Performance Tracking and Feedback

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I own and operate a small business. The workflow is typically manageable within a 40-hour work week. However, occasionally an important project comes in with an especially tight deadline and usually affects a different person each time. I have difficulty asking employees to go the extra mile for that day or two when needed. I’m not even sure what constitutes a fair request. What are the “rules” about this? I almost always decide that I will take on whatever extra work is necessary myself, rather than ask for any extra push from employees. My logic is that I will “save it up” for when…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: The last time I was searching for jobs was pre-Covid, and while the job market and world have changed in many ways, one of the ways I’m most concerned about in my current search is the rise of employee monitoring technologies. I work in a field that has been primarily remote since well before the pandemic and has not been subjected my recent waves of return-to-office for that reason. I also live with a number of serious but very well-managed mental health issues that would quickly spiral out of “very well-managed” under the pressure of surveillance technologies. This isn’t just a pref…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Recently, my boss sent me five spreadsheets, several with multiple tabs, to fill out but offered no information on what went in which row, column, or tab. I managed to figure most of it out (she gets annoyed when I ask her questions) and asked for clarification on the rest. I only had hours to get all of this done because it was due the next day and she had sent it to me a few hours into my workday so I had to work quickly. I apparently filled out one of the columns wrong, subtracting the scores instead of adding them. I went to her office to address it, and she was infuriated. She pr…

A reader writes: I’m the other side of letters you get more commonly: I am the overly talkative coworker trying to figure out how to professionally ask (read as beg) people to cut me off. I have pretty obvious/intense ADHD and do work with my doc to manage it as best we can. Unfortunately, we have not hit the magic mix yet. Since there is no hiding it for me, I am lucky to have supportive bosses who make it safe to be pretty open about it. The problem I am having is that while my current meds are really helping with most things, once I start talking, usually about something work-related, I cannot stop myself (literally screaming in my head to shut up, but hooray for exe…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: What do you owe a company when you accept a position? Is it ever okay to leave a good job only a few weeks after starting? I worked for a decade in an industry I loved, then burned out hard and left for a better-paying sector. For the past 18 months, I’ve been contracting part-time with a successful startup, doing work that’s similar but less engaging (to me). Since I started here, I’ve made it clear that I’d love to come on as a full-time employee, and for a long time they’ve been saying it’ll happen. My interest is really about the good pay and benefits, since I’ve found this job m…

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. Can I confiscate my coworkers’ screaming monkey toy? Today, as has happened multiple times in the last few months, some of my nearby coworkers in our relatively small satellite office decided to play catch with this “screaming monkey toy.” The noise it makes is outrageously loud, especially in our small space, and I’ve previously indicated (politely) to coworkers that I find the noise not only distracting, but extremely annoying. After the first time, I asked them if they could please make an effort to not set the toy off, because of those reasons…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m a recent grad, and I’ve been searching for my first full-time position. Recently, I was invited to second round of interviews for an event planning position at a national organization with a recognizable name. It included a schedule of seven virtual half-hour interviews with different groups of people at the organization and a request for me to prepare a 10-slide presentation of a potential event for the organization and challenges I might face. I thought seven interviews were overkill for such a junior position, especially as the organization does not specialize in event planning…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I hate my new job — can I go back to my old one? I worked at a company for over three years. Internally they have their issues and I had my share of frustrations, but it is basically a well oiled machine. As far as growth, there is not much, but I was paid well and had flexibility with my hours, although absolutely no work from home and an hour commute each way. Three months ago, a colleague who worked with me at this company and left two years prior, asked me to send my resume to her so she could pass it along to her boss. She only had good things…

A reader writes: I have managed someone, let’s call her Rachel, for over a year and a half. The majority of the experience has been negative — she’s rude, feeds on drama, and produces low-quality work. I’ve had several discussions with her on improving her performance. After a lot of painful experiences, she resigned while I was on vacation. She only gave a week’s notice, and since I’m on vacation we will only have two days overlap. I know as a manager I have the responsibility to be professional and courteous, but I can’t stomach the idea that we even have to interact at all on those two final days. I have even contemplated rescheduling our team meeting to the day afte…

A reader writes: I have developed a stance over time that my friends, partner, and colleagues all say is unprofessional: I let people at work be wrong, especially if it’s not going to impact our bottom line, due dates, or project quality. I particularly stay out of things if they’re trying to get someone in trouble and it bites them in the butt afterward. When I was younger, I would over-explain myself, which made things worse/made me look unprofessional, so when someone’s wrong now I just let them be wrong, especially if I’m met with rude pushback, which can be typical in my line of work. Some examples of this include a mix-up with a client meeting due to time zones. …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I am going to be leaving my company soon and starting my own business, and will need to hire support staff. One of the employees at my current company (Taylor) has told me she is looking for a new job. I find Taylor to be an excellent employee and I would be happy to have her working for me. I believe that she enjoys working with me as well. The catch is that Taylor primarily works with Leslie, one of my colleagues here, and has done so for several years. Leslie has been a mentor to me since I started working in this city. She is well liked and well connected in our field, while I’m …

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Can I refuse to fetch my manager’s personal mail? I work in a room with my manager and two colleagues, and between them they order 3-10 personal packages to the office a week. They don’t get up to answer the door even when they’re sitting chatting rather than working; unless I’m on the phone, they expect me to get it. I’ve brought this up with them, but they don’t think it’s unfair. I’ve even injured myself fetching their heavy packages, and the manager’s solution was to email the team telling us to ask delivery drivers to put packages on the floor. That doesn’t solve my problem. It comes across as very entitled to ex…

