Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: I work for a small organization that prides ourselves on being very good with our benefits, including paid parental leave. We’ve never had a pregnant staffer, so all of our plans are in theory and not yet been tested in real life. We’ve been having issues lately with staff not adhering to our office hours of 9-5 and coming and going as they see fit, so I had to call a staff meeting last week to address it and let them know that we can no longer be as flexible as we once were because too many people were abusing the system. This has included a lot of “I don’t feel well so I’m going to sleep a bit longer and then work from home today once I feel better” w…

A reader writes: I just completed the fourth and final interview for a newly created role at my company. It’s within my current division but with a different team. The process has dragged on for about three months, but up until now it’s been entirely positive. My first three interviews couldn’t have gone better. The hiring manager was supportive and communicative during a two-month lag, proactively informing me on where things stood in the process, and even sharing that I was on the shortlist of candidates. The hiring manager’s boss was also encouraging — instead of grilling me, he spent our interview helping me prep for my next interview. I have a strong sense that I’m…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Is a credit for child care expenses fair to employees without kids? Recently a viral video and announcement has gone around of a company offering credits up to $3,000 a month for child care expenses. This is fantastic! However, as a child-free person I’m concerned about a benefit worth tens of thousands of dollars a year only being offered to a segment of employees who have young children. When point this out, am I the bad guy? How can a workplace support all their employees? I don’t think you’re the bad guy. I do think, though, that child care expenses are in a different category than nearly anything else — this coun…

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: Three Junes, by Julia Glass. The story of three generations of a Scottish family, across three summers. It’s about the expectations and obligations of family, as well as marriage, love, and loss. One of my favorite books of all time. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 10-11, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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 – May 9, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My employee is in remote limbo and it’s impacting her work I have an employee, Jane, who moved two hours from our office during the pandemic. My manager, who has since been let go, told Jane she could work from anywhere. It was a verbal agreement never formally agreed to with HR. Since 2022, our company has became stricter about working in the office. In summer of 2023, our HR rep told Jane she had by the end of the year to come into the office four days a week or she would have to “exit” the company. Understandably, she freaked out and had difficulty focusing on her job. Unfortunately, she became ill and had to take …

Two questions, same topic. The first one: I’m on the job hunt, and I have some DEI-focused experience on my resume. I’ve received five rejections from the ~15 jobs I’ve applied for (at least they responded instead of ghosting me!) and I’m wondering if the DEI work is getting flagged. I revamped my team’s interview process to be more equitable and reduce bias, I joined the company’s DEI group when it started in 2020, and I have volunteer experience with a DEI group outside of work. It’s not my entire resume, but it’s enough bullet points and buzzwords to show that I have opinions. In today’s anti-DEI world, should I remove this from my resume? Probably worth noting, I’m…

In addition to the new “sagas” tag (for letters with multiple updates, twists, and turns), we now have the following tags as well: AAM classics – a tag for posts that are still frequently discussed years later. It includes the new hire who built a blanket fort in her office, the new boss who was a ghosted ex from years before, the coworker who wanted everyone to call her boyfriend her “master,” the spicy food thief, and many more. Favorites – some of my favorite posts over the years. Worst Boss of the Year Nominee – now every finalist for Worst Boss of the Year has been tagged and you can read about these degenerates all in one place. These are tags, not categories, …

Last week we talked about the smallest amount of power you’ve ever seen someone abuse. But people can also use even small amounts of power for good — like the crossing guard who wasn’t really a crossing guard, or the graphic designer who sabotaged a homophobic group’s ad in her newspaper. This week, let’s talk about times when you’ve seen someone exploit their power for good — not just times when you saw someone be a good person at work, but times when someone violated the letter or the spirit of a rule or otherwise did something that could technically be considered under-handed in order to achieve good in the world. Please share in the comments! The post let’s talk abo…

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 am currently looking for a new job because I am currently being taken advantage of … again (being given more and more work because I am skilled enough I handle it, but no pay increase so underpaid for my experience and the world we live in right now). So pay is the main factor for me in this job search. My first instinct is to just completely ignore the job postings without the pay listed because I don’t want to waste my time. A job may look perfect but if it’s for the same amount I’m making now (or less!) or not that much more, I don’t care what it is. (I also don’t care what it is if the pay is right. If I think I can do it, I’m applying.) But with …

A reader writes: Over the past year, I have been coaching my employee, “Mike,” on various performance issues and it has gotten to the point that we need a formal performance improvement plan. I don’t think this should be a surprise to him, but I’m getting the impression that he does not really understand how serious it is. We have very different communication styles. I prefer to be direct and detailed. Mike tends to use generalizations and can take a long time to think and gather his thoughts before answering a question. I’ve been working on softening my approach and asking clarifying questions to make sure we are on the same page, but things still get lost in translati…

