Performance Tracking and Feedback

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work at a small creative business with about 25 employees, Our structure is pretty flat, and there is no traditional HR or processes that come with working at larger organizations. There are three main departments. I run one, and my coworker who I am writing about, Maggie, runs one of the others. A small thing has become a big issue: While we all have open calendars to make scheduling easier, Maggie refuses to make her calendar open and keeps it entirely private. In addition, her calendar is often entirely booked with meetings, showing no open times to add anything. As a result, i…

A reader writes: I’m a 20-year-old woman working at a locally owned company. I joined when I was 19 and currently hold the role of marketing director. I am the youngest person in the office by a wide margin; most of my coworkers are in their 60s or older and have been with the company for several years. I take my work seriously. I have a relevant degree, prior experience (I graduated college early at 18 and started working in marketing jobs while still studying) and a strong work ethic. In the day-to-day office environment, I’m quieter and focused, but still friendly, professional, and social when appropriate. I don’t engage in office gossip, especially when it involves…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker smells like mildew and our managers won’t say anything We have a first shift and a second shift and rotate placements each week. I am on second shift, and my issue is with Ryan on first shift. Ryan is very nice, is a friend of my friend who got me the job, and seems to have pretty normal interests for a young man, but he absolutely reeks of mildew. So bad that every single one of our chairs permanently smells like mildew, as well as our floor mats, and whatever work area he is assigned to that week. I have worked here for just over a year and this issue started about six months ago. I realized how bad it wa…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My male coworker takes his family everywhere, and it makes him late for work events I am a woman in STEM and have a coworker, Fergus, who has a stay-at-home-wife and a toddler. They currently live out-of-state with his in-laws, and when he travels — whether it’s to a conference, work event, or just an in-office event — he always brings his wife and kid. This leads him to often not arriving to these events that start at 8 or 9 am until 11 or 12 because he went to brunch with the fam. My (male) boss finds it endearing, despite it often leaving the rest of us idle for hours waiting on him and often seems to overlook wome…

A reader writes: Our company works in a building that houses multiple businesses. We share reception and security. Recently, there was a terrible incident where the ex-boyfriend of one of my employees, Sarah, got into the building by booking a job interview with a different company. He then made a beeline for our office instead, and made a huge scene shouting at Sarah, and even tried to hit her in front of all of us. Thankfully, security tackled him before he could hurt anyone, and he’s been arrested. We had a security meeting with reception and the other business managers in the building and have agreed to a shared appointment calendar and other precautions to prevent…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. When your coworker is your Uber driver This happened to a coworker, not me, but now I’m paranoid it will. She told me that over the weekend she and her roommate got in an Uber to get to a bar, and the driver was our other coworker. I have nothing against side hustles/second jobs (I work one myself, as a bartender at a theater), but of all the people we work with (we’re standard office workers at a large employer in our city) I would not have expected this specific person to take up Uber driving for extra cash. So, WWYD? My coworker said she was pretty silent the entire time but did acknowledge/greet our coworker/drive…

A reader writes: I work in a cubicle office and bring a trained, medically necessary service dog named “Betty” to the office with me. I allow her to socialize with coworkers on breaks, and she is very loved in the office for how friendly and adorable she is. She also adores her coworkers and thinks everyone is her best friend. Unfortunately, a new coworker, “Sarah,” has been repeatedly ignoring service dog boundaries with Betty over the last six months. These boundary violations include taking Betty out of my cube while I’m on work calls or distracted, removing her leash in public work areas without asking, entering my cube without permission to interact with her, and …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work in manufacturing, and I more or less have a desk job. My “office” is a clump of desks off to the side of the manufacturing floor. I have a coworker, Laura, who also works in this clump of desks, who is dating a technician. Laura is younger than me, was homeschooled, and sometimes has a hard time picking up on social cues. She has been dating her boyfriend, Nixon, for a few months now. The problem is that he spends every break in our desk clump, to the point that he made himself a folding chair so he can sit by Laura. I am super annoyed every time he is over here. They sit leane…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m an admin in a small office, with a centrally located desk. One of my coworkers, Miranda, literally never stops talking. I counted for a while and she averages two major interruptions per hour, mostly extended monologues about personal minutiae, intimate relationship problems, or absolute and total nonsense. Basically, her entire internal monologue is externalized at all times. She announces everything she’s doing. She tells me long stories about how she managed things like “loaning her bike to someone” or “changing the exact location of her keys” that follow the entire storyline …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworkers aren’t following our return-to-office mandate My company’s return-to-office mandate is eight days a month for at least five hours each day. The tracking system, however, only records “days in office,” not hours. As a result, many coworkers come in for an hour or two, grab coffee (we have very good coffee), and leave. They don’t get flagged because the system shows compliance, even though they’re not following the written rules. My manager hasn’t addressed it, though he must know it’s happening. I’ve been following the letter of the rules, and resentment is starting to build. Upper management keeps stress…

