employee isn’t clearing decisions with me, I don’t want baby gifts, and more

by Alison Green on March 27, 2025

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My employee isn’t clearing decisions with me and argued with me at a staff meeting

I am the executive director of a nonprofit, without any formal management training. I raised $1.5 million last year and we now have some new staff people, including a male technical expert who makes more money than I do (but reports to me). Today he got excited about attending a trade expo that I had previously considered and didn’t assign anyone to go to, because the demographics are on the young side for our program, so it’s not a top priority. My employee got invited by a buddy of his in the industry, announced he was going, and invited two other coworkers to go with him, without ever running it by me first. He did this on a Teams chat. Which I interrupted by saying I wasn’t planning to send anyone to this event. And when he argued on the chat, I said I’d like to speak with him directly. I need to calm down and figure out what to say before I talk with him.

My main thought is to ask to help me understand what his thinking is and why it seems so important for him to go, and then to ask what kind of return we might expect on that investment of his time. He just went last week to a conference that we had to pay $500 for, so he could network with employer partners. However, coming back, he said he didn’t really talk with anyone. Except one person, who is the same person who invited him to this next event. I could use some help thinking about how to hold him accountable, without being seen through the lens of sexism as a complete bitch.

Well, first, get the worry about being seen as a bitch out of your thinking as much as possible. It is a real thing for women in positions of power, but you will be a lot more effective if you don’t let that fear constrain you. Care about your relationships with people, of course, because that’s part of being an effective leader, but you can’t let that prevent you from having direct conversations with people. (And frankly, some people are primed to see women exercising authority as bitches no matter what you do, so you might as well just carry on with your job and get things done. Let the people who have a problem with that self-identify.)

As for this conversation: go into it open to the possibility that he just didn’t know how this works in your organization, since in previous jobs he may have had the authority to decide what events he was going to attend, could invite others, etc. Explain to him how it works in your org and for his job — that you want to talk through potential events before he signs up, and you should both be assessing them through a lens of the likely return on investment. Share your reasons for being skeptical about this one, ask for his perspective, and then go from there. You can also explicitly say that since he came back from the last one reporting he hadn’t spoken to anyone, you want to get better aligned about the goals for these events and what he’ll achieve there.

I think right now you’re approaching this as a challenge to your authority, but you’ll have better results if you approach it — at least initially — as just needing to get better aligned. The process of doing that will make your authority inherent without you needing to spell it out (and if that turns out not to be the case, it’ll highlight that there’s a bigger problem you need to address).

2. Manager is asking to see all the candidates for open jobs, but it’s my job to screen them

I work in HR as the recruiter for my small company. Recently, a director of a department has been asking to see the candidates before I process them. He has done this in two different times. I talked with my boss, and he never did it when my boss was in my current position.

I don’t know what I should do. Recently he demanded to see all the candidates for another position. I let him see them all but I feel that I am encouraging the behavior to continue. I want him to feel that I can do my job but I also want to put up a boundary because I work in HR, meaning I am dealing with sensitive information he isn’t allowed to see. What are your thoughts?

I’m on his side! Managers should be able to see all the candidates for any position on their team if they ask to; in fact, I’d encourage them to do that at least occasionally, because it’s a way to spot-check that they’re well aligned with whoever is doing the screening. It’s a way for you both to find out, for example, that you’re screening out people for lacking X when the hiring manager doesn’t actually care that much about X, especially when someone has Y, or all sorts of other things. You should want managers involved in this way, because it will help you refine your process; they will typically understand the nuance of what will make someone successful in the role in a way that someone outside their team won’t, so having their involvement is a good thing. There’s no sensitive information in applications that managers can’t be permitted to see. (I wonder if you mean answers to EEOC demographic questions, but those are required by law to be kept separate from applications anyway.)

That said, the fact that he’s asking to do this when he didn’t ask it of your predecessor likely means something. It could simply be that you’re new to the position and so he wants to be more involved until he’s confident you know how to screen well for roles on his team (totally reasonable if so). Or he could be concerned about the candidates you’ve been sending and so he’s gathering more info (also reasonable, but also something he should be up-front with you about). Or it could be something else — but start by assuming it’s a reasonable request. You can always ask him if there’s anything about way you’re screening for his jobs that concerns him.

3. Employees want to give me baby gifts, but I don’t want them

I’m currently pregnant with my second baby. My first was also born while I was working at this same company, but in the four years since he was born, I have moved up the ranks from an individual contributor to a director with 10 direct reports. Our company is also mostly remote — three of my team are hybrid in an office, but the rest of the team, including me, are remote.

When I was pregnant with my first, my boss at the time organized a virtual baby shower, which was nice, and two of my very close colleagues and my boss sent me nice (and unexpected) gifts.

This time around, I’ve had two of my direct reports specifically ask me for links to my baby registry, address, etc., as they want to give gifts. However, I do not want them to give gifts — especially after reading AMA for years, I know gifting up is a big no-no, especially since I know how much they all make and I don’t want them spending their hard earned money on me!

The most I’d accept would be a card, but I know if I give anyone my address, they will start sending gifts, even if I make it clear I don’t want any. As a result, I feel like I can’t even share my address with my team. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I need to find the right words to say, “I appreciate the thought, but please don’t.”

“It’s so kind of you to ask, but we are swimming in baby stuff from the first one, and just your well wishes are all I want!”

If you didn’t already have the first baby to lean on, you could use a slightly different formulation: “It’s so kind of you to ask, but my family went a little crazy and we already have more baby stuff than we need” or so forth.

Also, if your team has done virtual showers for other new babies, check in with whoever tends to organize those and make sure they know you don’t want one.

4. Can my salaried husband be switched to hourly pay?

My husband, “Bob,” has worked for many years for a very small company that provides a professional service to clients where the client is billed based on the hours of work provided, and there can be very busy crunch periods depending on the needs of the clients (think consulting). Bob’s job involves some billable work and some internal work for the company that can’t be directly billed to clients. All the work he does is highly skilled and requires specialized knowledge.

Up until recently, Bob has been paid a fixed salary. During crunch periods when there’s a deadline for a client, he can work very long hours, but during slow periods it can sometimes be a struggle to find enough work to do.

The company has not been bringing in as much business lately, leading the owner (his boss) to feel some financial stress. As a result, he’s asked Bob to move to an hourly pay structure. He wants him to “aim for” 30 hours a week, but the hours would be totally dependent on the amount of client work available for him. His boss is willing to guarantee him a minimum of 20 hours a week (as in, if there is zero client work, he can do up to 20 hours a week of non-client work), but beyond that, his workload is totally dependent on how much client work is available. If they are in a crunch period, he would still be expected to work as much as needed (and would be paid time and a half for overtime).

Bob does not love this set-up. He would actually be fine working a 30-hour a week schedule for three-fourths of his prior salary, but the system his boss has proposed puts him in a position where he never knows how much he will need to work in a given week, plus he is still expected to be responsive to clients whenever they reach out (typically multiple times a week) and be available for meetings as needed, so he can’t plan for his time off. Is this legal? And what is his best path for pushing back on this change?

Yes, it’s legal. It sounds like he’s changing Bob to a non-exempt status, where he’s paid by the hour (with a minimum of 20 hours guaranteed) and will earn overtime for anything over 40 hours in a week. If the boss weren’t offering the overtime pay, it would be illegal but since he is, it’s all by the book.

It sounds like the crux of the problem is that Bob is expected to maintain total availability each week, while potentially only being paid for 20 hours. If I were in Bob’s shoes, I’d look at how much overtime he’s likely to earn — if with the time and a half it’s enough that it works out close to what he was making previously, this might work out fine. But if the overtime won’t come close to making up for the pay cut, he can try pointing out that he’s being asked to hold complete availability from week to week without getting paid for it, and see if they can negotiate around that. If the company just isn’t bringing in the same revenue anymore, there might not be any room to negotiate and Bob may have to decide if he wants to stay under these new conditions or leave. But it’s reasonable to open a discussion about it.

