Performance Tracking and Feedback

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Talking to an employee about body odor I manage a large department with several sub-departments. I have been working myself up to addressing an issue for quite some time, because it is a sensitive issue that I don’t know how to handle without fallout: personal hygiene. One of the staff members who has been with me for several years has been showing up to work for the past year with an odor that is less than pleasant. This was not an issue previously, and I attribute it to becoming more comfortable in the environment and slipping into a pattern of l…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I just received an email from my company’s corporate marketing team inviting me to speak on an internal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) panel about my experiences being a woman in a male-dominated industry during the national Women in (Industry) week this spring. I know exactly why they asked me – I am the only woman in my company in my position! Let’s say I work in the auto industry (not what I actually do, but my industry is just as male-dominated). My company has a lot of women in sales, accounts, management, etc. but I am the only female mechanic out of probably 300 mechani…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. After loving Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, I wanted more literary fiction mysteries where the character development gets as much attention as the plot. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

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. I’m off for the holiday, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2018. A reader writes: I have a problem with a coworker and have been hesitant to send this to you as it seems petty but it has been bugging me for awhile. It started as a pet peeve but has moved into something bigger the more she does it. This coworker, I’ll call her Eleanor, demands you say “please” whenever someone asks her to do anything work related. Some examples would be as follows: “Eleanor, can you email me those forecasts for next quarter so I can get this project to our boss?” “Only if yo…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: This letter has a lot of personal issues attached to it, but I swear this is job-related. My mother is trying to strong-arm me into letting my 13-year-old brother stay in my office with me after school since his school is close to where I work. I’ve had an exhausting feud with my mother because of her passive parenting of my brother. She simultaneously thinks I don’t do enough to control him, while any actual consequences I give him always get me a “why did you have to be so meeeeeean to him?” (My father passed away a few years ago, unfortunately.) Predictably, this has led to my b…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: My manager was one of the good ones, completely trusted their team, didn’t micromanage, would support and defend us, and was just generally a friendly person. Their death was sudden and devastating to a lot of people, to say the least. Our team is fewer than 10 people, and most had worked closely with our manager for 5+ years and some had been friends for longer. Our company offered to pay for all expenses so we could all attend the funeral, since some of us are remote. One local coworker, Sam, didn’t go and didn’t even give an excuse as to why not, and it has caused a major rift. O…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: The small company where I work offers good pay, generous PTO and other benefits, a fun and friendly environment, and good work-life balance. It also has an excellent product with a lot of growth potential. Generally, it’s considered by employees to be a great place to work. The problem for me is that apart from the good pay and friendly coworkers, I mostly miss out on the perks that others enjoy. To be clear, there is a spectrum within the company: some of my coworkers are more overworked and stressed than others. But I’m an outlier: I’ve been assigned responsibility for a lot of the…

