Performance Tracking and Feedback

A reader writes: My department just called all us middle managers into a session to discuss our sickness “issue.” Some context: We live in a country where permanent employees of any level at any company all get unlimited sick days at full pay for a year (with a handful of caveats). Funnily enough, the sickness rate here isn’t particularly high: the average local worker takes three days off for sickness per year. Our company has been through a painful year-long layoff process, which coincided with record-breaking profits, the launch of completely new product lines, and somewhat absurd expectations. Oh, and team celebration budgets were cut in the meantime. Our department…

Here are four updates from past letter-writers. 1. An abusive volunteer is holding our website hostage I am no longer a mere VP — I have been elected president! A short summary of my previous letters: I’m on the board of a small organization and we’re all volunteers. There were issues with our webmaster and our website, but the previous president wasn’t wanting to muck around with the site. I understand his reasons but I disagreed with him about it. At our 2024 convention, the (now former) president announced that he was not running for reelection and that I was running for president. The webmaster pulled me aside after this and told me that he was planning to retire, …

A reader writes: A few weeks ago, our HR manager, Cara, brought in a photo of her dog’s adorable litter of puppies and everybody appropriately ooh’d and ahh’d all over them. Now that the puppies are old enough to be adopted, she’s started to put the bite on everybody in the office, and after a few other employees were winnowed away for various reasons (apartment building doesn’t allow pets, just had a new baby, etc.), she seems to have focused her attention on me. Backstory time, I grew up in a house with a mother who … it’s probably most accurate to say she compulsively hoarded pets … and growing up having to take care of up to 10 dogs at one time has thrown cold water…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Bringing alcohol to the home of a recovering alcoholic My coworker is a recovering alcoholic; he doesn’t discuss it but never drinks, occasionally refers to “when I was drinking,” and once was frightened when he learned there may have been alcohol in a dessert he’d eaten (there wasn’t). His wife has generously invited to office over for dinner. She told us that “we keep a dry house” but we’re welcome to bring alcohol if we want it with our meal. This has created a debate within the office. Two want to bring alcohol, arguing that she told us (without us asking, I should add) that we could. The rest of us feel it would …

A reader writes: This is hard for me to write. I’m a woman in my late forties with two grown children. I remember how stressful it was a decade ago, when my kids were little, to keep them out of earshot during conference calls on the rare days I could work from home. In my current role, I have dotted-line management responsibility for “Steve,” who has two children under four. We’re a fully remote company, and all meetings are on video with cameras on. Steve often has one of his children on his lap during both internal and external calls. His spouse works from home part-time, but he still seems to be the primary caregiver for at least part of the workday. I’m conflicted…

A reader writes: I am a senior project manager in a nonprofit. Over the summer, I been working on a series of focus groups and was assigned Lola as an intern. Our office aims to provide meaningful training to our interns, as nearly 80% of them are hired after their internships, so I assigned Lola to write one of the focus group reports. She was present at the focus group itself and was given the audio recording and transcript, plus a report template with guiding questions in order to complete the assignment. I had a previous experience with an intern producing reports with AI, which required tons of rework. So when I first assigned this to Lola, I explained that AI is n…

A reader writes: I have seen you and other people say that you shouldn’t usually accept a counteroffer. I wish I had listened to you, but I didn’t. The backstory is I have worked at my company for almost a decade, and for the first several years I was extremely underpaid. I know this because I made a lateral move that resulted in a significant pay increase. With each transfer, I have been clear that growth (and money, of course) are very important to me. Recently I was recruited (I did not seek this new position, it came to me) for a position that would have increased my pay slightly. It would have changed my work status from fully remote to hybrid, but most importantl…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Internship offered me a special project but now I can’t get any answers about it I’m a college student who recently finished a remote internship at a prominent company in a fairly niche field (the company has maybe 10-15 full-time employees). My main task was fairly generic — think setting up a filing system or similar — but I also got a lot of experience in the actual field. Towards the latter end of it, I had a great talk with the CEO about what I wanted out of the internship, and what was really exciting was that he said that he thought a good next step for me would be designing an accessory for one of their product…