5. How can I find out more about a job when the interview process is really short?

I’m a recently (illegally) fired federal employee, and some state and local governments have been doing amazing and much appreciated work to try to recruit federal employees, including job fairs and expedited hiring processes. I recently had an interview with an agency for a job that I became connected to through a job fair that sounds like a potentially good fit, but the interview was very short and left almost no time for my questions. Apparently the next stage in the process is to extend an offer.

I’ve never had such a short job application process and am wondering what the best move is to get more information to consider whether I would accept it if I were offered it. I’m used to having multiple interviews and opportunities to talk with staff/colleagues during the process. I was going to ask the HR person if I could set up additional time to chat with the hiring manager, but do I do so after I get the offer when I have more leverage? I’ve also separately been trying to find some potential colleagues through my networks to get a sense of the job but so far have not been successful. I appreciate any thoughts you have about the best way to approach this!

Yes, wait until you have an offer and at that point you can say, “Would it be possible for me to set up a call with the hiring manager before accepting? I have some questions about the role that I didn’t have a chance to ask at my interview.”

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{ 334 comments }

{ 334 comments… read them below }

  1. Tiger Snake*

    #2 – I am getting the sense that you may feel defensive about managers seeing the hiring filtering, because you’re concerned they might challenge or disagree with you.

    I’ve worked in roles where there’s been very high levels of scrutiny like that too. It can make you feel very personally attacked or that your “authority” is not respected. What I found helped was to ensure that the decisions were better explained in the first place.
    In your case; you have metrics you need to measure candidates about. What can you do as part of your screening to make what each candidate was measured for each metric more transparent?

    When you have it very clearly articulated and broken down so that everyone can follow your logic, and it means that if they disagree with you; the conversation is no longer “you’re wrong”, its “this specific dot point here, I would grade it differently because your assumption _ is not how I interpret it”. Then you’re not on the back foot trying to defend yourself from a nebulous vibe.

    1. Artemesia*

      A competent hiring manager is the one who knows what is really needed; they should always have the right to view the applicants and ultimately choose the person hired.

      1. Lady Lessa*

        Ages ago, I applied to this one company, via the appropriate channels and got screened out. A co-worker who knew I was job hunting, and knew the manager who was hiring. I sent my resume directly to him and was the one hired.

        I know that 1 data point is only an anecdote, but it does show that sometimes the best folks get screened out by HR.

        1. Panda (she/her)*

          I recently hired someone who HR had screened out, but when I didn’t find any good fits in the first round of interviews I went back through all the applications that HR screened out and found the person I hired. He is fantastic!

          1. LaminarFlow*

            Yes! This has happened to me in a few ways – I have been the candidate who was screened out, but referred to the hiring manager by an internal employee. I have been the hiring manager who gets a referral from an internal employee for a candidate who was screened out, and I have referred a screened out employee to another hiring manager.

            All of these situations are so common, and I know that candidate pools can be pretty large. But, hiring managers should have visibility into candidate pools since they are more familiar with the skill set that is needed for the role.

          2. M2*

            I always see all the candidates. HR has no idea what a hiring manager needs. It takes a few extra minutes to look at everyone. HR can do the phone screens (with notes they send to you), but I never ever let HR do the initial screen out before I look at resumes. Years back, they did and the people they sent to me were not qualified.

          3. Momma Bear*

            This. It may be that he went through the first set of applicants and wants to see more options before re-posting the job listing. It could be that someone has almost the right experience or they’re considering changing the role but want to see who applied first. I was once hired on a second round and I could easily imagine the Hiring Manager saying, “Let’s take a look at those resumes again” before starting fresh.

            Whatever the reason, LW doesn’t know and I think it says a lot that they feel this is a measure of their competence. I’d look for a way to bring it up either with the hiring manager directly or my own boss. We can’t fix what we don’t know.

          4. Annony*

            I was recently talking to someone who was complaining that they didn’t get any qualified applicants. I knew someone who applied who was definitely qualified although he might have had less experience that was desired and mentioned that. It turns out that HR screened out all the qualified applicants because they misunderstood the certification required. (HR was looking for degree A instead of certification B when those two pools are pretty much mutually exclusive). Some jobs have pretty niche requirements and looking at the original pool makes sense.

        3. Snow Globe*

          I had a very similar situation a few years ago, where a former colleague had applied to work in my department, but HR never passed on her resume, even though she was extremely qualified. I talked to the hiring manager, who specifically asked the HR recruiter if she’d seen the resume, and it was finally passed on. Turned out, the candidate had explained her experience using wording that was different than the job description. It was perfectly clear to me and the hiring manager, but the recruiter didn’t understand it and therefore discounted it. She ended up getting hired.

          1. CommanderBanana*

            I have had SO. Many. Interactions. with HR ‘professionals’ who were doing screening and clearly had no idea what the job they were trying to screen for was. I have also been on the other side of looking through applications that HR was dumping because, again, they didn’t understand the job, the terminology, the credentials we were asking for, etc.

            I’m sorry, until HR departments clean up their act, if I am hiring for a position I am never trusting that the HR person screening resumes knows what they’re doing and I am going to want to see every resume. HR can die mad about it.

            1. Colonel Gateway*

              Recruiting should never have become solely an HR function – and I say this as an HR person!

          2. Rogue Slime Mold*

            the candidate had explained her experience using wording that was different than the job description. It was perfectly clear to me and the hiring manager, but the recruiter didn’t understand it and therefore discounted it.
            I feel like this happens a lot, and it’s uncovered only when there’s some outside link to check on the application (“I told Melinda to apply, she’s perfect, why haven’t you given us her resume?”).

            Which of course feeds into applicants who are sure this must have happened to them, too.

            1. Pine Tree*

              This is crazy frustrating and I’ve been there. I’ve seen applicants screened out because they said they did something like “Delivered high quality reports on time” when the job posting said one of the duties was to “Write reports” so HR didn’t think that the words they used were applicable….argh!

              1. 2 Cents*

                Or “analyzed metrics” instead of “Knowledge of analytics programs” when the two are equal

          3. I'm just here for the cats!!*

            This shows why the hiring manager should be part of the processes of screening people. someone from outside the department might not understand different language, or what the role entails.

          4. MigraineMonth*

            I think this happens so often in computer programming. It is so, so common for a job opening to list their ideal set of programming languages, but there are so many that are “close enough”.

            The programming language names *really do not help*. If the role requires Java and someone several years of experience with C# applies, great! That works. If someone with C applies, that’s a maybe. If someone with several years of experience with JavaScript applies? Nope. Java and JavaScript are completely different types of languages that just look similar.

            (Then there’s the issue where a hiring manager says, “We need an expert in FastAPI”, the HR person dutifully writes the role description to require 8 years in FastAPI, and the literal inventor of FastAPI can’t meet that because he created it 1.5 years ago.)

            2. Clisby*

              Yeah, my husband once saw a software development job requiring at least 10 years of C++. At the time, the only people who could possibly have had 10 years with C++ would have worked with Bjarne Stroustrup at AT&T Bell Labs when he was creating the language.

              If you could have gotten those people, they’d have been unicorns, but my husband assured me the money was nowhere near good enough to hire anyone like that.

              1. In the provinces*

                This might well have been deliberate. If there are no “qualified” applicants then they can hire an H-1B, who, given the precarious nature of their visa, will work longer for much less money.

        4. BigBaDaBoom*

          That happened to me once as well. The manager even knew I was going to apply and knew me by reputation and I didn’t even know HR (likely automated system) screened me out until they asked why I never applied.

          We went around it and I got hired and then two weeks after I was already in the job I got the email rejecting my application because I didn’t fit the criteria. Sure, Jan.

        5. jez chickena*

          Same. For whatever reason, the HR person decided I was not a good fit. It would have been a lateral move, and my last employer was a competitor. I submitted my resume to the hiring VP in a different way, and he hired me the same day he interviewed me.

          For my team, I removed the HR person from the workflow because she took too long to screen and screened out applicants I wanted to see.

        6. Velawciraptor*

          Absolutely. This is particularly true when an algorithm has any part in the screening process.

          Our office’s HR does screen the applications, but still gives all applications to the hiring manager. There’s just a note of which applications do not appear to meet qualifications. That ensures that if there’s something HR missed, the person with the closest understanding of the position and the team’s needs can get a look at all of their options and make decisions accordingly.