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 …

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, …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My coworker’s anxiety becomes my problem I have a coworker, “Lily,” who reports to my manager and has been at the company for two years, with our team for four months. She and I are both pretty new to the workforce (we are 25 years old), so I would appreciate some advice on handling this situation in a mature and sensitive way. Lily does great work — she’s diligent, detail-oriented, and on top of all our tasks. However, she seems very anxious all the time, and her anxiety can feel overwhelming. She has a tendency to talk very fast without making ey…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Just a heads-up that Ask a Manager is on Bluesky in case you’re over there: bsky.app/profile/askamanager.org If you’ve been considering trying Bluesky but haven’t made the leap: I really like it. It has a lot of the stuff that used to be great about Twitter before it imploded, plus cool features like being able to mute posts with particular keywords (so if you just can’t handle hearing anything about llamas this week, you can eradicate them from your feed), there are cool “starter packs” (so if you want to quickly follow a bunch of people who post about science or linguistics or yarn or cats or whate…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Most of the time when you leave a job you hated, you do it professionally — you give notice, you transition your work, you move on, even when there’s malice deep in your heart. But sometimes you get the opportunity to go out with a bit more verve — for example, the person who quit with two hours of notice the week before a big project was due … exactly the same way they treated him when he’d been demoted four months prior. And obviously we must never forget the person who spelled out “I quit” in cod. Not all final F-you’s are so visible. Some are more discreet, perhaps known only to you. But all are s…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Our board volunteer makes everyone’s jobs harder I was recently made the chair of the board for a local community service group. The board receives money each year to buy supplies for community service events, but being on the board is a volunteer position (no one is getting paid). Basically, anyone who wants to be on the board can be because we really need the extra help. Historically, people have only been asked to step down if there is an ethical concern. The parent organization that provides funds does not provide rules or guidance on staffing, …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: This is not a current issue, but it’s something that has been eating at me for a long time. I’m trying to figure out if I unwittingly helped someone embezzle money. I believe the statute of limitations has passed for this (potential) crime in the state that it took place in. It has been 15+ years now. My mother has always been a little shady with business her practices. I do not believe she has any qualms about “bending” the law. She is also very charismatic and I suspect would be quite an effective cult leader (i.e., good at talking people into things, frequently nefarious). I’m onl…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Over the years, we’ve heard about people who chose some pretty odd hills to die on — people who became so strongly committed to a minor fight that they lost all sight of logic and decorum. To wit: “Our break room has a giant whiteboard calendar in it. Last year the company sent us a new one and asked us to start using it at the first of this year. Not really sure why … the other was perfectly usable and there was no differing info on it, but hey, whatever! The new calendar is slightly smaller than the previous one – as in the previous calendar was 36×48 inches and the new one is 32×44 inches. The woma…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I work at a fairly large international company with several offices and remote workers all over the country. I manage a team of three graphic designers. My position and team are all new; previously all design work was outsourced. I was hired to put together a team and bring design in-house. I did all of the work in the beginning, and added additional designers one at a time. I am exempt, and my team are all non-exempt. Now that the team is running well, I’m finding myself without much to do. I meet with my boss biweekly to relay the status of our projects, new clients, vendor issues,…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Am I being a grouch about this touchy-feely group activity? I work at a school. As the closing activity for today’s professional development session, Fergus (an administrator) split us into three groups, then asked two-thirds of us to stay seated with our eyes closed while the other third stood and moved around the room. Fergus read a series of prompts and invited those who were standing to “connect with” (that is, tap or pat on the shoulder) someone the prompt applied to (“connect with someone you admire,” “connect with someone whose work you’d lik…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. I talked to Vulture about what the TV show Severance reveals about workplace life — including the inauthenticity of corporate life, how the Overtime Contingency exists in real life, the weirdness of workplace perks, and how work can degrade your spirit. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: Real Americans, by Rachel Khong. This is an epic family saga told in three generations: a pair of scientists who fled China’s Cultural Revolution, their daughter, and the son she has in America with the wealthy heir to a pharmaceutical company, whose business is intertwined with her parents in ways she learns of only later. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full a…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Last week we discussed final F-you’s to jobs or bosses you hated, and here are 18 of the best stories you shared. (Caveat: appearing on this list is not an endorsement of said behavior in every case! Stories are shared primarily for entertainment value.) 1. The revenge A legal secretary at the Big Law firm I worked at knew she was going to be fired, so the day before she went into a bunch of partners emails and sent their wives evidence of infidelity, printed out confidential employee evaluations/communications about bonuses/pay and left them in everyone’s desk, and then cleaned out the swag closet (…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. 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: God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. A teenager disappears from the summer camp her family owns, 14 years after her older brother similarly disappeared. (Amazon, Bookshop) * I earn a commission if you use those links. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My employees can’t move on after I yelled at them I do not deny I have yelled at some of my employees out of frustration. I am in my 60’s and had several strokes and my demeanor is short. I have apologized, but the group of employees cannot get past the fact that I yelled and are now holding it against me. I know that I am out of touch with the younger generation, having grown up in the late 60’s and early 70’s and in a military household I would like to say, “Knock it off and get over it,” but I know that would make things worse. As an engineer, I …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My partner is angry about how I handled harassment at work Content warning for domestic violence. I’m a woman in finance. Six months ago, I was put into a team with an older male colleague who from day one decided to call me “Legs.” When someone challenged him, he said, “Well, look, she’s got legs up to here!” He gets too close, stares at my boobs, and one time walked past me while I was at my desk and, rather than squeezing my shoulder in passing, he put his hand effectively on the side of my boob and as he walked off his hand brushed off me. Word…