A reader writes: I am in a front-line commercial role at a tech start-up. I am responsible for bringing in new business, and this story pertains to my colleague Zayne, who manages a lot of the back-end, integrations side of things. Zayne is fantastic at what he does. The guy might actually be a genius, and I don’t say that lightly. He has a ton of ideas, seems to really love what he does, and is good at it. He’s also very open about his mental health, which I admire but it can admittedly take me back sometimes. I grew up in a family where we often don’t share things like that, and it’s something I’m trying to unpack as an adult, but even so I find myself at a loss for w…

A reader writes: My company recently hired a new employee who has been a problem. We were hesitant to hire her to begin with — she didn’t have glowing recommendations and she’s got a patchy work history, but she has experience in the one thing we can’t train on right now, so we hired her reluctantly. It turns out she’s an over-sharer on social media: Every single detail of her day is listed in a giant personal social media post at least three or four times a day, and she tags everyone she comes in contact with: businesses, products, people. It’s unusual. She has been very opinionated about how we do things and doesn’t really want to participate in feedback or training. …

A reader writes: My job is 99% remote with some on-site event expectations. On-site events are typically mandatory, which is fine with me. I recently asked for events to be either predictable (e.g., first Friday in August) or to have lots of notice, so we can schedule vacations or things like dental cleanings around those events. During the conversation, my manager said that even when we were fully on-site, she sometimes had to move appointments if her boss scheduled a meeting. She gave the example of a short-notice 9 am meeting the next day and thus needing to move her kids’ appointments. That gave me pause. I understand rescheduling things like haircuts or some type…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Employee doesn’t know I have access to her emails I have a direct report that had to take a medical leave (two months) and during that time I needed access to her emails so I could assist customers who had pending issues, and the emails contained the information I needed. She is back now, but I am seeing some performance issues I need to address. She is not aware that I still have access to her email as IT never removed my access. I don’t want to micromanage, and I only look at it when there is an issue and I need to see what she actually said to a customer. I’m now seeing some things that are a bit concerning. At what…

Inspired by yesterday’s letter about someone who vastly overshared personal mental health details with clients, let’s talk about oversharing at work! Over the years we’ve heard about oversharing in the forms of a colleague who showed an explicit slideshow of her baby’s birth, a boss who kept sharing drama between his current wife and his ex-wife, a coworker who felt the need to share that her husband didn’t like her Brazilian bikini wax, a brand new hire who kept asking everyone whether he should cheat on his wife, and much more. Let’s discuss workplace oversharing in the comment section. The post let’s discuss TMI: when coworkers overshare at work appeared first on As…

Remember the letter-writer who was struggling to get their email inbox under control? Here’s the update. I was the person who was overwhelmed by my inbox and was looking for help to manage high volume comms. Overall, the chaos of busy season was definitely easier to manage this year, even though the volume of email did increase up to around 300+ a day in the peak season, likely because I have been in my role longer so more people know me and like to ask me stuff. I really appreciated the commentariat suggestions and would love anyone to add any more systems and hacks – and to those who manage 1000+ emails a day, I take my hat off to you! What worked: * Having set times…

A reader writes: I need to partner with a team whose manager rejected me for a job, and I’m struggling to have a positive attitude. A year ago, I applied to an internal role for which I met 90% of the criteria on the nose. It was a team doing the same work as I did but in another part of the company, and the gap in qualifications was akin to having experience grooming llamas but not alpacas – it’s highly transferrable. I have great performance reviews, scoring the elusive 5/5, and I had completed an internal leadership program that is supposed to highlight me as a candidate for internal roles. I didn’t expect to be handed the role but I did think I was a strong internal…

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My interviewer mentioned my boudoir photos I went to an interview at an event planning company I have wanted to work at for a long time. The first interview was successful and I got along with the group of managers really well. They gave me an assignment to do and, after I did that, they happily invited me to return for a follow-up interview, this time with only one of the managers. We got along so well, and I was told I did very well on the assignment. Near the end of the interview, the manager told me to wait a minute and she left and then came back and offered me the job. I was super ecstatic, and we started chatti…

