remote if possible, but that I unde…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. I can only rate one person on my team “exceptional” no matter how well they do My company uses a fairly robust framework for discussing performance. This is generally really helpful, as it provides me with clear feedback to share with my team. For example, I can say, “Good performance is handling your workload independently. Exceptional performance is also mentoring newer colleagues while you stay on top of your work.” The problem is that the framework was designed for companies with complex hierarchies with many positions to move through. My compan…

A reader writes: About two years ago, I had just started working at a major media company on the east coast, making good money. I was able to be the sole breadwinner for my family of four. Due to a complicated family situation, we were forced to move to the middle of the country to be near my in-laws. My job could not transfer, so I got a favor from my dad to get a remote job at his company, taking a major pay cut in the process. It was still enough to take care of everyone with the lower cost of living, and it was well above the average of the area. About nine months later, that company had a major restructuring and I was laid off. I had to scramble to find any work t…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Internship offered me a special project but now I can’t get any answers about it I’m a college student who recently finished a remote internship at a prominent company in a fairly niche field (the company has maybe 10-15 full-time employees). My main task was fairly generic — think setting up a filing system or similar — but I also got a lot of experience in the actual field. Towards the latter end of it, I had a great talk with the CEO about what I wanted out of the internship, and what was really exciting was that he said that he thought a good next step for me would be designing an accessory for one of their product…

A reader writes: I worked with an incredibly talented team of colleagues, and I feel like my own work isn’t anywhere near their level. I regularly complete far fewer projects than anyone else on the team, and I still need help on things they all seem to do independently. This isn’t the job I started in at this company. I was originally in a different role, but after a major corporate restructure two years ago I was moved into this position. I’m very sure I couldn’t have passed the hiring process for this job otherwise because I’m clearly not qualified; I just landed here because they needed somewhere to put me. Two years in, I’ve gotten better at the work than I was whe…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I can’t shake my crush on a former coworker I try not to view my coworkers as romantic prospects for the obvious reasons (women come to work to advance their careers, not to cater to the romantic whims of their coworkers!). As a woman in my 20s, I’ve experienced a few sexual overtures at work and in public, and I certainly don’t want to impose my own romantic demands on a fellow young woman who simply wants to do her job. However, I can’t shake my crush on a former coworker, “Diana.” Over the summer, I worked seasonally on the same large team as Diana. (She does year-round, part-time work for this employer.) While we …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I confessed my crush to my manager I’m asking for advice about my manager. He’s a tier above me, and it’s frowned upon to hangout with different tiers outside of work hours, though it still happens. My manager told me he takes the rules very seriously, although I recently learned that isn’t true because he does hangout with lower tiers outside of work, and has flirted with women in his department, which feels hypocritical. He was transferred over to my department a couple of months back, and while he was going through the training process leading up to it, I confessed my feelings for him. I explained that I want to ho…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. I cried at work and my coworkers won’t stop asking if I’m okay I work in a small office where there are some strong personalities and, though our manager is very nice and reasonable, there’s only so much you can do about people like that. Yesterday, two of my coworkers (Mary and John) and I ended up having to do mediation with our manager over the pettiest shit imaginable. It’s so petty I can summarize the whole thing in one sentence: John walked in while Mary and I were prepping for a workshop, put a form whose processing is not my job on my desk, and when I asked him why he was giving it to me, snatched it back and …

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…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I didn’t expect my employee to take off so much time after a family death My only direct report, Jessy, recently had an unexpected death in her spouse’s family. This has taken a huge toll on both of them, especially due to its sudden nature. Jessy let me know a couple of days after the passing. I checked her PTO balances (which are generous in our company), let her know how much time she could take, and encouraged her to take the time she needed. I expected this would be two or three days at the most. Instead, Jessy was off three days last week and three and a half this week. This has really put me in a bind and left…

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives. 1. Employer is angry that I didn’t show up for an interview I didn’t know about There is a job I really want. I applied and didn’t hear back for a while. After a few months, they emailed me stating that my interview would be on X date with no time nor location. They had scheduled it for the next day and it was already evening. I wasn’t in town and wouldn’t be back until the next week. I sent an email in reply, letting them know and that I would be happy to reschedule. Fast forward to today, which is five days later. Last night they sent me an email w…

A reader writes: This is a bizarre situation that happened years ago and I always wonder how I and my boss should have handled it. I don’t drink alcohol for personal reasons. My boss, Walter, was aware of this — in my field, happy hours with clients and coworkers are common, and I’d usually attend and have a soda but made clear to Walter early on that I don’t drink. Relevant information: I have some moral qualms with it personally — not judging what anyone else partakes in, but it’s not something I have an interest in consuming myself. I have known a lot of alcoholics, and while my own abstinence from alcohol isn’t religious, I do think there are some similarities to th…

A reader writes: This may not be an answerable question, but I’m interested in your views on what makes company culture. I ask because my very small (fewer than 10 people), 100%-remote company recently hired a new employee, and during the interview I anticipated that the candidate might ask about company culture and I realized that I would not know what to say. This was an unusual hire for our company, because it was only the third time in our more than 10-year history that we’ve hired someone who had no previous connection to a current employee. A quick overview of my company might provide helpful perspective: a couple of us have been here since the company’s inceptio…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I don’t want employees to give me gifts I’ve just switched employers and am now heading up a company’s legal division. I value your advice to gift down, not up, but do you have any scripts on how and when to communicate this expectation to subordinates? I don’t want to sound like, “Listen up, peons! Spare me your humble offerings.” Nor do I want to say it so early that it feels like I was expecting them to shower gifts at my feet if I didn’t say something. And if someone ignores me and gives me a gift anyway, how should I handle that? I’m working remotely for a region of the country that’s very different culturally fro…

A reader writes: I manage a fully remote team. It can be difficult to draw a line between work and life when you work from home, so I try to emphasize the importance of work-life balance within my group. I don’t send emails outside of traditional work hours, I’m flexible about appointments, and I encourage my team to use all their vacation time before year-end. I have a new employee, Jolene. Day 3 of her first week, Jolene said she would work on something “later tonight, after dinner.” I reminded her then that I don’t expect her to work on this project at night – if she ever needs more time on something, she can let me know. Today is the start of her second week, and s…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: This letter has a lot of personal issues attached to it, but I swear this is job-related. My mother is trying to strong-arm me into letting my 13-year-old brother stay in my office with me after school since his school is close to where I work. I’ve had an exhausting feud with my mother because of her passive parenting of my brother. She simultaneously thinks I don’t do enough to control him, while any actual consequences I give him always get me a “why did you have to be so meeeeeean to him?” (My father passed away a few years ago, unfortunately.) Predictably, this has led to my b…