Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: I am part of a small team in a global corporation. My team works closely with other teams in the department, and we often have weekly or biweekly catch-ups to update each other on projects. My colleagues are mostly nice and pleasant to work with. There’s only one problem: everyone is obsessed with Taylor Swift. And I don’t mean it in a “owns a few of her albums and liked them” sort of way. It’s something more akin to religious fervor. They log in from rooms plastered with Taylor Swift posters and talk about her in almost every meeting. They sneak references in marketing content. The passwords we use for our shared software accounts are all Taylor Swift-…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Recently in my office, corporate buzzwords have picked up like crazy among my colleagues. Sometimes it feels like senior management’s entirely vocabulary is only buzzwords. In a presentation last week, for example, a director said that a “new piece of work is a runway to manifest our brand value proposition.” What does that mean? Now my peers are using the same buzzwords in presentations, and they’re seeping into meetings and conversations. Another example that makes my eye twitch: Suddenly everyone is using the word “solutioning,” as in, “Thanks, Matt, for solutioning our IT request…

A reader writes: My workplace has drinking heavily interwoven into the culture. You doubtless know the kind of place — never had a work social event without copious amounts of booze, boss bringing around beers on Friday afternoons, work parties with an open bar being relocated to another bar where the limitless company tab covers five shots for everyone at the table in five minutes, that kind of vibe. I didn’t know that was the culture when I was applying, and I’ve had a lot of issues with alcohol and drugs in the past. Over the past year and a half, I’ve had some life stuff going on that meant I got to the point where I felt it would be good for me to cut out drinking,…

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 company won’t call me Doctor or Lord I was hoping that you could help me with a question I have regarding the use of honorifics in workplace documentation. I have recently acquired a new honorific, and my employers are refusing to use it on the documents that I have requested it be used on. I have legal documents that also show that my title is a fully legal one and can be used on official government documents up to and including my passport. Is there anything that I can do to get my employers to use it? Specifically, I have a doctorate and I a…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My old employer wants me back I recently switched jobs from an in-office position to a fully remote position due to it being a better fit for my life. When I resigned, my work made it extremely hard for me to leave. They offered me fully remote (when previously they would not allow me to even work from home when my kids were sick) and a $20,000 salary bump. I was exasperated with the whole situation and decided to stay the course with my new gig. Fast forward a month and they are contacting me weekly asking me if I’m ready to come back yet — everybody from the billing manager to the practice manager. I mentioned to my…

A reader writes: I wonder if you could offer your perspective on something I’ve been wondering about for a long time now. When I was 16 years old, I got my first job. The culture was one that I now recognize as abusive, and teen employees were regularly taken advantage of in some awful ways. At the time, though, it was my only experience with the professional world, and I assumed that much of it was normal. I had excellent attendance and was always on time, but on one particular day, I was extremely sick — could-not-get-out-of-bed sick. (I would later find out I had scarlet fever, so extremely contagious and potentially dangerous.) I was scheduled to work that day, so…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My partner is angry about how I handled harassment at work Content warning for domestic violence. I’m a woman in finance. Six months ago, I was put into a team with an older male colleague who from day one decided to call me “Legs.” When someone challenged him, he said, “Well, look, she’s got legs up to here!” He gets too close, stares at my boobs, and one time walked past me while I was at my desk and, rather than squeezing my shoulder in passing, he put his hand effectively on the side of my boob and as he walked off his hand brushed off me. Word…

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 promotion was canceled because of budget … but I’m still doing the work I’m an employee at a university paid through federal funding. Last month, my manager submitted a promotion for me. After some back and forth, it was approved all the way up and down the chain by everyone and just waiting for the last signature to be finalized. At the last second, two days before the deadline, upper management said that due to funding uncertainty the promotion was cancelled. Unfortunately, I don’t expect this uncertainty to resolve any time soon, so who knows …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m writing to you because I believe what happened to me today (literally 30 minutes ago) is a lesson to be learned — though I’m struggling to identify exactly what that lesson is. For the past eight months, I’ve been working for a small company, and I absolutely love my job. In fact, since starting here, I’ve grown to love it even more. My manager (the CEO) told me that I would be receiving a promotion, but I decided to wait until everything was officially confirmed in writing before getting too excited. That day finally arrived, and I received an email with my promotion letter. Ho…