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 – January 9, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

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: Before I Forget, by Tory Henwood Hoen. A lost 20something moves home to take care of her Alzheimer’s-stricken father and realizes that as he’s losing his memory, he’s somehow gaining the ability to predict the future. This could have been depressing except that the father is an absolute delight. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. The post weekend open thread – January 10-11, 2026 appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I’m managing someone who wanted my job, and is acting like it I have recently taken a management role with a new employer, and I love the work and the place I am working. I am in a director position and have learned that the assistant director, Jane, also applied for the job, but obviously was not chosen. How do I handle two things: (1) others in the office asking Jane instead of me when I should make the call (they then catch themselves), and (2) Jane trying to “agree” with what I decide or say, but in a way that suggests her agreement is needed or being solicited? I take pride in being a good manager. I know how to…

A reader writes: I’m currently 12 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and my husband and I received some devastating news that the pregnancy may not be viable. We will get testing to confirm either way, but if it’s definitely not viable we would make the very difficult and heartbreaking decision to terminate this very wanted baby. We won’t find out until 17-18 weeks, which will make it physically and emotionally quite difficult and necessitate some time off. This week I reached out to the head of employee entitlements in HR and asked about leave options in the event I have to terminate a non-viable pregnancy. Pregnancy loss leave and stillbirth leave are fortunately avai…

A reader writes: I could use some advice about some employees, two of whom report to me and one who doesn’t. Bob reports to me. He assigns cases to both Sue and Sally. Sue reports to me and Sally doesn’t. Sue and Sally don’t like Bob. They don’t like his brusque (but still professional) style, they don’t like that he’s not “nice” like his predecessor, and they don’t like it when he seems inconsistent. Bob doesn’t like his decisions questioned. He comes from a legal background and really can be pretty officious. Again, it’s not unprofessional, but it’s certainly not friendly or warm. He could go a long way in being collegial. When I direct Bob to be patient with Sue an…

We recently discussed very big office battles over very small things, and here are 15 of the funniest stories you shared. 1. The new broker A couple of years ago, we changed benefit brokers. Not benefits, just the brokers. We sent out a quick announcement and had them come in so everyone could meet them. This did not affect people’s coverage. They actually got a dedicated phone number they could use for issues. People went bananas. Like we killed their brother. They liked the old broker. How could we be so disloyal? Why do they need a special phone number, they used to be able to just email the broker? This is going to be a disaster. Readers, it wasn’t a disaster. Our…

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I’m afraid of dogs and our chairman brings his dog to work I work at a small business (fewer than 100 people, all in one building) and I am mildly cynophobic (afraid of dogs). Logically, I’m aware that this is mostly irrational, but I tense up and can’t focus on anything else when a dog is nearby. The chairman of our company has a dog, who he often (most days) brings to the office. He has also been known to encourage other people to bring their dogs to work. You can imagine how I feel about this. However, many people like the dogs. A couple of years ago, I made an anonymous request, via my then-manager, for measures …

A reader writes: I’m at a loss here. I have a coworker I’ll call Riley from a different department in my organization. Riley and I were becoming pretty good work friends, when they experienced a psychotic break and tried to end their own life. I didn’t want someone I cared about to die, so I stepped up as a support person. I learned that Riley had been hospitalized before for the same reason before we met. I thought I was equipped to absorb some of their pain while they worked through mental health treatment and stabilized. Riley was better for a few months, then spiraled and went back to the hospital. This cycle never stopped. I don’t even remember how many times they…

A reader writes: I had a new employee start on a Tuesday. That Friday, I woke up to a text from my new hire from the night before, saying that she would not be in on Friday, that something had come up and she would see me on Monday. This is an in-person job in a corporate environment. I fully respect a person’s right to take a sick day and I feel nobody is obligated to share personal details, but I also don’t feel like “something came up” quite cuts it, especially on what would be your fourth day on the job. I’m looking for some guidance on where to set my expectations (regardless of this person working out or not). Am I out of line to feel “something came up” feels in…