        7. Joielle*

          That happened to me too! The job required 5 years of a specific type of experience, and the person screening resumes didn’t realize that one of my previous jobs fell in that category despite having a slightly unusual title. I reached out to my contact who had encouraged me to apply, and they got me moved back into the candidate pool, and I was ultimately hired. And I edited my resume after that to make it abundantly clear!

        8. Ama*

          Yeah, I’ve told this story here before but many years ago I was helping admin for the job search for a new head of my department at a university. The hiring committee was getting very frustrated because none of the candidates HR forwarded were suitable. It was a kind of a tricky role where if you didn’t know the nuances of the role’s duties, A and B both seemed like acceptable qualifications but really the hiring committee wanted B or B and A both, but definitely NOT someone with just A.

          HR kept forwarding people with just A and insisting those were the best candidates that were applying. Finally someone on the committee asked a colleague they knew had B to apply — and they were immediately rejected. At the point the committee asked HR to show them their criteria and it turned out they had written them down backwards — they had on their list A only and to screen out B. So that was six months of the process completely wasted.

          Which is not to say that the OP is definitely making this kind of mistake, but if the manager can see all the candidates it will make sure that if there has been a miscommunication, it can be fixed as soon as possible.

        9. Jinni*

          This has happened to almost everyone I know. It’s made me mistrustful of ATS. I can’t reconcile a system that excludes the people actually hired fairly often.

      2. sparkle emoji*

        As someone in a similar position to LW 2, I agree that hiring managers should (and usually do) know, but sometimes they don’t articulate those needs well. I think Tiger Snake’s ideas are useful for clearing that up. In my personal process I also always appreciate hearing the why or why not for specific candidates, because that often shows holes in a job description.

        1. sparkle emoji*

          (And to be clear, I really try not to weed people out unnecessarily. Just pointing out that I have seen some times where a JD doesn’t match up too closely with the skillset that eventually gets hired.)

      3. MassMatt*

        I’m not sure what is meant by “see the candidates before I process them”. Does he mean “I want to see all the *applications* before you sift through them, or does he mean “I want to see (I.e. interview) everyone who has applied?

        I assumed the latter and thought it was bananapants. If it’s the former, it could be useful to make sure the manager and LW (who manager has not worked with much yet) are calibrated and looking for the same things.

    2. BellStell*

      Our HR system is such that all applications go into our system and hiring manager and two of the interviewers review and rank all apps and then decided to interview top three. HR has little idea of good fits for teams from inside my firm.

      1. WoodswomanWrites*

        We have a comparable system at my workplace, and that’s in addition to our excellent recruiter. They help the hiring team design the job descriptions, cast a wide net for the best possible candidates, and manage the website to make sure candidates can access it. They then support the hiring team in filtering the applications and help with crafting effective interview questions based on the job description.

        I see the process as involving everyone, not an either/or with the recruiter and hiring team.

      2. Annika Hansen*

        Our hiring panel also makes these decisions. I would be OK if HR wanted to remove any people with absolute deal killers – like people who need visa sponsorship or lack a required degree/license. However, we know our job best. We know that what things are equivalent. HR is an expert in HR not our little piece of the IT world. They support many other departments, too, so I think it is silly for them to become experts in it.

      3. FricketyFrack*

        My small department has changed to this method after having HR pull otherwise good candidates for things like, “not being a notary” even though it only takes a few hours to become one, or pulling anyone who asked for over the salary range without the opportunity to discuss it with them. The apps they were passing on to us were often garbage, but they were removing decent candidates from the pool for sometimes totally meaningless things, so now we just review them all ourselves.

      4. Pomodoro Sauce*

        HR often has a poor idea of what would be a good fit in my career path too — and that’s OK, they hire for many different career paths and adsorbing the specialized knowledge required for all of them would be an unreasonable ask! And if a manager didn’t do something with the previous person in an HR position, it’s possible they’re trying to implement better practices now — or that they’re taking this opportunity to look under the hood and make sure everything is running smoothly.

        One of the things I’ve done is environmental construction compliance — within that field there are several specialties with very different backgrounds. If you need someone to do stormwater pollution prevention plan compliance, someone with a decade of monitoring for species protection would be a terrible fit and vice versa — it’s not practical for HR to keep track of the permit needs of a project, and which fields have changed a lot in recent years, and what’s changed on the job market recently — for example a year ago I wouldn’t look twice at the resume of a federal employee fired for cause, but right now that resume would be at the top of the pile.

    3. Adam*

      I think I would put it another way, at least in my line of work; maybe it works differently elsewhere.

      The job of a recruiter doing candidate screening is to accurately implement the criteria set by the hiring manager or whoever else is deciding who gets hired. By definition, if there is a disagreement about how to rate someone, the hiring manager is right and the recruiter is wrong. That doesn’t mean the recruiter is bad at their job or anything, sometimes the standards were poorly communicated or the hiring manager actually wants something different than what they wrote down (which happens all the time), but there’s no authority to be had on the recruiter side, the authority rests entirely with the hiring manager.

      1. Engineery*

        That’s my experience as well. HR’s non-negotiable hiring responsibilities are in recordkeeping, EEOC, protection of PII, and other compliance tasks. With legal responsibilities taken care of, everything else is a matter of providing a professional service to hiring managers.

        It’s a serious problem for an employee to delude themselves into thinking that, because they administer a business process, they also have decision-making authority within that process, or the right to conceal important work product from the actual decision-makers.

        OP2 may well be fired unless they quickly adjust their understanding of their role and purpose. I’m sure OP2 is acting this way not out of malice, but out of misplaced concern that their work quality is being questioned. But OP2’s language – “demanding,” “encouraging the behavior,” “put up a boundary” – tend to suggest OP2 sees the candidate pool and screening process as something they own, which they can mete out to hiring managers who are appropriately deferential. If OP2 starts acting on this mistaken belief, this can easily raise questions about whether or not OP2 can be trusted in an HR role.

        (The “demand” is particularly concerning, as it suggests there was a “request” which OP2 refused.)

        1. Sunny*

          Very much this. HR is there to support the decision-makers. They’re not a decision-maker themselves. They will not be working with this individual, supervising them, incorporating them into their team, or in any way responsible for their job performance, their outputs, the department’s outputs, etc.

          Sorry OP, but this is a very misplaced understanding of the role of HR, especially in hiring.

    4. Jennifer @unchartedworlds*

      I am appreciating the phrase “on the back foot trying to defend yourself from a nebulous vibe” :-)

    5. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      When I was hiring, I was looking for specific certifications and certain types of experience, in combination. But my HR team doesn’t know a thing about medical coding or how to evaluate medical coding experience to know how much experience of what type makes up for this certification gap for this particular team I’m hiring for, and reviewing all the options myself is much faster than trying to teach them. (Always, but especially when they’re also the types who are so on the ball that they posted my job opening blank with only “remote” in the title. :-P )

      1. Purple stapler*

        Totally different industry, but yes, HR has never done our jobs and is rather dreadful about picking decent people.

        1. Golden*

          The biotech subreddit had a similar post or comment thread a while back with a lot of people feeling the same way about their HR departments. A number of managers there recommended that those hiring screen all the candidates, with others agreeing to follow that advice. Maybe this is a trend in other industries as well and is why OP2 is seeing it come up with their coworker.

        2. CommanderBanana*

          HR in general? Is crap. Sorry, it just is. The odds that you’ll have an actual competent HR ‘professional’ are really, really low.

      2. Mallory Janis Ian*

        ” . . . they posted my job opening blank with only “remote” in the title.”

        Because sometimes, the word “remote” is ALL a job candidate needs to see! :-D

    6. Junior Assistant Peon*

      We were trying to fill a QC technician job at my company, and our HR manager insisted we go through a search firm. The recruiter kept insisting there were no qualified candidates because none of the resumes had enough keyword matches with the job description. In reality, the job could be done by anyone who follows directions well, and the previous QC technician was a non-scientist promoted from the plant floor. When we finally insisted on seeing all of the resumes, there turned out to be plenty of acceptable candidates.

      I see this all the time too as a candidate. I get recruiter calls for wildly ill-fitting positions because someone who doesn’t understand my field matched keywords between my LinkedIn profile and the job description.

