Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: I am a manager of a small team at a midsize company. Recently, one of my best performers (Jan) had a dip in morale. During Q4, we had an opening come up that would be a small promotion for her, but we were told we couldn’t fill it until the new fiscal year. She was told by me and other managers to continue performing at a high level and was given additional responsibilities to prove herself. We all felt she was a shoo-in and even told her this during her annual review. Unfortunately, the new fiscal year came around and we could not promote her. Senior management wanted to bring in an external hire. The senior manager wants to move Jan to a new team whe…

A reader writes: In February, I changed companies and took on a manager position for the first time as the current manager was being promoted. While the exiting manager introduced me to the different people I would be supervising I was taken aback when “Benjamin” immediately assured me that despite looking like he was 21 or 22, he had worked there for years. If you had asked me to guess his age, I would have said 41 or 42. In the moment I was stunned, not sure if it was a joke, and just said I looked forward to working with him. Later the exiting manager told me that he’s been doing that for years. The first time at a lunch meeting with a potential client, Benjamin made…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader asks: One of my employees is positioning himself to move up in a couple of years. He would still report to me, but the working relationship would be a little different, and it could have a major impact on my work and the organization if that relationship is toxic. The problem is that he thinks he is a lot smarter than me. He apparently read something about “managing up” and now he is trying to manage me. He is very, very bad at it. His attempts to manipulate me are clumsy, but he doesn’t realize that I know what he is doing (because he’s sure that he is much smarter than me). There’s also som…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. The site is having some server issues today so while we work on those, here’s an older post. This was originally published in 2019. (And hopefully everything will be back to normal shortly.) A reader writes: I’m a mid-level college administrator. One of my direct reports is positioning himself to move up in a couple of years (from department member to department head). He would still report to me, but the working relationship would be a little different. I need to work closely with department heads, and it can have a major impact on my work and the organization if that relationship is toxic. The pro…

A reader asks: I caught my employee skipping work to nap at home when she said she was meeting with a potential client. It was total happenstance; I happened to meet the potential client at a social event that night. When I asked my employee the next day why the client had no idea who I was or what our company did, the truth came out: she hadn’t met with anyone, she’d gone home to take a break and a nap. She apologized for lying, but said she’d been feeling burned out and was struggling with seasonal depression. She is my top performer and best employee all around, and we are coming off of our busy season, so a little burn-out is understandable. She volunteered that she …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader asks: I manage a team and have run into a problem with “Bob,” one of my employees. Bob loves this job. Tells me almost every day how much he loves being at this company. But as much as he loves his job, he’s not very good at it. He’s gotten us incorrect information and turns in incomplete notes. He tries to tackle more and more projects, but it’s leading to him misinterpreting information, making erroneous conclusions, and generally dropping the ball. His colleagues are frustrated because they cannot rely on his research — it often results in more work for them as they fact-check his informat…

A reader writes: I recently took over managing a team, and have some concerns about one of my employees, John, who was hired by my predecessor. He is pretty good at what he does, but he is super slow at producing finished work. He rarely meets deadlines and if I don’t micromanage him every step of the way on a project, it won’t get done. At first I assumed he just had too much on his plate, so I’ve taken over a decent chunk of his work and made sure that everyone else on staff keeps me in the loop when they need his help. So now I know exactly what’s on his plate and how long it should take to do it – and he takes much longer than he should on most tasks. I’ve been try…