A reader writes: I’m a happily married woman who works at a company that somewhat blurs the lines between work and friendship. While working at this company, I have learned that I’m a social butterfly. I enjoy socializing with colleagues after hours at trade shows, company events, and informal gatherings, especially when we have out-of-town colleagues visiting from another part of America or another part of the world. My husband is an introvert through and through, and we’ve had to learn how to navigate our opposite natures when it comes to my work’s social events. Basically, he only attends the events that are very important to me or events that only have a small group…

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 staff found me bound and gagged after a robbery I’m a 32-year-old woman who was recently made manager of a small financial firm. Being fairly young, I’ve had to overcome skepticism and sexism from my staff, but after three months I’ve established a reputation for being efficient, fair, and a bit stern. It’s worked, I’m respected, and we all get along very well. Several mornings a week, I arrive very early for some alone time. Last Thursday, I arrived at 7 a.m., (we open at 10), and was “greeted” by a couple of thugs who demanded money, bank car…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I just read your post about an intern refusing assignments due to political beliefs. I am finding myself in the same position but with multiple direct reports who have been part of my team for years. We share enough with each other personally to know we are on the same side politically. However, a large chunk of our work is for those on the opposite side, and what these clients are sharing on social media (through the official organization’s pages) is pretty horrifying. My direct reports are so upset that they don’t want to be associated with this client, but unfortunately it’s part o…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: This one’s weird. I would love your thoughts, if you can. Some of my coworkers and I got a text from an unknown number addressing us by our first names and asking us to rate the company we work at. It was different than the usual company survey text in that it wanted a direct response rather than following an outside link, and it came from what looked like a personal phone number rather than the five-digit number the company will use. The whole thing seemed suspicious, especially since we all just completed the monthly multiple question survey the week before. My coworker looked up …

A reader writes: This year, several people in my reporting line have asked for last-minute vacation days because a partner or friend “surprised” them with a trip or event – already booked and, of course, non-refundable. Each time we’ve bent policy so they don’t lose out, but it’s starting to feel like we’re rewarding poor planning (or very confident gift-givers). One person has even done it twice! Everyone making these requests is in their early 20s, while I’m over 40 and feeling more curmudgeonly every day. Is this a generational thing – maybe inspired by TikTok surprise reveal culture – or just pure luck that I’d never encountered it before? What really gets me is th…

A reader writes: I manage a team of five younger professionals (all between the ages of 25 to 30). I have noticed that each of them prefers to communicate with me almost exclusively by text message or through the chat feature in our collaboration software. Conversations by phone, video, or in-person only happen when I initiate them. When I initiate an in-person conversation or phone call, my employees don’t seem opposed and typically are very engaged, but if left up to them it seems like all of the interaction with me would be via text or chat. In my own career, I’ve always valued being able to talk one-on-one with my manager, whether it’s during a formal meeting or imp…

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. Nameplate drama I work for a very large company. My department is small and very specialized. The rest of company either doesn’t know we exist or, if they do, doesn’t understand what we do. My department has been the “stepchild” of the company. There have been growth and leadership changes that affected morale for many years. There’s a lack of role clarity, communication, overstepping of management boundaries, no policies or procedures, reactiveness, finger pointing, etc. We have one long-term employee, Jan, who is known for being rude and sarcast…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. What if hiring a spouse is truly the best choice? I know that having a manager supervising their partner is fraught with peril — I have read enough AAM to have some great examples! But if the partner is truly the best candidate, are there guardrails you recommend? This is in a church context, and the minister’s partner is supremely qualified to be our music director. They are both being totally up-front about it, looking at alternate supervisory roles (could have a board member be the partner’s supervisor?), checking with the denomination for policy…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. New employee doesn’t pay attention to his training We’ve got a new guy at work: Dave. He’s still in his probation period. He’s never done this work before — he had a job which has a little overlap, but not much. I am not his manager, and haven’t worked with him much, but I have been asked to give him some training in my areas of expertise. His work so far for all of us has often been careless and has had to be repeated more times than is usual for a new starter, and he doesn’t seem to pay attention to instructions. A careful conversation with him is being planned, so that he has the chance to improve before his probat…