      1. Not My Usual Name*

        My position is “Category Management Consultant.” I am neither a manager nor a consultant (I’m an individual consultant in supply chain and am responsible for developing/executing strategy for a whole category of spend, including running bids and writing contracts). The last time I sat in on interviews for another category manager for our team, 3/4 of the resumes we were given from HR were people coming from senior management positions — literally directors and vice presidents. Just…no.

    7. Llama Llama*

      I work in payroll accounting for a very large company. I do not run payroll or do any of the HR. My team is responsible for the related balance sheet accounts and the accounting for payroll that didn’t hit the ledger properly. We don’t even do the taxes!
      I told my recruiter I wanted someone with strong accounting experience and that I did not care about payroll experience and told him why. He only sent me people with strong payroll experience and most lacked accounting.

      So I looked myself and found my unicorn that checked all the crazy boxes of what I needed.

    8. Chauncy Gardener*

      I never let HR screen resumes for roles I’m hiring for. There is no way for me to convey all the nuances etc that would lead me to interview someone. It’s always been a waste of time to have HR screen resumes for me. They screen out all the people I ultimately hire!
      And while in general, I have not found a lot of value in the HR function, this is not one of those areas. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to expect HR to know all the ins and outs of every single role in the company.

    9. ecnaseener*

      Yeah. There’s no point feeling defensive about it, the reality is that as a recruiter you can’t possibly understand everything relevant to every job at your company. It’s an inherently difficult situation, so take all the help you can get!

      1. Tegan Keenan*

        Well-stated. I have never had good luck with HR screening my candidates, because unless they have done and hired for my types of jobs, they aren’t going to understand what I’m looking for. I’ve had too many excellent candidates screened out (and I’ve experienced it myself at a job I was ultimately hired for).

        Doesn’t mean they are bad at their job. I would much rather have my HR staff be really really good at things other than screening candidates.

        1. Momma Bear*

          I think that if there’s a non-negotiable requirement like a visa or citizenship, then HR should put those aside and send the rest forward. But determining the nuances of coding experience? Better left to those who do that work.

          1. Le Sigh*

            Yeah, agreed. Honestly, given the volume of work I have I’d prefer HR to screen for me, but I’m screening for a specific type of experience and skill in writing, and often I’m looking for someone with less “typical” experience — but I know it when I see it. I think my HR team is great, but they’re not trained in what I do. I don’t expect them to screen writing samples and I’d be pretty irritated if they tried to overrule me on something like that.

    10. Rusty Shackelford*

      It might help if you separate the resumes you would have screened out and the ones you would have submitted to the hiring manager. If it turns out you’re doing a really good job at screening, they’ll see the evidence. And if it turns out you’re missing something, you’ll become better at it.

    11. Lemons*

      I think Alison’s point about how the manager may prioritize something you don’t and vice versa is really important too, there could be little nuances they see that you don’t depending on the situation, and collaborating could result in a great hire!

      For example, I was hiring for a design role once, and the screener kept sending me people who had weak portfolios. I asked to see the screened-out options, and found an incredible match, who ended up being an incredible hire. The screener wasn’t a designer and it turned out they were evaluating based on email communication skills alone.

    12. Lyon*

      I used to be involved in hiring in a popular, well-known organization which received a lot of resumes, so initial screening of resumes was an HR function. This was welcome to keep volume down, but still, we frequently asked to see all resumes, typically in the following situations:

      – When there weren’t enough qualified applicants in the screened pool
      – When the screened pool was missing a candidate profile we expected to see (e.g. when hiring for a chocolate teapot maker, we might expect to see chocolatiers and traditional teapot makers; if we only see one of those groups, we’d checked the screened applicants before problem-solving if we didn’t recruit in the right places, etc.)
      – When the screened pool was missing a specific candidate we expected to see (e.g. an applicant who had reached out directly, a former intern we encouraged to apply, etc. We wouldn’t just want to rescue that individual from the slush pile, but also figure out why they were screened out so we could recover similar candidates).
      – When the job we were recruiting for was just nuanced and odd and we knew it would be difficult to screen for without specific expertise.

      None of this had to do with a judgment of the quality of the HR person, just an acknowledgement that screening is hard unless you are the hiring manager.

  2. Daria grace*

    #1: it is so, so appropriate for you to speak with him and lay out your expectations. In the absence of previous clear authorisation to make such decisions, deciding without manager approval that not only are you going to external events at the organisation’s expense but you are bringing other coworkers with you is not normally acceptable conduct.

    1. asdf*

      This is a person reporting to the executive director in a role with relatively high pay. In many places that is a high up position with lots of autonomy and it would be odd to have to ask permission for these things. It isn’t here, and LW should make that clear, but that doesn’t mean the employee did something obviously wrong that is not normally acceptable conduct.

      1. AnonAnonSir!*

        I was going to say: it sounds like this guy is in a very senior role here and in some orgs that would be enough to give him this level of autonomy. It isn’t here – and that’s something OP will want to clear up – but as Alison says this may well be a case of crossed wires and wrong expectations rather than malice and undermining on his part.

      2. TechWorker*

        Right but in those sorts of (larger?) companies you would potentially also be responsible for your own orgs budget & know what it is. Doesn’t sound like that’s the case here.

        1. Anonym*

          Large org here; there are still approval processes for spending company money on stuff like this, no matter how senior you are. And a manager will absolutely weigh in on fit and appropriateness – if it’s not deemed fitting, you can take PTO and go on your own time and dime, but not on the company’s bill, and not as an official representative.

      3. Daria grace*

        Hence the previous authorisation qualifier in my statement. If he was in a position where he was authorised to make those kinds of decisions, that should have been communicated (ideally in formal policies or position descriptions)

      4. RIP Pillowfort*

        I’ll be honest I’ve never seen an org where someone can just unilaterial decided to go to a conference and not have it approved by someone unless it’s the VP/CEO/Owner. Typically this comes out of the budget and you don’t get to just decide conference attendence on a whim.

        Just because he has a high salary and reports to OP doesn’t mean he’s a decision maker. OP says the guy is a technical expert in a non-profit. They’re likely paying him higher for that technical expertise, they have a non-standard reporting structure, and the guy has not shown a lot of promise when sent to conferences! Personally I’d have a long talk with him about how you can’t just go to these things for the organization and not bring back something (networking results/learning/etc.).

        1. Smithy*

          I think what’s worth clarifying is around lines of decision making.

          I’ve worked at very large nonprofits – and when it’s my supervisor who manages our team’s budget then there’s no need to ask anyone at the VP/C-Suite level to attend. She (typically) makes those choices, and if she’s the one personally attending – she’s likely to share that with her boss as an FYI, but not truly to ask for permission, because the system assumes that she’s looked at her budget and assessed its worthiness. This would go for all sorts of Department/Team Directors across where I work.

          Now, there might be a situation where someone was planning to attend a conference on say public health or programming in ABC country, and organization has recently decided that we’re winding down all of our public health work or closing our ABC office. At that point, there may well be a conversation between that Department leader and their boss – but it might be sharing new information, or going over why they still think it’s valuable to attend despite that dynamic.

          For an organization of this size, if the OP is the one still making all budgeting decisions or perhaps not all – but is making all travel decisions – that’s not abnormal. And it’s entirely fair to share that out. But it’s likely that this employee used to work at a larger places where budgetary line decision making was spread across a wider range of people. And explaining it doesn’t work like that at OP’s org is a good starting place.

        2. Corrupted User Name*

          Yeah, I’m a fairly high up Manager in my organization and I’d still run travel/conferences by my Director. And while I’m generally empowered to approve those things for my staff I still give my Director a chance to weigh in. I’ve never worked anywhere in 25+ years of both private and public sector jobs where an individual contributor could decide to do this on their own, much less tell others to also sign up!

        3. CeeDoo*

          If they send themselves somewhere you didn’t intend them to be, can’t you just make them responsible for their own travel expenses and have them take PTO for it? I can decide to send myself to a conference in Seattle, but I can’t force my job to pay for it.

