Performance Tracking and Feedback

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. One of the oddest things about interviewing people for jobs has always been how frequently candidates say they don’t have any questions when I ask what I can answer for them. This is a job they’re considering spending a large chunk of their waking hours at for the next however many years, and it’s likely to have a significant impact on their day-to-day quality of life and progression in their career. Surely there’s something they’d like to know about. At New York Magazine today, I talk about why people don’t ask questions in interviews, why that makes a bad impression, and 10 especially strong questio…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I am to be married next year and decided to send out save-the-dates early. I really like my coworkers and my boss and wanted to invite them to the wedding. When my boss received my save-the-date, they swung by my desk to congratulate me and we got to chit chatting. The conversation led to my boss asking to see a photo of my fiancé as they had never met before. I showed them a photo from my engagement and — It was like the smile literally slid off their face. I asked if they were okay, and all they said was: “Is this who you are marrying?” I was really confused and had a very bad feel…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. Coworker asks someone to get him food from the cafeteria every day I work as a consultant for a company and have an older male colleague (in his late 40s) who has mobility issues due to his weight. He sits almost all day and arrives very early before anyone else arrives. He cannot walk more than a few feet without pain and asks me (or another colleague) to grab meals for him at the cafeteria almost daily. He gives people money for his food, which is always junk food, and is very apologetic and appreciative. Most people, including myself, bring pack…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I have a senior role in a large architecture and engineering company, and my partner is an academic. I sometimes ask him for advice on how to handle a thorny problem at work and occasionally ask him to read something I’ve written. My partner, on the other hand, regularly asks for my help in core aspects of his job — putting together a spreadsheet to organize marking for courses, fixing up formatting on PowerPoint slides, shortening grant applications to meet word-count requirements, drafting sensitive emails, etc. My partner also often talks through ideas for papers, which I really li…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader asks: One of my employees is positioning himself to move up in a couple of years. He would still report to me, but the working relationship would be a little different, and it could have a major impact on my work and the organization if that relationship is toxic. The problem is that he thinks he is a lot smarter than me. He apparently read something about “managing up” and now he is trying to manage me. He is very, very bad at it. His attempts to manipulate me are clumsy, but he doesn’t realize that I know what he is doing (because he’s sure that he is much smarter than me). There’s also som…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I just read your post about an intern refusing assignments due to political beliefs. I am finding myself in the same position but with multiple direct reports who have been part of my team for years. We share enough with each other personally to know we are on the same side politically. However, a large chunk of our work is for those on the opposite side, and what these clients are sharing on social media (through the official organization’s pages) is pretty horrifying. My direct reports are so upset that they don’t want to be associated with this client, but unfortunately it’s part o…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. How do I give 360 feedback to my clueless coworker? I have been asked to complete a 360 review for the junior staffer on my team. In general, I would like to only be positive in these, as that’s what I want in return! And I have never expressed these feelings to this coworker. But he is like a little baby in the outfit of a 26-year-old man. He doesn’t have the general sense at work you’d like someone four years into their career to have — as an example, he scheduled our boss to meet with board members, assigning them a meeting time without asking t…

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: Blob: A Love Story, by Maggie Su. After a woman takes home a blob she finds in an alley, it grows into her ideal man. (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 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. It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go… 1. My mom answered my phone and told off my boss I was very sick with Covid and my mom had to come take care of me. She already knew issues that I’d been having with my boss; he’s a jerk. I learned later that he called to ask a question that he could have easily found the answer himself. My mother answered the phone and yelled at him because he does a lot of abusive things and keeps us working on days off, even vacation, not to mention when people are very sick. He is the type who can dish out the punishment or rude comments but cant handle it when you…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Do you think it’s a red flag when a team in a smaller company immediately drops you into a group text on your personal phone upon hiring? The context is that I’m very happy in my mid-level position at my very not-toxic Fortune 100 company. I like the work and the people and while I wouldn’t hang out with a few of these folks for recreational coffee, we’re Work Friends. I’ve worked for smaller companies and have found them to always be cliquey and toxic and in each other’s business. Like high-stakes high school, where instead of losing head cheerleader, you lose your job. For me the …

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. With more people being called back to offices where they’re expected to share crowded spaces with coworkers — including sharing desks — let’s talk about shared space horror stories! Maybe you share a desk with someone who pinned up deeply personal love notes from their partner all over your shared space … or set the screensaver on your shared computer to be photos of herself in a bikini … or maybe you had a boss who “was constantly leaving open the very explicit romance e-novels she was reading on the shared workstation so you’d sit down to start your shift and suddenly you’re reading about parts quive…