A reader writes: My company recently hired a new employee who has been a problem. We were hesitant to hire her to begin with — she didn’t have glowing recommendations and she’s got a patchy work history, but she has experience in the one thing we can’t train on right now, so we hired her reluctantly. It turns out she’s an over-sharer on social media: Every single detail of her day is listed in a giant personal social media post at least three or four times a day, and she tags everyone she comes in contact with: businesses, products, people. It’s unusual. She has been very opinionated about how we do things and doesn’t really want to participate in feedback or training. …

A reader writes: I had a new employee start on a Tuesday. That Friday, I woke up to a text from my new hire from the night before, saying that she would not be in on Friday, that something had come up and she would see me on Monday. This is an in-person job in a corporate environment. I fully respect a person’s right to take a sick day and I feel nobody is obligated to share personal details, but I also don’t feel like “something came up” quite cuts it, especially on what would be your fourth day on the job. I’m looking for some guidance on where to set my expectations (regardless of this person working out or not). Am I out of line to feel “something came up” feels in…

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 new employer won’t let me wear my wedding ring I’m getting ready to start my new job in a fast-moving but rather conservative industry. I’m starting as an assistant but have the possibility of advancing up to management throughout my career here. Last week, I had a meeting with the woman who is going to be my supervisor and we finalized things like my salary, work hours, etc. She also spent a significant amount of time making sure I understood the dress code, as it is very strict, even stricter than many other offices. There were things like onl…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. No one in my company will give direct feedback I joined my current firm almost two years ago. It was an industry switch post-masters degree. The firm is well-regarded, albeit fast-paced and challenging. After joining, I learned that they have a truly bizarre approach to feedback: you don’t give feedback to people directly, you tell their manager. About six months in, someone went to my manager to say they felt I was not as communicative about a deliverable as they wanted. She never said anything to me when I was working on the deliverable, just took the deliverable when I handed it off (on time), said it looked good, …

Last year, the federal government was poised to ban non-compete agreements for most U.S. workers, saying they stifle wages. However, right before that change in the law was supposed to take effect in September 2023, a judge in Texas blocked the rule, saying the agency lacked the authority to issue it, and it’s been in limbo ever since. Last Friday, the FTC announced it will end its appeals of the case, which ends all the remaining litigation over the rule … and means the proposed noncompete rule is null and void. Non-competes still remain banned in California, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, and 11 more states and Washington, D.C. prohibit them for hourly wage workers or wo…

In the spirit of the season, let’s hear about workplace gift debacles. Did a game of Secret Santa end in tears? Did a coworker throw a tantrum when she didn’t win a raffle? Were you given a jar of mold as a gift? Did you receive an oil painting of your coworker’s mother in the style of Napoleon? These are all real stories that we’ve heard here in the past. Now you must top them. Share your weirdest or funniest story related to gifts in the office in the comments. The post office holiday gift-giving stories: worst gifts and weirdest gifts appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: Earlier this month in Ohio, a pair of Republican lawmakers introduced a bill to create a website with lists of people who’ve no showed for interviews. I’ve included a link to Ohio’s Statehouse News Bureau’s reporting information — because truly when I first heard about it, I thought for sure the person was doing a bit. It seems to be specially focused on those receiving unemployment benefits, but it seems it could quickly turn into including everyone. I’m curious about your thoughts in general, but also in application. How on earth could they validate that the person no showed, and what if the person who entered the name into the database is an ex or d…