I’m off today so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2020. A reader writes: I’m the executive assistant for a small company. I’m the direct support for the VP of human resources, “Dave,” who is very charismatic and likable and a generally nice guy. He’s also very good looking. However, he’s very professional with great business boundaries. I enjoy working with him. Two managers in particular, “Karen” and “Nancy,” need to meet with him all the time. All. The. Time. Their departments aren’t undergoing any HR issues, they don’t have any staffing needs, and they’re not hiring or firing anybody right now. They call to schedule multiple m…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work in a government agency that’s very analogous to a private sector industry (think trade vs. banking or procurement vs. real estate) and many of my colleagues have either joined us after having made plenty of money on the private side or are otherwise independently wealthy. Our senior leadership are politically appointed multimillionaires. I enjoy my work, but I seem to be one of the few who works here because I actually need the money. I have no complaints about my salary; we all make the same. However, I’m paying back student loans that won’t budge and I also have the only sing…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work in a government agency that’s very analogous to a private sector industry (think trade vs. banking or procurement vs. real estate) and many of my colleagues have either joined us after having made plenty of money on the private side or are otherwise independently wealthy. Our senior leadership are politically appointed multimillionaires. I enjoy my work, but I seem to be one of the few who works here because I actually need the money. I have no complaints about my salary; we all make the same. However, I’m paying back student loans that won’t budge and I also have the only sing…

A reader writes: I work at a creative company with 50+ people on staff, about 30 of whom come into the office regularly. It’s a great place to work overall, but I’ll be honest, I’m in a bit of a humbling professional moment. After being laid off from my more senior role earlier this year, I took on a junior position here because, well, times are hard and you do what you have to do. Part of my current role involves managing the studio space, which includes keeping our small kitchenette tidy and running the dishwasher. I actually don’t mind this, I run the washer every night before I leave and empty it in the morning so there’s always space for dishes. What I do mind is t…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I feel bananas asking this, but could you give me a read on how/whether people still use phones in office/remote office work in 2025? I have a fully remote, customer-focused job for a tiny organization, and no one on my team will use phones. I have the most customer interactions and am willing to answer my phone if one calls, but I wind up getting calls for everyone on my team, because none of my colleagues will pick up their phones or even return voicemails. At most, they will email and agree to schedule a Zoom, but mainly they just ignore calls entirely. I don’t mind helping out, …

A reader writes: One of my employees has asked for a massive raise. He has good reasons for wanting a raise: his responsibilities have ended up being very different than what he was originally hired for, he’s been doing very well with them, and he’s definitely paid below market for what he’s ended up doing. We hired him at $15/hour for an entry-level position with no hard requirements, and based on some quick market research, I’d say the work he’s doing now is closer to a $20-$25 range, so I’m actually in favor of giving him a pretty substantial increase. The trouble is that he’s asked for an increase to $40/hour, and he’s only been here for four months. That’s more tha…

A reader writes: I do communications and marketing and would love your advice on something that happened my first time managing a team. I had a marketing assistant, “Kitty,” who was very earnest and a brand new grad from the fancy university in town. She was good at visuals (so the promotional graphics and fliers touting our products on social media) but less so on writing up the descriptions needed for a company like ours. Typical interactions would go like this: Kitty’s draft: CompanyName just released a new line of teapots inspired by London. The teapot are red. Me, when, reviewing drafts: This is a good start, but let’s try to make these teapots sound like the be…