          1. ecnaseener*

            If you’re attending as a private citizen, sure. But if you’re identifying yourself as a representative of your company, then they get a say in that. (cf the 2017 letter from the employee who got fired for sending themself to a conference where they didn’t belong!)

          2. RIP Pillowfort*

            I mean sure but to me conferences are professional venues. I’m not really going to go to one outside of work. It’s expensive!

            1. CeeDoo*

              I wouldn’t either. But I also wouldn’t sign up for something, invite 2 coworkers, and tell my job they have to pay for it and give me the day off for it. Oh, and I misspoke. It’s a trade expo, not a conference.

        4. Absolutely*

          “Just because he has a high salary and reports to OP doesn’t mean he’s a decision maker.”

          Or that he had his own budget.

        5. Sillysaurus*

          Interesting! In education and healthcare, employees generally decide completely unilaterally what conferences to attend and then submit for reimbursement afterwards. We all have professional continuing education credits needed to maintain licensure, and it wouldn’t make any sense for a hospital CEO to decide if Hilda needs to attend that Infant Feeding conference or not. So the idea that you’d need approval first is new to me! But I assume not new to this LW’s employee.

      5. MsM*

        Yeah, at most of the nonprofits I’ve worked for (none of which would qualify as more than medium size), figuring out what conferences to go to is very much the province of the department heads unless literally all of our funders are going to be there and they’re bringing all of their friends, or unless there’s nothing left in the budget for it this year. (Which might be something OP needs to examine, if they’ve been handling these as one-off requests prior to now.) That doesn’t mean a conversation with the guy about how they can get the most out of this one or if there are concerns about coverage is a bad idea, but I do think OP might want to take a step back on the “no one’s going anywhere without my say-so” front.

        1. Smithy*

          Yeah – I used to work somewhere where basically that was the policy, but it was communicated in a way that didn’t feel so top-down/authoritative.

          Obviously, the reasons for that level of oversight can be related to very valid concerns around budget, coverage, profile raising priorities, etc. But even with that model, the way its presented can feel more collaborative and collegial.

      6. Pescadero*

        Yep…

        I get the impression this person came from a real company, with real budgets… and this place is quibbling about $500.

        An amount of money that would be seen at most tech companies as a throwaway lunch spend.

        Someone high up who is used to be able to spend money to do his job may just leave if it comes to asking permission for relative pennies.

        1. Jennifer Strange*

          This seems like a really unkind comment. Just because this company (a non-profit) has a smaller budget doesn’t mean it’s not a “real” company. Also, the $500 was for the conference he DID attend (where he did nothing, so it doesn’t sound like the money was spent for him to “do his job”); we don’t know how much this new conference would cost.

          If he’s used to being able to do whatever he wants and that’s a dealbreaker for him then he’s welcome to leave and go where he can do that. But he doesn’t get to act like his new company is out of line for not giving him that freedom here.

        2. bamcheeks*

          I mean, looking at this in a different light, if Bob did come from the tech sector into a non-profit and is naive enough to be shocked that there’s a much tighter budget for things like conferences — probably best that gets out in the open as quickly as possible so everyone can make well-informed decisions!

        3. iglwif*

          I see what you’re saying, but I don’t think this is a good (or respectful) way to talk about it.

          Many, many very real and very effective organizations do not have the kind of revenues where $500 is chump change — whether because they are small, or because they are not-for-profit, or because they are in industries with very small margins, or all of the above, or other perfectly valid reasons.

          And I have never worked anywhere that didn’t require sign-off from pretty close to the top for people to attend conferences and represent the organization. This is not just because of the costs involved, although that’s important: the cost isn’t just the registration, but also the frequently much more expensive travel and accommodations pieces of the puzzle (as well as more costs for exhibiting and sponsoring), and there is simply never going to be budget available for everyone to go to all the conferences they’d like to go to. It’s also because when you attend a conference, you are representing your organization and working on behalf of your organization, which means there are goals to meet, messages to convey, collateral to create, strategies to align with, people to talk to … there has to be a business reason for (a) you, specifically, to go to (b) this conference, specifically, and (c) do specific things / talk to specific people there.

          That was true when I worked for a company with 15 employees. It was equally true when I worked for a company with 7000+ employees. It’s just how things work in most industries.

        4. I Have RBF*

          Someone high up who is used to be able to spend money to do his job may just leave if it comes to asking permission for relative pennies.

          So? Would this level of a mismatch in spending authority expectation be viable in the long term?

          $500 for a small non-profit isn’t even relative “pennies”, it’s serious money. A small non-profit can only afford to send an IC to a conference if there is a demonstrable ROI.

          I worked for a large private university (non-profit) as an IC. I had to negotiate paid time to go to a conference I was speaking at. I paid part of my own travel costs, too.

          This was an organization that had a healthy endowment, owned a lot of very expensive real estate, and had its own zip code. Not poor, but very, very frugal. They were still using the old “tank desks” in 2015. (I love the things – they don’t jiggle when someone leans against it.)

          Even when I’ve worked for large corporations it was rare to go to even one conference a year. If I wanted to go to more, I paid for it all myself, and took PTO.

          This guy sounds like an entitled ass.

          1. Academic Physics*

            I’m inclined to agree with you. Or at least not well tuned into their new norms. We will see how well they do with a corrective talk, but yeah I would never have expected to attend any and all conferences. Especially if I was asked to network and just talked to 1 person!

      7. Observer*

        In many places that is a high up position with lots of autonomy and it would be odd to have to ask permission for these things.

        Yes. But.

        For one thing, it’s one thing to make that decision for yourself. It’s another thing to “invite” people who are not even in your reporting chain.

        It’s even MORE odd to actually argue with your boss about it in a public meeting. I don’t care how high up you are, but when your boss pushes back on something that you have not yet discussed with them, the right response is to ask for a meeting to discuss.

    2. bamcheeks*

      I think the question LW needs to decide first is a) do they want to be the decision-maker on attending conferences or ) do they want to delegate that to Bob, and if so, what’s his budget for the year and what RoI do you expect from it. Both ways around are completely normal and reasonable ways for this to work: not having clarity is not!

      1. bamcheeks*

        (It sounds like LW would prefer the former, but I would still encourage her to think it through and have some good reasons for that choice: that will give her a firmer footing and more authority int he conversation.)

      2. Smithy*

        Absolutely this.

        I think it’s also reasonable to put it out there that Bob may have discretion on conferences where the total cost of travel per person is $X and anything above $X need approval by the OP. I used to work at a small organization, where the ED was the approval for most travel. However, my job required a lot of day-trip travel between cities and these were decisions I could make independently. However all over night travel needed her approval.

        Genuinely being kind to the OP, there are a number of different ways organizations of all sizes work with travel. Given the newness and smaller sized nature of the organization, if the OP hasn’t taken time to think this all the way through and write it out – there’s no need to beat themselves up. However, now might be the time to provide that clarity for Bob and everyone else.

      3. e271828*

        Employee Bob needs to have it hammered hard into his head that when his manager asks what the return on investment in sending him to a conference, the organization is the beneficiary, not Bob personally. What are they covering at this conference that is relevant to the organization and Bob’s work there? Is Bob’s main reason for attending to maintain his personal networking? It sounds like it.

        It is completely normal for employee travel paid for by the company to have to be justified in terms of and applicable to the company’s goals. Bob seems to not get that.

        1. JustaTech*

          Yes! One time I was telling my mom about the presentation I was going to give my department about the conference I had just attended and she was very surprised that I was expected to do that (and I think write a report).
          She said when she went to conferences (in a very very different field) the whole point was to network and see people, not to take notes and give presentations.
          I’m still confused what happens at a conference if people aren’t giving presentations or holding roundtables.

    3. some dude*

      $1.5M is an amazing amount of money to raise, but it is not unlimited money, and you are likely going to have a rougher fundraising environment this year. It is 100% appropriate to make sure that any money your organization has is spent in a way that advances its mission. Conferences can be a way to do this, but they can also be an expensive waste of time. I work at a $200M org as a mid-level director, and they are strict about what I can and cannot attend, because besides each conference costing the org ~$3,000-$4,000 when all is done (with travel etc.), I’m out of the office and can’t get my day-to-day work done. Which is totally fine if I travel once or twice a year, or for staff for whom travel and meeting with others is an essential component of their job.

