Performance Tracking and Feedback

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Job application asked about age and caregiving responsibilities After hundreds of job applications in my career, this is a new one for me. I came across a required question on the application asking, “Do you have caregiving responsibilities such as childcare, eldercare, or disability care?” They added an asterisk stating, “We are building an organization that supports people in their many unique life situations. Knowing this information will make our hiring process, benefits, and professional development equitable and inclusive.” I find this question intrusive and I don’t believe their stated reason for asking it. Am …

A reader writes: I have a weird, complicated relationship with my boss, Amelia, who is part of the C-suite. We have very different working styles. We are both from the same Latin American country but both of us live and work in the U.S. Last week, she asked me to join a call with her and the CEO of our company in another country. The CEO suggested Friday but Amelia said she was taking that day off and suggested Monday instead. Monday was a holiday for both her and me, but she was traveling to a different country so she was going to be working anyway. When I pointed out that it was a holiday, she said, “Oh come on, it’s only 30 minutes.” This made me feel like my day of…

A reader writes: I was recently promoted to a director role, and one of my direct reports is my former boss who hired me into the company, “Tom.” Tom was a great boss in the eight years I worked for him. He’s an all-around terrific manager who coaches well, provides clear goals, gives flexibility to meet those goals, provides opportunities to learn and grow, advocates for his team, the works. After a few years working for him, a promotion opened up and Tom urged me to apply. I got it, became his peer, and built my own effective team using his style as my model. Last year, our department director positioned opened up. Tom and I both applied. I impressed our relatively n…

A reader writes: I have a new employee, Joe, who has been with me about six months. The headline is that he’s pretty terrible. He lacks knowledge, his work is slow and often wrong, he lacks attention to detail, shows no sense of urgency, ownership or understanding of priority, and requires constant hand-holding to even get close to completing tasks. There’s a lot to unpack about him but the short story is: I made a big hiring mistake and I know separately that I need to address it. This letter isn’t quite about that though. Recently, a distant relative of Joe’s wife’s passed away. That’s sad. He was sending me constant (and unnecessary) updates about it. We have a super…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Is it OK to compliment coworkers’ nails or haircuts? I believe that comments on people’s bodies are totally inappropriate at work, and in life in general. But if someone has changed their hair or has some cute nails (I myself do not do these cute things but notice them), is commenting on them in the same category as body stuff? Technically it is part of their body, but it doesn’t seem as bad to be “oh the magenta highlights are cool” or whatever. Should I stop commenting on haircuts and nail design? One school of thought is that it’s fine to comment on things that are obviously a deliberate choice — like a shirt or a …

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: The Uncoupling, by Meg Wolitzer. After the local high school performs Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, in which women decide to deny men sex in order to pressure them to end a war, the town’s local women pick up the habit themselves. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – February 28-March 1, 2026 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 – February 27, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Intern won’t stop giving unsolicited “corrections” We’ve been dealing with a troublesome intern. He keeps giving senior members of the staff unsolicited advice, corrections, and “tips” about everything from life lessons to ways for everyone to do their work. He’s been told many times that it’s inappropriate and that other members of the staff are uncomfortable with it but he keeps doing it. How, as a manager, can I deal with this situation without making it difficult for the intern? I’m afraid I will shatter his self-esteem as it’s seems fragile despite the over-confidence. You’re not doing him any favors by dancing a…

A reader writes: I’m a 32-year-old professional on a niche team for a large corporation and have been in my role for four years. When I was interviewing, I was living in City A, a low-cost-of-living city that I really disliked. When I took my current job, they were clear that they allow my role to be performed from anywhere in the U.S., and I was hired at a salary consistent with my experience and then-geographic location. About five months after starting, I moved to City B, a much-higher-cost-of-living city. My director told me that while my move was no problem logistically, I would not receive a pay increase for relocating, as the move was my initiative and the compa…

A reader writes: I oversee a public-facing department at a nonprofit. One of our long-time program managers is an oversharer. This includes on social media, where she has in the recent past criticized two of our sponsors in long Facebook posts, which included phrases like “Corporation X needs to get their crap together.” These were criticisms based on her personal experiences, not related to work (think complaining about the customer service at Corp X when she was shopping there). Yesterday, she followed up with more complaining during a program meeting that included clients. I know she is connected to many of our volunteers and clients, as well as colleagues, on social…

In the comments on a recent post, someone mentioned that a boss once sent them home because they’d forgotten to wear a belt that day (“I wasn’t showing butt cleavage, but he wasn’t having it.”) Someone else mentioned a boss who expected people to rise whenever he entered the office (?!). Let’s discuss managers and offices with weirdly outdated expectations who appear to be from a far-off era. The post let’s discuss throwback bosses: managers with outdated work expectations appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I saw my coworker’s pregnancy announcement on TikTok I was just scrolling TikTok, and a video from “someone you may know” popped up. It is a coworker of mine, whose number is in my phone because we sit near each other and sometimes need to coordinate watering plants and such. It turns out she’s a somewhat well-known content creator in a pretty wholesome and innocuous genre. The video I landed on was especially well liked, because she used it to announce her pregnancy. I’m very happy for her and would like to congratulate her! However, I don’t know if she would think it’s weird that I watched her video. I’m a man who s…

A reader writes: I’m hiring for some new roles in my team and this has generated some excitement from internal folks looking to grow in their careers. That’s great! I’m always happy to meet with internal people before they submit resumes/go through the formal interview process, it’s very much a part of our team culture. However, twice now, different internal candidates have scheduled a one-on-one with me during a time when I already have a meeting and am showing as booked! This has kind of thrown me for a loop (do they not know how to use our extremely basic common scheduling software? do they think I’m booked for fun and will reschedule for them?) and honestly given me…