A reader writes: I’ve been at my company for five years and enjoy my job. The work is in line with what I want to do long-term, I’m getting great experience, the people I work with are nice, and my boss is easy to work for and has mentored me in ways I’ve never received at a job before. All things considered, I’m pretty happy here. However, about a year ago, my boss brought up the possibility of a promotion. There’s no natural role for me to move into (the next position up is hers, and she’s not going anywhere), but she proposed creating a job where I’d take on more responsibility for some pieces of running the department, including things like training new hires and re…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Last summer, an old mentor from my past company — who led a couple projects I was on but was not my direct manager — took a new VP role and sent for me. I had applied for a role on her team at our former org and didn’t get it, but was able to create a similar opportunity for me at her new org. I’m absolutely grateful. The tricky thing is I’m actually not happy here. This company is not my jam overall and I only somewhat give a shit because of my mentor and now boss. But as you’ve written about before, going from a friend (albeit a senior friend) to a manager had unexpected growing pa…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. Can I suggest that my employee rethink her career path? One of my direct reports, “Mindy,” has worked for my organization since college; she’s now 31. I joined the staff three years ago and enjoy her a lot as a person: she’s smart, has a wonderful attitude, is very diligent and organized, and brings her best to every project. The problem is that I don’t think she’s on the right career path. Right now Mindy does communications work. but the issue is that she’s not a very good writer, which is a fundamental skill for the job. We do a lot of writing a…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Can I tell a coworker I dislike him? Is it ever safe to tell a coworker you dislike them on a personal level? There’s a colleague I find very annoying. He hasn’t done anything wrong, but his personality is extremely different from mine. He’s far more optimistic and cheerful than I am. The disparity in our attitudes comes partly from me hating my job. Even though there are all sorts of ways in which it could backfire, I think I would very much enjoy telling this person I don’t like him, even if only via email. If not while we’re in the same workplace, maybe on the day one of us moves elsewhere (I’m applying for other …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work at a barbershop that’s under the booth rent model, so I’m a sole proprietor. How do I professionally tell people to stop coming in sick/bringing in their sick kids? Should I display a sign at my station as well? I don’t understand how a haircut is so important when you’re sick. Not only do I hate how being sick feels, I live with my 86-year-old grandfather and it’s not in my agenda to get him sick. It’s also very inconvenient and puts my job at risk because of having to reschedule clients. I had a parent bring their super sick kid in on Christmas Eve. He sat in the front the …

A reader writes: My boss is INCREDIBLY verbose, a disorganized speaker, and consequently pretty terrible at running meetings. If we’re doing five-minute check-ins, his will take 20. If he’s presenting on a topic, his presentation will take most or all of the meeting and will be crammed with irrelevant details and tangents, to the point where it’s genuinely difficult to pull the relevant details out (He never has slides. He might have a giant spreadsheet.) If he’s running a meeting, which he does for our weekly team meetings, he’ll spend about 75% of that meeting monologuing. He clearly loves to talk; he is palpably joyful when chatting. I also think he uses our meetings…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Can I use a wedding photo — with a veil — as my work avatar? My company is fully remote, so they really encourage us to upload a headshot to our company chat service so people can put a face to the name. Would it look out of touch or immature to use a photo from my wedding? It’s probably the best I’ll ever look in any photo because of the professional hair and makeup and because it was taken by a professional photographer. But because of the veil, it’s very obviously a wedding photo. (I’d choose a shot without my husband in it.) I think some of my…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. I’m off for the holiday, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2019. A reader writes: I have a dark sense of humor. I now realize that my boss does not. During a standard “how was your day off” conversation between my supervisor, manager, and a few peers, my manager mentioned that he was a chaperone for one of his kid’s field trips to Gatorland. Naturally, I asked if any of the kids on the trip got eaten by an alligator. When the response was no, I followed up with a “darn, you should get a refund” joke that everyone laughed at and then the conversation and the m…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: For some reason — largely due to how bad the job market currently is for replaceable lifelong individual contributors — I’ve been following one of those quasi-influencer recruiter types on LinkedIn for a little while. Some of his advice is decent, and at the very least he pokes fun of all the problems with job-seeking in 2025. But this appeared on my LinkedIn feed just now: “Your job title matters. If your company gave you an internal title that no one understands, tweak it to something more industry-standard. Just keep it accurate…don’t inflate it. Your resume should be clear to an …

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

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Recently, my company hired someone who was extremely racist. He worked with me on his first day, where he dropped an awful racial slur six times. I was shocked so did a little social media sleuthing and found his horrifying Twitter page full of xenophobic and racist tweets and posts. We fired him. However, after speaking to a friend who is in HR, she said we couldn’t simply fire him for being racist. Now, obviously our lawyer and HR rep disagreed with that because he was fired. But what say you? Are racist posts and hate speech enough to fire someone? She seems to think we should hav…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I want to opt out of my company’s “wellness” messages My company regularly pushes out “wellness” content to all employees — things like tips on diet, exercise, mental health, and mindfulness. The problem is that we don’t have the option to opt out, and I personally find a lot of the content intrusive or irrelevant. For example, I’ve received messages about topics that touch on sensitive health issues I’d rather not have my employer involved in. I don’t want to seem ungrateful or negative since I know the intention is to promote wellness, but I really dislike having this material pushed on me without a choice. I’ve tri…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Canceling a women’s group because of DEI concerns I’m a PhD student and it seems like my university is trying to cancel the Women in Computer Science networking group that I run. They’re going about it in a really weird way: rather than directly saying “this is illegal D.E.I.,” they’re trying to send us on a bureaucratic runaround to maintain the status quo of funding and booking rooms. We’re in New England, so I suspect it would be locally unpopular to bluntly state that they’re cancelling women’s groups due to D.E.I. How do I fight this? Just dela…