      Keep an eye on him and make sure this was just a misunderstanding and there is a mission-critical reason for him to go to these events and he is making good use of his time. In my area there have been several nonprofits who got in trouble because an executive used the org as an excuse to go to fancy dinners and drink fancy liquor at strip clubs. Probably not what he is doing, but it does happen.

  3. Computer Man*

    #2 – relevant information: is this director of a department with really specific skills (eg IT)?

    As an IT person, I can tell you I hate the idea of having to fill my resume and cover letter out with janky specific keywords because a non-technical person might be screening based off the job advert.

    1. Computer Man*

      Also for what it’s worth, the last few Helpdesk people we’ve hired have gone through the manager AND us at the sysadmin level so we can find suitable people.

      Last sysadmin we hired, me and the guy (who was leaving) both went through them as well. The guy we hired (who is honestly awesome and way better at the job than me) probably would have been screened OUT because his resume just didn’t come out that strong.

      1. bamcheeks*

        possibly a stupid question: why would you need an LLM-based AI for something that’s non-generative? Wouldn’t that just be a traditional algorithm?

        2. r..*

          You of course can, it is widely done, and it has lots of cheap tricks to get around, too.

          For example you can simply paste the job advert itself into your resue, either using a very small font and white text on the margin or simply positioning the text outside the PDF Mediabox. Both cases will lead to many text matchers picking up on the text.

          The big advantage of using a LLM is that you don’t have to build the natural language preprocessing and semantic extraction part. You can feed both an idealized “desired candidate” resume and the actual resume into an LLM and then reason over the token vectors.

          1. bamcheeks*

            Are you aware of anyone actually doing that?! It sounds a lot more labour intensive than just scanning them yourself for keywords! Or am I misunderstanding what you mean when you say “feed … an actual resume into an LLM”?

            1. r..*

              If you’re already pursuing automation in a hiring pipeline (either because you hire a lot, or because you want to build a product others will use), it isn’t that much harder to integrate than most currently existing text extraction and pattern matching frameworks. The LLMs used here can extract information from a PDF.

              There are multiple efforts under the way, that break down roughly in 2+ venues:

              1: Full automation: You feed the PDF and a prompt of your desired candidate and couple of scoring criteria, have it output a score from 1 to 10, and discard anything below X.
              2: Automated summary extraction: Like 1, but instead of a score you ask it for a summary instead that is reviewed by a human. The human may or may not have access to the original CV.
              2+ Automation with human oversight: Either 1) or 2) with a human in the loop that is supposed to review the output; I don’t count it as a separate avenue because human nature and the circumstance that this is supposed to reduce human time required will almost always lead to this degenerating to its automated baseline model.

              To be clear on this: I think the results created by this will be bad, and we already are seeing very amusing arms-races of LLM-assisted job ad generation, LLM-assisted cover-letter/resume assessment, LLM-assisted automated cover-letter/resume generation and submission, and also tools to attempt to detect automatic generation and submission.

              But … honestly for many jobs a purely keyword-based filter is going to create bad outcomes, and based on my experience the worst LLM-based outcomes aren’t that different from the worst Human Mark 1 HR keyword filtering-based outcomes.

            2. An Australian in London*

              It’s been done (a while ago), and it was so terrible it was abandoned.

              Amazon’s machine learning team created a tool in 2014 which they trained on ten years of resumes, telling it which were and were not hired. The tool was excellent at predicting hires: it downgraded women, all references to “women’s” (like “Women’s Computer Club”), and graduates from all-women colleges.

              Despite three years of tuning it, the system would not stop doing this. Amazon concluded the problem was in its tech – an interesting conclusion compared to, say, “our last ten years of hiring history significantly penalised women and the AI system correctly detected this”.

              1. bamcheeks*

                I have read about that one before (although at the time it was just called “machine learning”, not “AI”, and as far as I remember it was a system they were testing alongside normal recruitment and never actually used in practice? Or did they?

          2. Elitist Semicolon*

            The problem with putting keywords in small text in white font is that even PDFs don’t always convert properly – especially if you’re screening in a browser-based app rather than downloading or printing them. I’ve seen quite a few resumes come in formatted in what seems like backward italics only to find that they’re fine if I download them and read them in an actual PDF viewer. Putting anything in white text to game the system runs the (present, even if not highly likely) risk that “llama manicurist” over and over and over will be visible to the reader.

          3. Lenora Rose*

            Mostly, the “AI” form I’ve heard of using to filter is more along the lines of a more advanced algorithm, not an LLM, so this seems like a weird way to do it, meant to get around buying up a separate algorithmic system and work on the cheap.

            (And both sound like a terrible way to do it, period)

  4. STEM Admin*

    Our HR rep recently tracked our best candidate (by far) into a not-competitive folder I only found by accident. While sending me candidates with zero applicable experience – but they had master’s degrees, so it was OK (not to me, but in the HR rep’s opinion). HR doesn’t understand the nature of the jobs we post in my division and can’t effectively screen beyond confirming they have the minimum educational background required. Maybe you could talk to the hiring manager and ask him to better explain what he’s looking for that may not translate perfectly to some of the keywords in the position description. But even then, hiring managers should be as involved as they’re willing to be.

    1. Llama Llama*

      From the hiring manager perspective, I agree. I am in payroll accounting but we have nothing to do with payroll process. We just reconcile the balance sheet accounts. The HR keeps gravitating towards payroll people and not sending me accounting people no matter how I spell it out. So I just look at all candidates too if my first batch is junk.

    2. A Simple Narwhal*

      I remember HR kept sending us awful candidates for our co-op positions, and it was frustrating as heck. Pretend we’re an accounting team for a llama training company, candidates with zero accounting experience or interest kept gushing about being excited to work with llamas, despite the fact our department has zero contact with llamas, we’re accounting. We kept asking HR to send other candidates, and they insisted they didn’t have any more.

      I finally asked to see the job description, and it was awful. Full of nonsense buzzwords and zero mention of what we actually do or the skills we were looking for. I rewrote the description to what we actually needed and wouldn’t you know – HR had screened out plenty of good candidates because they didn’t fit the garbage job description they had written. My boss was not happy that we had been “making do” for years with ill-fitting hires – no idea why he never thought to look at the job description before but hey, I guess better late than never.

  5. Annie*

    Suggestion for anyone in #4 Bob’s situation: It may be possible to make the dates/times clients usually reach out the “core hours” with full availability expectation and engaged to wait pay and have an on-call schedule that isn’t “all of yours/your clients’ waking hours” outside of that.

    1. Antilles*

      I’ve seen that too and it might work with the 20-hours minimum arrangement that the boss is proposing:
      Take his guaranteed minimum of 20 hours per week and coordinate those core hours (e.g., being available 1 to 5 pm every weekday afternoon) that gets extended as needed if there’s more than the minimum 20 hours.
      Whether this is feasible or not very much depends on details we don’t have (e.g., timing/turnaround of assignments), but it’s certainly a good suggestion worth considering.

    2. Skippy*

      I was wondering how being available for client work is different from the getting paid to wait that staff must be legally paid for.

      1. A Simple Narwhal*

        I was wondering about that too. If he needs to be available full time then he should be getting paid full time.

        Otherwise I like Annie’s suggestion of set “office hours”.

        1. username*

          yes, reading AAM over the years has trained me to think that being available should be paid. Can someone clarify the difference here?

          1. Ask a Manager* Post author

            If he needs to sit at his computer waiting to be contacted and can’t leave the premises/do anything else, he’s “engaged to wait” and needs to be paid for the time. If he’s free to go about his day but needs to be available to begin working if someone contacts him, he’s “waiting to be engaged” and doesn’t need to be paid.

            1. Beth*

              Is there a clear boundary line to distinguish between these? I’m thinking of a past employer of mine, who bragged about their flexibility and how we could go about our day during low-work times. In practice, that’s not how it played out; they expected us to be available instantly (not 15 mins later, not as soon as we finished an errand) if someone contacted us, and we would get in trouble if that didn’t happen.