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 boss told me to bring my sick four-year-old to work with me I want to start off by saying I am the absolute backbone of our store and everyone, including my boss, knows it. My boss has the flu right now and my four-year-old has been sick. She woke up crying, feverish, snotty, etc. I texted my boss at 4 am (I was scheduled to open at 10:30 am) explaining that my child’s sickness had taken a turn for the worse and asked if there was a possibility that anyone else could cover. She responded that there was no one besides me who could work and I would…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I just got feedback from my manager that I need to work on communication with a coworker. I think it’s mainly about tone not content, and I agree with the feedback — I have admittedly been pretty short. I’m irritated and it’s coming across. Where I’m getting stuck, though, is that it’s coming from a place of frustration and I’m not sure how to solve it without doing something about the underlying frustration. Let me give more context. My coworker Petunia and I are a two-person team. For the sake of anonymity, let’s say we do llama support; she is more junior and provides, say, llama …

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…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I have worked in nonprofits for the entirety of my career (~15 years). I’m a highly mission-driven person, so I am generally a lot happier in my work when I feel strongly connected to the nonprofit’s aims. As an example, I’ve worked at both a public library and a private college, and I was much happier at the library even though the hours were longer, the pay less, and the work more menial — just because I felt like my work was contributing to a better cause. I was recently hired at a very small nonprofit that, on paper, seemed to tick all the boxes for me. However, having been there…

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 boss is great in some ways but is he crossing lines? I’m trying to figure out if my manager is interested in me as more than a coworker, or if the lines he crosses are just a part of his personality. I’ve been with my company as a general manager for eight months, hired into a lower position and immediately promoted by this man. He is always kind and funny with me. He calls me awesome, amazing, sunshine, tells me how funny I am, tells me I’m tough, and that he wants to make my life easier. And these are just the things he regularly says. He is ne…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Am I shooting myself in the foot by engaging politically in a public way on social media? And how should I weigh the pros and cons? Will a future employer even check for my social media, and if so, what will they think? Can I just temporarily disable my social media during the job search, and will that be sufficient? I am currently in a full-time graduate program (middle career going back to school) and expect to be applying for jobs when I finish in about three years. The types of jobs I would apply for are mainly in academia (meaning I would also probably apply for government grant…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I own a business and recently I’ve had an issue with one of my employees. She will go all day without eating (because of what looks like poor planning) and then get very irritable with everyone and complains about being hungry. I’ll offer to order her something or offer her the granola bars we have in the break room, but she brushes me off. I think she thinks I’m being an annoying mom type but really I just don’t want to deal with her hangry attitude because it affects the entire office when she gets like that. Any tips? I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today,…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I supervise a small team of seasonal staff in a resort community. Most of my team lives a short drive or 10-minute walk down the road from our main office and compound. About two-thirds of the work we do is based out of various buildings in the resort town, all within about a five-block radius (short walking/cycling distance or a short drive, though nearby parking is at a premium on busy summer days), which are usually scheduled in half day chunks (morning shift in one location, then lunch, then swap to a different location a short distance away). We also have some duties that take st…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. People complain that I don’t want to be at work social events I’m in a senior leadership role, and have been for the last six years. I keep running into the same problem and I’d love your advice. I don’t enjoy social activities at work (Christmas parties, picnics, etc.), and I also don’t like corporate retreats. I’d rather do my tasks, as I’m very busy. I’m very much in the minority. I always encourage my staff to participate. I do attend, but it’s out of obligation. People notice and then complain to my boss, who keeps talking to me about my part…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: My father-in-law was visiting over the weekend. He started talking about how my brother-in-law is job-hunting to escape new company ownership. At one of my brother-in-law’s interviews, the employer asked to talk to his wife (my sister-in-law, who isn’t employed and cares for my three young nephews). I was so surprised that I exclaimed, “They can’t do that!” Well, I guess my comment offended my father-in-law because he raised his voice and said back, “What do you mean they can’t do that?!” I said what if the candidate was a single mom with kids? My father-in-law snapped at me, sayin…

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Ever realized you haven’t seen a particular coworker in weeks, asked around, and discovered they left the company a month ago and no one bothered to tell anyone? If you’ve worked for reasonably functional companies, hopefully the answer is “no.” But, whether through incompetence or design, a startling number of employers don’t announce it when employees depart — leaving their colleagues to piece it together themselves after their emails go unanswered for weeks. At Slate today, I wrote about this bizarre and inefficient phenomenon. You can read it here. View the full article

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…