A reader writes: I run a small business that supplies a product to major companies. To keep the details anonymous, let’s say that we supply garments to a few mid-tier clothing retailers that you can buy in the mall. The problem is that one of my employees two levels down (he reports to someone who reports to me), Dave, behaves as though we’re making clothing for Gucci or Prada. This causes enormous production headaches. It means everything moves much more slowly through his department, because he is extremely conscientious about quality. That is admirable, but it results in things like being short with our subcontractors because they have not produced the products to his…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: About four months ago I hired a new employee, Arnold. He interviewed very well, and the other interviewers on the panel agreed he was the best candidate. However now I am starting to see some serious gaps in ability. The biggest issue is that Arnold totally forgets entire conversations we’ve had. Some examples: • I told him in June that he needed to plan the agenda for the team meeting in late July. A few weeks into July, I asked how the agenda was coming, and he said that was the first time he heard about it. I pointed him to our shared notes document from our 1:1 conversation in Ju…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I own/manage a business, let’s say a retail heath care equipment supply company that is located in a larger health care campus. I have multiple employees, and for a six-hour shift they get two 15-minute breaks. It isn’t intense or overly physically exhausting work, but I realize it is nice to step away for a few minutes. No problems until a few weeks ago when I hired “Deleana.” She looked great on paper so I hired her. Come to find out she is a smoker. Recently we had a meeting about her ongoing tardiness from breaks and the possibility of disciplinary action, up to and including ter…

A reader writes: I’m dealing with two issues from the same event with the same employee. I am the manager for a warehouse distribution center for a larger company. For our holiday party, I handed out RSVP cards with a choice of one of three dinners for the employee and a guest a few weeks ahead of the party so we knew of a count for the meals and we could pre-pay. The dinner was at a somewhat upscale location (a country club). I was somewhat surprised when one of my employees (Kyle) showed up not only with his wife, but also a 5-6 year old child/grandchild. After the meal and while I was making a speech about how the company was doing, work anniversaries, etc., the chi…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My employee smells like smoke and it’s making me sick I supervise a small research team, and one of my researchers is especially engaged and productive. They’re deeply invested in our work, and our meetings are usually energizing and full of great ideas. I really value their contribution and want to keep supporting their professional growth. The problem is that this researcher is a heavy smoker, and the smell of smoke lingers on their clothes. I have smoke-induced asthma, and after each in-person interaction I end up coughing, wheezing, or even needing to take a sick day. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our work, …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker wants to know why my boss is scheduling a meeting … and it’s to address his mistakes My coworker, Karl, is higher ranking than I am. He is actually one of the top executives, but he has been making a LOT of mistakes. The CEO, George, is aware of this and will periodically ask me for updates. Yesterday George was asking me questions about our credit card procedures. I mentioned that Karl was coding the monthly charges before he gave me the statements to pull receipts and invoices, so he could not possibly know if a particular charge was supposed to be for a certain event or charged to a certain account. We h…

A reader writes: A couple of weeks ago, I gave my employee, Rita, negative feedback on her behavior. It wasn’t what she was saying; it was how she was saying it. She was speaking rapidly and in a panicked but unwarranted manner. She was high-strung and scattered, and I felt interrogated. She accepted my feedback professionally, apologized, and showed subsequent improvement. Two days ago, a coworker texted me a link to a blog about people with disabilities and asked, “This you?” Rita has a regular column on a blog about her disability, ADHD. I knew she had an ADA accommodation, but that’s all. She wrote her latest column about our interaction. She accurately described e…

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. My employee wants to know where I am at all times I started a new management role three months ago and am managing a small team. One of my staff was under-performing when I started, and one of my directives was to get them on a coaching plan, which I have. As a result, they have made complaints that I’m out to get them. Luckily I’ve been documenting everything, and my boss has my back. My boss had a skip-level meeting with them to allow them to air their grievances. During this, they mentioned that my boss and I should always let them know when we…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work in a small workplace, we’re about 40 employees. When I started at the company about five years ago, I started ordering granola bars and some treats. Then I started adding on some fizzy drinks and then progressed to some other snacks, like nuts, fruits, and cookies. None of this is supposed to be the only food people eat, but it’s nice to have some quick to grab in the middle of a busy day. I have an employee now who manages the stocking of this, plus coffee, tea, milk, and cream. An issue has arisen because we have a coworker who is vegan and he’s decided that we need to stop …