              I was salaried, so I treated it as “engaged to wait” since I was getting paid regardless. But hypothetically, if I’d been hourly, would their telling us to go about our day in between calls have been enough to define us as “waiting to be engaged” and let them not pay for that time? Or would the quiet requirement to be instantly available have been enough to legally require them to pay for those hours, regardless of promises of flexibility?

              2. Engineery*

                For on-call, the DOL test of whether or not you’re “engaged to wait” is whether or not you can “effectively to engage in personal activities” during the period. The DOL has a very restricted definition of “personal activities” which provides employers tremendous authority over the lives of off-duty employees.

                There’s a two-part test:

                1. After receiving the call to report to work, are you permitted enough time to leave your current location and proceed to your worksite? To facilitate this, the employer can restrict you to only those “personal activities” that do not restrict your access to the phone, that you are able and willing to cease at a moment’s notice, and that keep you close enough to your worksite that your commute is not significantly longer than if you were staying at home.

                2. Are interruptions for work so frequent that you cannot complete *any* personal activity in the space between them?” There’s no minimum time period for “an activity,” which of course benefits employers.

                Basically, the DOL expects you to limit yourself to a small subset of “personal activities” to meet criteria 1, for free. You must be paid for time worked, which includes time on the phone and at your worksite, but not travel. Your employer must limit the frequency of callouts to meet criteria 2, or else be forced to pay for the periods between callouts.

                If you’re required to stay at a specific worksite (including a home office) then that would typically fall under “engaged to wait.”

                1. Reluctant Mezzo*

                  There are some big box stores who get away with that kind of scheduling and they are not well loved just for that reason.

        2. Ann O'Nemity*

          I’d also suggest that some of the guidance around being on-call apply here too. It sounds like he needs to be accessible for calls, emails, and meetings, which sound like on-call.

          This is a grey area because there are so many factors determining if he needs to be paid. Does he have to be AT work or in a certain geographic area? How long are the periods of non-work and can he reasonably spend them on personal things? How much notice does he get to show up to work? How frequently is he fielding calls and emails during these non-work hours?

          I’m usually pessimistic about getting paid enough in these kinds of arrangements. Employers do it because it benefits them! Employees often struggle because while they can technically do some personal things, they also need to be ready to drop everything – and that means they can’t work another job, care for child, etc.

    3. Reluctant Mezzo*

      This sounds like those jobs which are only 20 hours a week, but with changeable weekly shifts so you can never plan anything for the rest of the week. I would try to avoid that if I were Bob.

  6. Notalways*

    I think #2 is actually very context dependent! In some industries and positions, a single job posting may receive hundreds or even thousands of applicants. In those scenarios, there’s often someone with special recruiting skills and experience doing the screening and selection of a smaller pool of applicants. I don’t think we should assume here that a small company means a small pool of candidates. When there’s a veritable sea of applicants, it IS unreasonable for a manager to insist on viewing all the applications when the company has specifically made that portion of the hiring process someone else’s job. Unless there’s an issue with the folks they’re putting forward. And many companies now do at least partially blind hiring processes, so I completely understand why HR may not be keen to share all the applications with a hiring manager. I’ve heard several higher ups over the years suggest Wildly Illegal or Just Very Problematic methods for the selection of applicants. Having someone else with appropriate training do that initial screening can help cut down on this nonsense.

    1. TechWorker*

      I think the issue is that specific recruiting skills are important but it’s very difficult to be an expert in recruiting for every type of role. Even in your scenario, whilst it would be reasonable to grumble about it & privately judge it as a waste of their time, I still think the hiring manager should have access to the full list – at least occasionally to audit it if not all the time.

    2. Analytical Tree Hugger*

      No, I still disagree. A hiring manager should still be able look at the full list, even if it is large, when they ask for it. It’s great that the company has someone to do an initial screen, but they shouldn’t be a gatekeeper preventing the hiring manager from seeing the candidate pool.

      Hiring a bad fit or missing a great candidate has a much higher cost than the short-term cost of a hiring manager spending time reviewing applicants.

      Honestly, this idea feels like it’s leaning into reasons why staff tend to dislike HR; it’d be an example of HR being a roadblock, rather than supporting the work.

      1. Cabbagepants*

        +100

        HR is not going to know better than the hiring manager and it is simply bananas for HR to expect to *block* the hiring manager(!!!!!)

      2. Le Sigh*

        And the consequences of hiring the wrong person or having to start the hiring process over again largely fall on the hiring manager — they’re the ones dealing with the gap in staff capacity, interviews, or having to fire someone. So yeah, I want a fair amount of control over the process!

    3. ecnaseener*

      I disagree, I don’t think it becomes inherently unreasonable when you reach some number of applicants. It might not be the best use of the manager’s time, but LW isn’t in a position to make that call. (And I do say “might not” — it might well be a good use of time.)

      HR will (hopefully) not use Wildly Illegal methods of screening, but I don’t think they’re immune to Very Problematic methods. When you don’t understand the nuances of what’s needed for a job (because you can’t possibly understand all of that for every job at your company!), you have no choice but to fall back on the pieces you do understand, which tend to be things like higher education, whether the resume includes the exact words and phrases you’re looking for [or whether it was written by someone who was taught how to write a good resume], etc. – things that tend to reinforce existing disparities.

      Obviously hiring managers have these same biases, but letting someone who actually understands the needs of the role take a look gives you a chance to cut down on that flavor of nonsense. Insisting that only one person or group gets to decide and no one else can even check their work is…not exactly comforting.

      1. Le Sigh*

        Honestly, having more than one person look in general is good. I can think of at least a few times that my boss or another person provided perspective I hadn’t considered in screening resumes and it helped me reframe my thinking and land on a good hire.

        It’s also tricky when dealing with positions that don’t fall neatly into a checklist of qualifications. I’m fine with HR screening for non-negotiables (e.g., if you need a law degree or something). But I don’t require degrees for the jobs I hire for — I am looking for certain kinds of niche experience. Unless you’re really familiar with my work and have a background in writing, it can be hard to spot the strongest candidates.

    4. Observer*

      there’s often someone with special recruiting skills and experience doing the screening and selection of a smaller pool of applicants.

      And that is most definitely not the LW. I say this for two reasons. Firstly, if that’s what was going on, I would have expected them to say to. But also, the thing they ARE claiming to need to set a “boundary” on is just not the case. The actual resumes should not have information that the hiring manager is not allowed to see.

      And many companies now do at least partially blind hiring processes, so I completely understand why HR may not be keen to share all the applications with a hiring manager.

      You don’t need to deny the hiring manager access to the resumes. It’s easy enough to redact that important pieces (like the names and colleges attended) while giving the rest to the manager.

    5. Atalanta0jess*

      Hard disagree. These are contexts in which HR assistance with screening may be very logistically important because of the high volume. However, isn’t that all the more reason that it is important to develop a good screening methodology that accurately reflects the hiring manager’s priorities? How can you possibly do that if the hiring manager isn’t privy to who you are screening out?

  7. MK*

    #3, I am all for cultivating a “no gifting up” culture at work, but there comes a point where it becomes condescending and overreacting. It’s not the end of the world if a subordinate send you a small baby gift; by all means tell them you don’t need anything and that you don’t have a registry, but this “I am afraid they will learn my address!” is over the top.

    1. KateM*

      We don’t know that it would be “a small baby gift”. OP may know better than us if their employees have a tendency to go over the top. For example, although I gave my SIL a hint about what our daughter wishes for her upcoming birthday, I will not say anything to my mother because knowing her she would buy the suggested item on top of everything else she herself decides that our daughter needs/wants (all while we are drowning in children stuff).

      1. Antilles*

        Also, even if it truly is a “small baby gift”, it’s way too easy for employees to feel like they’re forced to contribute or can’t say no or have to contribute or etc. Or for it to start as an intention for a few small baby gifts and it spirals out of control.

        1. LaminarFlow*

          I totally agree with the sentiment of people feeling forced to contribute to this baby gift, when they don’t want to, or they can’t afford to.

          People can also get weird and gossipy with these things. One “contribute whatever you want” gift situation that I was asked to contribute to led to a few people gossiping about how little a few people contributed, but those low-contributors had the nerve to sign the card from the group.

