Performance Tracking and Feedback

Employment lawyer Robin Shea published a piece at legal analysis site JD Supra about my recent Slate column on mandatory “fun” at work — and she delved into the legal implications for employers. She points out that pressure to participate in things like escape rooms, sports, and yoga can give rise to legal issues around disability, pregnancy, age, and religion, as well as workers comp claims and wage and hour claims, and she offers advice to employers. It’s an interesting read. The post can team-building get you sued? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: I have a coworker who is making me do her work, I asked my boss for help but I feel like he’s being really laissez faire about the whole thing. What should I do? How should I set boundaries with her, healthily? I work for a small research lab, and I’m rather new (hired four months ago). I have a coworker, Amanda, who doesn’t do her job. Examples include: missing a meeting because she was napping, coming into work only to use the printer/computer to plan a surprise party for her husband, spending “all day” replying to two emails, and most egregiously having her friend take a data analysis assessment for her when she was hired. She apparently has a histor…

A reader writes: I inherited an entry-level administrative assistant, Mary, who has been failing to make deadlines and repeating preventable mistakes, and who has major issues with focusing at work. She tangled with her last manager because she felt attacked when asked to explain missed deadlines and now has been passed off to me. My team typically works 9-5, eats breakfast before we start work, and typically takes an hour or less for lunch breaks. We don’t have a break room, so most of us eat lunch at our desks. One large source of distraction for Mary is that she will spend up to four hours a day eating, and when she is eating her work trickles to a halt. It is not u…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My boss told me I’m being annoying I’m in my mid-20s and work in a pretty casual office. We provide customer support for ticket buyers. I was promoted to membership/subscription package supervisor about six months ago. My boss oscillates between praising my attention to detail and criticizing me for second-guessing her. Yesterday I spoke up in a meeting with her and two other employees to give more detail on something. Her tone shifted and she said that I was being really annoying that day, but I brushed it off at the time. The next day, when I went to ask her a clarifying question about a credit card dispute, she sa…

A reader writes: My job has a weekly meeting where a different employee each week presents to our group about what they’ve been working on for the past few months (academic lab meeting). The group is about 30 people and includes our boss/PI and everyone else in the lab group. There’s a tradition where the first five to ten minutes of these hour-long presentations are devoted to photos highlighting cool things from our personal lives. Almost everyone uses this time to show photos from things such as vacations, hobbies, hiking trails, their children’s school events, etc. I think it’s a cool way to connect with my coworkers and I think everyone else feels the same way. My…

A reader writes: I’m in the middle of a pretty bleak job search, involving lots of form rejection emails. The first few times I got one, I wrote back a succinct note to the effect of “thank you for letting me know” before realizing how depressing this would be for all of the rejections that would soon start rolling in. I figure most places don’t care, so I’ve stopped responding to those rejections, but I’m wondering: is it worth ever sending something polite but more personal, hoping that maybe they’d change their mind, or am I living in the job-search equivalent of a 90’s rom-com? “Gosh, we usually get crazy people who yell at us, but this person is so nice and that go…

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 – November 7, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: I work at a government agency (not in the U.S.) and it’s a good job. It’s a relaxed environment that definitely puts people’s safety and well-being first. However, and I never thought I’d be saying this, I think it might be too much of a good thing. People spend all day chewing on their fingernails and then touching everything (we are moving to a hot-desk only workspace). We’ve got a few people who are constantly coughing or throat-clearing, and typing/clicking so forcefully that the desk shakes. The person who sits near me arrives late almost everyday, having come from the gym, and simply changes into work clothes without showering, then spends half…

A reader writes: I am a manager and I have a lot of empathy for people on my team. However, that empathy has taken a turn since I’ve now had employees twice threaten suicide after serious feedback conversations. In both cases I was told they were considering suicide because of the potential job loss, and we had to act accordingly — welfare checks, making sure their safety was secured. Clearly it wasn’t just my feedback that caused it, but it does seem like a catalyst for it. I did know before this happened that they were each struggling with their mental health, but nothing that would indicate this severity. In both situations, the people in question are safe, but I’m n…

A reader writes: I’ve been a people manager for a few years now. I join a company as an individual contributor and get pushed into management as soon as a role opens. I don’t seek it out; I’ve tried to decline, only to end up managing anyway. I believe in the “servant leader” style, and I try to make sure that my teams have what they need to be successful. I’m also a pretty good people person. Throughout my career, colleagues and clients have tended to like me. I’m approachable, and I like to find compromise between conflicting priorities. My team isn’t a pure support role, but it’s ancillary (think design or marketing), so I need to collaborate with other teams so we a…