A reader writes: I am a localized executive director for a nationwide nonprofit. Like so many not-for-profits under the current uncertain administration, we are going through some extreme financial strains. Our national office has been tightening belts all over the organization, including layoffs, frantic leadership calls that include a certain amount of crying when delivering yet another slate of difficult news, and frequent lane-shifting of priorities to the point where others in roles like mine are fleeing the sinking ship. Job descriptions are all changing to almost exclusively fundraising, even in roles that didn’t include it before, and the goals are simply not ach…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Coworker who (probably) has a crush keeps hanging out at my desk I was hoping I could get your advice on dealing with a coworker who won’t leave me alone (“Greg”) and is making me increasingly uncomfortable. I’m a woman in my 20s and Greg is a decade older than me. He asked me out a few months ago and I rejected him, and he hasn’t asked me out since. We are under the same organization and our work overlaps somewhat. Greg works in another building and frequently comes over to mine. While he says he has meetings in my building, he will often come to my desk and sit next to me to chat. He starts awkward, banal conversati…

A reader writes: I manage the recruiting of volunteers for a small nonprofit, and there’s an otherwise strong candidate, Jane, who has a past on the Internet. Another volunteer and I interviewed her Jane an open position, and it was wonderful. She presented herself as warm, professional, and knowledgeable in our work, and she was one of my top choices. However, a different volunteer recognized Jane because of a small “incident” that had happened at the volunteer’s alma mater, and the volunteer showed me evidence of what happened online. Six years ago, Jane’s then-high-school-aged sister had applied for a university in the midwest and wanted to be on a particular sports …

A reader writes: I’m a new-ish manager in a small company. I have two direct reports. One is professional and a joy to work with. The other is a recent hire (he’s been here two months) who is right out of college, Jake. In our most recent weekly one-on-one, Jake told me that he is “disappointed in the role” and the work is “not as interesting as he hoped.” I can understand how someone could find much of the work tedious. There’s a significant amount of data entry in the position. But I never hid this. I was clear with every candidate I interviewed that there would be tedious tasks and screened for people who seemed able to figure out strategies for handling that tedium.…

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…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker reacts out loud when reading about politics I work at a front desk position at a cultural institution, and usually there is a lot of down time at my job. I love this aspect of the job and usually spend several hours a day reading. There are almost always two people on staff, so there are a few different people I will work alongside for the entire day. One of my coworkers verbally reacts to a lot of things that they are looking at during this otherwise quiet time. This person will laugh abruptly and very loudly, or will make comments into the silence like “oh wow” or “ew, that’s horrible.” Sometimes these r…

Last week we talked about the smallest amount of power you’ve ever seen someone abuse, and here are 18 of my favorite stories you shared. 1. The pizza revenge The office assistant asked me what pizza I wanted when she was ordering for an event. I told her specifically I liked the one they had gotten the week before and described it. She never ordered that pizza again. 2. The very secure kitchen I learned early on in a new job that ONE person other than security and the C-suite had the key to the boardroom. I also learned that somehow everyone in my department had pissed off the key holder, and I was now the designated person to bow down and request the key. One night…

A reader writes: I’m a manager at a large organization and am almost always in the midst of a recruitment process for one role or another. Our hiring and interview guides are built to stop as much bias from creeping in as possible. In practice, this means that I usually have a set of questions that I plan to ask all candidates, and then I leave time for candidates’ questions. Unless they ask our recruiter, they don’t generally get given any information on the format ahead of time, nor are they asked to prepare anything. Today, however, I was surprised. A candidate walked into the interview room with his laptop and, after pleasantries, proceeded to tell me he had a prese…

A reader writes: I work for a woman who is very highly respected. She is very smart and has accomplished a lot in her life. She also has had a few missteps in her past like anyone has and, although I do not know the extent of some of her previous failures, I feel I can partly link them to her business partner. She runs the day-to-day operations of the company I work at, and her business partner is mainly the financial backing to her current and her previous companies. My boss does speaking engagements and is very women-empowering, especially to women of a certain age and women of color. Her business partner, however, is very crude; he speaks down to me and all of my pe…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My well-intentioned coworker keeps commenting on my phone calls I sit in a bank of cubicles with a young colleague in his first ever job. He’s very sweet and well-intentioned, but his efforts at making conversation are making me a little uncomfortable. For context, I am about two levels above him in our hierarchy, but he’s in a completely different business group and our work has no overlap whatsoever. I do not know anyone else on his team — we sit in an “miscellaneous overflow” section of the office (which is not ideal, but not currently changeable). Every day, he comments on how many meetings I have and what my sche…

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: Back After This, by Linda Holmes. A podcast producer who’s been wanting to host her own show gets offered the chance to do it … but she has to agree to let the show be about her dating life and to work with a relationship coach and influencer, of whom she’s highly skeptical. It’s smart and funny, and I looked forward to reading it every night and was sad when it was over. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – May 3-…

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 – May 2, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Know-it-all coworker talks over everyone (and is often wrong) We have a new employee, “Sam,” who thinks she knows everything. She has lots of experience in a closely related field, but has never done this specific job, nor has she worked in our region (the details of our work are location-specific.) Whenever someone speaks, Sam jumps into the conversation. It does not matter if the speaker was clearly addressing someone else. Sam talks over people, interrupts, and answers questions that were not directed toward her. When she does this, she is condescending and rude, and very confidently dispenses wrong information. Sh…