A reader writes: I am about to make my first hire. We posted the job a couple of days ago. The job is semi-specialized work with specific qualifications. The job description clearly says cover letter and resume. Of the many applications I’ve received, one, maybe two, indicate that they’ve read the application before applying. The others appear to be following a job search plan that is along the lines of “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” – ranging from generic cover letters that don’t mention either the name of the employer or the job itself (if there’s a cover letter) to resumes that show nothing in the form of meeting requirements. Is this really a com…

A reader writes: A new grad (“Eva”) joined our team about six months ago. She had previously interned with us and had really impressed us with her knowledge, efficiency, and proactive approach. As a seasoned member of the team, I went out of my way to be kind, helpful, and patient with Eva as she learned the ropes. She had tons of questions, which is to be expected at first. However, things started to sour when she began messaging me non-stop about things unrelated to work and excessively badmouthing another coworker, even calling him vulgar names (on the company’s internal messaging platform!). I began to feel that Eva’s messages were crossing a major line and asked he…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker is in a cult and it’s affecting my work A new junior staff person joined my department about a year ago. About six months in, they asked if they could start working remotely because because they had been asked to help start a new church across the country. This employee is quite young and this is their first job after college. They were initially very dedicated to their work, but since moving, they have dropped the ball on multiple projects, frequently ask for time off and don’t make up their hours, and have just generally been performing poorly. I was starting to think they had just checked out and weren’…

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…

With the snow storm that hit much of the eastern part of the U.S. this week, you might be wondering whether you get paid when your office is closed, if your employer can require you to work despite the storm, and other questions that arise when weather intersects with work. Can my employer require me to come into work even if the weather is making it hard for me to get there? Yes. Your employer can require you to come to work despite severe weather, although a decent employer will make allowances for employees who can’t reasonably make it in. If your employer is requiring to come in and you don’t believe you can safely travel, or if authorities are telling people in yo…

A reader writes: I work for a company of about 40 employees that says they “don’t give raises.” It’s in a field that is traditionally freelance, so having a full-time salaried position with benefits while doing this work is slightly unusual, but not unheard of. When asked, management says explicitly that because of how well we’re compensated, they don’t do raises. The salary range is $80-95K — on the high-ish end for our field but not wildly above what freelancers in our field can earn. The hourly rates of freelancers tend to increase $5 every 2-3 years. My question is how bananas is this and do you have any suggestions for how we can push back? I was shocked when I he…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker doesn’t want me to lift heavy boxes I work in a supply store that sells a variety of goods and also does returns for a large, very well-known company. One of my coworkers, a middle-aged man named “Carl,” has attempted to stop me (a woman in my 20s) from moving the closed return boxes every time we’ve worked together, warning me “they’re heavy.” (Our computer system ensures that nothing weighs over 40 pounds). I’ve told him that I don’t mind moving heavy boxes, but it doesn’t seem to register. Yesterday, when he told me not to take a full cart of boxes to the back room, I said, “You seem concerned about me …

A reader writes: I work for a small nonprofit in the U.S. A colleague and I were invited to attend a conference later this year through our service on an external committee where we represent our agency. All conference expenses would be covered by the external partner; the only cost to our organization would be our salaries during that time. Our executive director approved both of us attending, but with the condition that we use PTO for the days we’re away. The rationale given was that the conference is not required by our organization, is considered voluntary professional development, and the agency lacks funding to offer comparable opportunities to the rest of the sta…

A reader writes: I’ve been job searching for a few months now. I just got a call from HR at an organization I applied to a few weeks ago asking me if they had a few minutes to chat — they wanted to go through the position with me, give me some quick updates on the role, and let me know the salary so they could see if I still wanted to be considered. I told them of course, but I only had 15 minutes before a meeting. They said that was fine. Cut to: they’re asking me about my background, my current role, my strengths and weaknesses, what I’m looking for in a new role, and why I’m excited about their mission. It became a 25-minute first round interview. Luckily, I was at a…

A reader writes: I have a few employees who have told us they do not celebrate birthdays, but they do sit to eat the lunch the company buys for the birthday person and then leave when it’s time to sing “happy birthday.” (One of them asks for cake after everyone goes back to work.) These same employees say they do not observe holidays and do not attend parties (like the employee Christmas party), but they say they can receive the Christmas bonus that the company gives out. Would the company be in the wrong not to invite them to the lunch or give them a monetary Christmas bonus since we are trying to comply with their religious beliefs? Yes, the company would be 100% in…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Employee was upset they had to use PTO for bereavement leave A few years ago, I worked at a large nonprofit that had generous PTO, but no other “buckets” of time. Sick, vacation, family care, all time off fell under PTO. One of my reports was caring for a terminally ill relative. Our working relationship was a bit tense as I was having productivity issues from this person, but I tried to separate those conversations and be supportive and offered them any time off they needed (though minimal to none was taken that I can remember.) Unfortunately, the family member passed. I told them to take all the time they needed. I …

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. We fostered and then quickly adopted Laurie in 2020, during the first week of the pandemic. He hid behind some books on a bookcase for three days, but he relaxed once he discovered there were other cats in the house. It turned out he loved other cats. We had named him after the neighbor boy from Little Women before realizing that, just like his namesake, he yearned to be part of a big family. Fortunately, he was! He was an aggressive cuddler; he loved being in my lap, but his favorite thing in the world wa…