I’m off today so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017. A reader writes: Every since I was a small child I’ve been praised for how nice I am, how likable I am, how good I am with people. In many ways, this is a positive thing. I think of it as a skill that takes effort, but is very useful. However, as I’ve started working professionally I’ve run across a problem. I have a really hard time telling people when they are being awful. I can do normal job-related criticism fine – “please make sure you proofread for typos next time,” etc. – but when it comes to more emotionally turbulent conversations or anything with conflict, I complet…

Remember the letter-writer who was covering two full-time jobs and her boss wouldn’t help? It turns out that she solved the problem herself before I printed my answer. Here’s the update. Your advice was lovely and I hope it helps people who are in the same position as I was. As an update – Things got worse for 2-3 more months. I did have conversations with her where I explicitly clarified I could not do the workload she was requesting, and every time she would acknowledge it but continue to act shocked and say degrading things to me when the workload was not completed. I took over the hiring after some pushing, and screened a number of applicants over the phone and hos…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. I’m aggravated by my company’s giving-back program My company has a giving-back program where employees are asked to volunteer time or make donations to charity and in return there is a designated one-day holiday that the entire company gets off. Terrific, right? This year, my team signed up for a charity event that was centrally located, which then moved to a much less convenient location for everybody. Most of us opted to make a donation to one of the suggested charities since twice the commute was just too much time away from work. We then got push back to put on record how we gave back and when stated that we made…

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: What Is Wrong With You? by Paul Rudnick. Both funny and poignant, it follows a motley cast of characters (including a former TV action star, a fired book editor, and a dentist in mourning) as they prepare to attend the wedding of one of their exes to a famous tech billionaire. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 1-2, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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 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: How far can “other duties as assigned” in a job description stretch? My company is asking us to do an assignment that is wildly outside our normal job roles. Imagine that we write user manuals for the a vacuum company, and now they’re telling us we have to go out and do 2-5 weeks of door-to-door sales in another city, 12 hours a day, for 6 days a week. We’re all salaried so the hours are within the legal limits, but the work is nothing like what we were hired to do. We have not been trained in sales and many of us feel very uncomfortable doing this work, especially when it means leaving our lives behind for as much as a month. When we’ve raised this, …

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: Nobody’s Girl, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. It’s an account of the author’s abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (including abuse that simply took another form after she escaped them), and it’s absolutely harrowing. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – November 8-9, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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…

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I currently work in the private sector, but lately I’ve been feeling dissatisfied with the thought of spending my whole career working just to increase shareholder value. My employer and many other companies in my field have demonstrated zero loyalty or investment in employees, with multiple rounds of layoffs and limited-to-no raises or professional development opportunities. The one good thing about my job is that the benefits and work-life balance are pretty good. Recently, I’ve applied for a few project-based jobs for nonprofits using my existing skillset. These positions would work on specific, mission-b…

A reader writes: I was curious about where the line is on religious accommodation, and at what point it’s okay to say an accommodation cannot be made. I had an employee who needed an accommodation that allowed them to take lunch at a different time from the rest of the company once a week. This was somewhat inconvenient but I was able to accommodate them. Later they let me know that they were going to need additional accommodations, which again were doable but inconvenient. I also noticed that their work performance suffered during certain times when they told me they needed to fast for their religion. They didn’t make me aware of any of these needed accommodations unti…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I manage a married couple, and it’s causing problems I manage a married couple. I hired one of them first, and a few years later the spouse finished a degree that gave them the right expertise to also join my team. They don’t supervise each other or make any promotion or budget decisions about each other. At first things were good, but I’ve been noticing small things that are now bigger things in their communication patterns that need to be addressed. They are becoming really insular, not asking anyone for help except the other one, and not communicating issues or concerns outside the two of them, and recently they sh…

A reader writes: My husband, Jim, is a managing attorney at a small firm that is entirely remote, with lawyers spread out across the region. He recently hired a mid-level attorney, Fergus, who is based in a different city and who reports directly to him. Fergus started 10 days ago and to date appears to have done no work. Beginning on day one, he began telling Jim and other senior attorneys that he was having a “temporary personal crisis” and needed more time to finish the assignments he was given. He didn’t specify the nature of this crisis, and no one has felt comfortable probing and they have tried to be accommodating. But now deadlines are approaching and they have …

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…

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…