A reader writes: Two years ago, I began managing Craig, who had been doing the same tasks day in and out for a decade. He hadn’t adapted to new technology, best practices, or industry trends. My first order of business was to coach him and challenge him to grow and learn. For more than a year, we built up a great trajectory. People saw how much his work improved and commented on it frequently, and said he seemed revitalized in many ways. His progress gave me a lot of hope that he could become good at the modern demands of his role. Then about six months ago, Craig suddenly reverted to his old patterns. It was as if the prior year of progress got completely wiped out. On…

A reader writes: Our local business group/Chamber of Commerce had a luncheon today to hand out awards to the business community. My business was nominated and picked for an award. As I only have four employees, I closed the business for the afternoon and had them join me for the lunch and award ceremony. As the luncheon was finishing up, I left the room to go get my picture taken with the other award winners and then left. I had let my employees know they could leave at anytime and would see them tomorrow. Shortly after I got back to my office, I received a text from a fellow friend/business owner, saying I had better check out the Chamber’s Facebook page. When I looke…

A reader writes: Recreational marijuana is legal in my state, but I don’t necessarily want my independent retail store to smell of it, given that we want to give our customers a pleasant shopping experience. I myself get migraines and other adverse health effects from the strong smell of it and cigarette smoke, not to mention that I’m asthmatic, but I don’t want to police my employees in their free time. However, my employee has started to arrive at work reeking of it. Their belongings and their personal space radiate the smell by at least 10-20 feet, so between them being at the front and their belongings in the back, half the store smells of it. I am very new at mana…

A reader writes: I supervise two employees, Charlie and Lucy, and share a third, Linus. Lucy has strong weeks and weaker weeks, overall fine, but needs regular reminders and is far from perfect. Charlie is new but a really solid employee. He has been having some personal issues that were affecting some of his reliability at work — coming in late and falling asleep. (He would stay late to compensate, and I have zero concerns with the quality of his work.) He and I have met about it a couple of times and we had discussed some possible aids and solutions. Overall, I believed it would be a fairly temporary issue, so I had given him some slack. HR was aware of it, and I ha…

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day. A reader writes: A while back, an employee who reported to me (I’m a man) became visibly pregnant soon after she started. But she never brought it up. Not with me, not with HR, not with anyone. I didn’t ask her about it, though nearly everyone else in our office asked me. I cringed when I responded since it was obvious she was pregnant but I felt that I needed to protect her privacy. I felt like I was walking around on pins and needles with this very obvious elephant in the room. Her job description included occasionally lifting objects up to 40 pounds and the only way I treated he…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My employee dropped the ball on something major while I was away I am the executive director of a small charity. I had the opportunity to support my mom on a three-week holiday in Europe, all expenses paid. My organization had six months notice and I usually end the year not using any vacation time. So no questions or concerns about being away. I brought all the tools to stay in touch with the team. Unfortunately my go-to staffer who was slated to take on three major fundraising events during that time got sick the first week and had to cancel our participation in two of the three events. I’m totally gutted and frust…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: We work in a completely open plan office, and are a PR/ creative services agency. There are separate meeting rooms, and two banks of unused desks round the side of the kitchen which feel slightly separate from the main seating area and are often used for hot desking or ad hoc meetings. We are mandated in the office three days a week. The guidelines are for everyone to be in Monday and Wednesday (these are our anchor days), and for teams to make an effort to choose the same third day to maximize the chances for in-person working on office days. We’re a small staff of around 25, so on…

A reader writes: I manage an employee who, to put it frankly, has a bad attitude. Negative about everything: our job, our clients, life in general. A constant rain cloud. He brings down morale quite a bit, and other employees have made comments to me about how hard it is to work with him. Where I struggle is that I have a lot of sympathy for him and the many health problems he has been facing the last few years. He was in a car accident that he sustained pretty big injuries from, was diagnosed with a chronic disease which causes him constant pain, and also has had to deal with the sudden loss of a sibling. I feel like I would kind of hate the world, too. How do I addres…