A reader writes: I’m in senior leadership at a mid-sized company. My department has a number of processes and procedures that other departments need to follow and my team also handles compliance issues, so I’m often giving instructions or reminding folks of various steps they need to be taking. No matter how soft I make the feedback, no matter how benign the feedback is, I get defensiveness and over-explanation in return. A classic example is, “Please remember to copy [employee] on these requests because they track these for our department.” I expect “will do!” and, instead I get, “I haven’t done this process before, but when I do X other process, I don’t have to copy an…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My employees can’t move on after I yelled at them I do not deny I have yelled at some of my employees out of frustration. I am in my 60’s and had several strokes and my demeanor is short. I have apologized, but the group of employees cannot get past the fact that I yelled and are now holding it against me. I know that I am out of touch with the younger generation, having grown up in the late 60’s and early 70’s and in a military household I would like to say, “Knock it off and get over it,” but I know that would make things worse. As an engineer, I …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. I’m off for the holiday, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2018. A reader writes: My company has a ridiculous late fine policy: you will be fined $2 for every minute, starting from 9:01 a.m. So if you come in at 9:05 a.m., that’s $10 you gotta pay up in cash. (This is not somewhere where down-to-the-minute coverage would be essential. It’s just typical deskbound, back-end work. I can see why the receptionist who gets the calls will need to be there smack on the dot, but the rest of us — not really.) I’ve been here for over a year, and have been fined maybe t…

A reader writes: I work for the government (not in the U.S.). A few months ago, changes were announced to our employment situation. Government employees who were able to work remotely have been doing so since the pandemic. In 2022, we were mandated back to the office two days a week. It used to be that people could choose what days they were on site, and if someone missed a day in the office here or there it was no problem. Now everyone is required to be in the office Mondays and Fridays. You are not allowed to swap for any other day of the week. You can’t work from home Monday or Friday (for example, you can’t say you’re not feeling well, have a plumber coming and need …

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. My ex works at my new job I recently got a new job (medical field) that I was very excited for. The thing is that even after turning down other offers, I have terrible luck — out of all the jobs, I accepted the offer that put me in the same room as my ex. The break-up wasn’t great. I got ghosted. So in retaliation, I made myself visible by texting her and sending friend requests on all social media (nothing mean, it was all about what her friendship meant to me). I know, childish on my part and pretty much got blocked on everything. I moved on. Bu…

Here are my favorite posts of 2025, in no particular order: 1. my employee keeps insisting he looks much younger than he is (but he doesn’t) Because humans are weird, and I love that. 2. good things that came from socializing with coworkers: marriages, dog adoptions, and more Because this was heart-warming, and these things are easy to overlook. 3. how much deference do good managers want from employees? Because breaking down this kind of question is one of my favorite things. 4. my team doesn’t want to work for a client whose politics they disagree with Because a lot of people are grappling with this right now. 5. my colleagues are upset that we’re not “speaking…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I am to be married next year and decided to send out save-the-dates early. I really like my coworkers and my boss and wanted to invite them to the wedding. When my boss received my save-the-date, they swung by my desk to congratulate me and we got to chit chatting. The conversation led to my boss asking to see a photo of my fiancé as they had never met before. I showed them a photo from my engagement and — It was like the smile literally slid off their face. I asked if they were okay, and all they said was: “Is this who you are marrying?” I was really confused and had a very bad feel…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: A few years ago, I got a promotion in a different country. The organization I had previously worked at went through a re-structure and my position was eliminated. My good friend Suzie was promoted into a position that was very similar to my former position, but higher on the org chart and with more responsibility. We stayed in touch, mostly as friends, but with cheerleading and mentoring from the sidelines too. This role was a big jump in responsibility for Suzie; she essentially leapfrogged quite a few positions. Complicating matters is the fact that the organization is an incredibl…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My friend hired me but isn’t paying me what we agreed A friend of mine recently started a business, and I happened to be the perfect candidate for the job because it’s a very specific niche. I was working for someone else, and she asked me to work for her. I would be getting paid the same amount and working the same hours, so I agreed to work for her. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been holding up her end of the deal with pay, and the hours are way different than we initially discussed. The first few months I was understanding because business started slow, but months later I’m finding that nothing is changing. I also am fi…