          This happened a long time ago. I was living with 4 roommates, and thrilled to be making $15 per hour. If those gossipy colleagues thought I was going to contribute an hour or more of my paycheck to Big Boss, they had lost their damn minds.

      2. Anonym*

        OP knows their team best, and they’re entitled to keep their home address private. And yes, companies typically have that info for various reasons, but OP is allowed to set boundaries they’re comfortable with!

        Being the boss doesn’t take away their right to set personal boundaries. And just because people have kind intentions doesn’t mean they get to override the boundaries and comfort of the would-be recipient.

      3. LW3*

        LW3 here! This is one of the exact issues. One of my employees has made it clear they intend to go above & beyond to send gifts (multiple! and for the whole family, not just the baby!).

    2. Earlk*

      I agree, we got our team lead a gift when she had a baby but we started a team chat without her and all agreed we’d kick in a few pounds, no pressure from her or anyone above to do it, just a nice thing to do for someone we like.

      1. MK*

        I realize this may be a cultural issue; I don’t see it as a big deal, because where I am from people don’t buy expensive gifts for coworkers for any occasion. I think the max I ever spent was about 20 euros, and usually it’s a case of everyone chipping in 5-10 euros to buy a modest gift from the whole team.

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          It’s also a pay differential issue– if OP’s staff is entry-level, for example.

      2. Marion Ravenwood*

        Yeah, I’ve contributed to wedding/new baby/leaving/birthday gifts for colleagues who were senior to me, but it was a very similar setup where the person’s manager or another close colleague would send out a Teams message or email along the lines of “if you’d like to chip in to Sam’s gift, here’s the link to the online collection pot or you can stick some money in a jar in the office”. There was definitely no pressure to do it, nobody being called out because they were deemed to have not put enough in – the person organising it might do a reminder message to people but it was always very light touch – and the money was all pooled and either given to the person as a lump sum (cash or vouchers) or put towards buying a gift chosen by the person who organised the whip-round. To me that doesn’t feel like gifting up so much as it’s “I like this person I work with and so I would like to contribute something to recognise this occasion in their life”.

        1. Marion Ravenwood*

          I should also add that in these situations, the gift was always labelled as coming from the team as a whole.

    3. Miss V*

      Yes! I completely agree that gifts shouldn’t flow up, but I also think a small token gift would be fine.

      I’m a knitter, and whenever anyone in my department has a baby I like to knit them a baby hat and a pair of baby socks. Cost of materials is minimal, the main cost would be my time, but at this point I’ve knit so many I can do them while I watch tv or I’m riding in a car. Besides, baby stuff is about as close to instant gratification as you can get in knitting.

      I’ve gifted these to everyone- people on my level, my boss, and even my boss’s boss. I understand gifts really shouldn’t flow upwards, but in my mind these are a gift for the baby, welcoming them to the world. And every baby deserves a little something handmade.

      I think OP should reach out to whoever usually plans things like this and have a discreet conversation and stress that they really don’t need anything, but if everyone absolutely insists they would like something very small (under ten dollars) to decorate the baby’s room, or a small blanket or something, so that they can look at it and know they have employees who are kind and thoughtful.

      1. Prairie*

        This is what I did. Several coworkers asked for my registry information and I said I just wanted baby books. It worked great. People were able to show they care and I didn’t have to feel uncomfortable about them spending money on me because it was under $10.

        1. Anne of Green Gables*

          We’ve had multiple employees opt for a book shower, and it’s always gone over well with gift-givers. There are options in a pretty low price range (easy to get board books for under $10) and tons of variety. Many people have favorites that they are excited to pick out for the new baby.

          Full disclosure: I work in a library, but I feel like kids books are universal enough that this would translate well even in non book-centric fields.

      2. LaminarFlow*

        Oh wow – hand knit hat & socks is just lovely! What a thoughtful gift and keepsake to give an expecting parent! I am fairly certain this would make me cry upon opening it, lol!

        1. JustaTech*

          When I had my baby my boss’ wife (who I’d met maybe 6 times over 12 years?) made me a twin-size quilt. Like, fully pieced and quilted and everything.
          And then she made *another* for my other coworker who was having a baby at the same time.
          I did cry, and thanked my boss, and wrote a letter to his wife because I know how much time and skill (and material!) that takes.

    4. A. Lab Rabbit*

      this “I am afraid they will learn my address!” is over the top

      I think you are totally misreading LW’s intent and meaning here. She’s not afraid they will learn her address; she doesn’t want them to know it because she doesn’t want them to send her things.

      I don’t think LW is being condescending or overreacting.

      2. Anonym*

        Why can’t people just take no for an answer? Why override a person’s wishes? Kindness is taking people at their word about what they want.

    5. ecnaseener*

      At the same time, gifts are supposed to be for the recipient’s benefit, so if a person doesn’t want gifts then I don’t think we get to call them condescending for that.

      1. MK*

        It can be, when the reason you don’t want gifts is because the person giving it is a subordinate who makes less money than you. I am not saying that’s the case with OP, just that the principle can be taken too far and come across as rejecting a generous impulse.

        1. A. Lab Rabbit*

          There is nothing wrong with “rejecting” a generous impulse if the person on the receiving end doesn’t need it or doesn’t want it, though. (I don’t think “rejecting” is the right word here, as it implies rudeness. “Deflecting” perhaps?)

          It is entirely possible in some orgs for people to gift up in order to get in good with the boss, which is simply not appropriate. (We’ve seen plenty of examples here of what happens when some employees have more access to the boss than others.) A very basic “no gifting up” rule avoids all of that.

        2. Elitist Semicolon*

          I would much rather one person be miffed that I am rejecting their generous impulse than have multiple people feel pressured to contribute money towards a gift that I don’t need.

        3. Anonym*

          It’s okay to reject a generous impulse. When it goes against the recipient’s wishes, it’s no longer generous.

    6. username*

      I don’t understand why all the suggested scripts avoid the actual issue. Why can’t she just say “that’s really kind, but it’s actually a very important principle to me that we don’t gift up here”?

      1. Rex Libris*

        It gets awkward because the US has a weird work culture thing, where we’re supposed to pretend everyone is at the same level and all just part of the team, including the supervisors and managers, except in all the ways that they have to run the show and clearly can’t be just part of the team.

      3. LaminarFlow*

        Yes! This is great! Why not just avoid the multiple “Oh, I already have everything I need!” type conversations, and just kindly lay it out with the truth?

        This might avoid some of the pushy people needing multiple reminders that someone doesn’t want a gift, and their wishes should be respected.

    7. LadyVet*

      It’s not, though. If multiple people send a “small” gift, that’s clutter the LW will have that she wouldn’t have otherwise.

    8. fhqwhgads*

      It’s not even really a gifting up issue in this context. I’m assuming there may be some regional and/or cultural differences in play somewhere, but my understanding is it’s generally Not The Done Thing to even have a registry or shower for a second child – because you likely do have a lot of the baby stuff from the first (unless there’s a 10 year age gap or something).
      So it should reallllllly be NBD for OP3 to use the “already have plenty of stuff from first kid” language, with anyone, not just the direct reports.

    9. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      You are the one overreacting and OTT. No one but you said it’s “the end of the world”.

      I have no idea why you think it’s condescending to express I don’t want gifts and have the other person respect that. Ignoring what someone requests is the condescending behavior – oh, you don’t mean it! I know better than you what you want!

    10. Festively Dressed Earl*

      It sounds like LW3 is relatively new to her director position; she’s moved from individual contributor to director in the 4 years between children. It’s important that LW begin as she means to go on, which includes establishing the “no gifting up/no coerced gifting” boundaries. Politely sticking to her principles isn’t an overreaction.

      As an alternative, if her reports are within a reasonable distance from each other, why not have an in-person luncheon at an appropriate restaurant before LW goes on maternity leave? If there’s a person who loves to coordinate showers, ask that person to find a restaurant that works for LW’s whole team in case anyone has special dietary requirements, and reinforce the ‘no gifts’ policy. Make sure the time isn’t coming out of her reports’ PTO and that they aren’t picking up the check. Everyone gets a chance to celebrate without financial pressure, the team gives the gift of being present, and LW can shift her focus to her new baby while looking forward to rejoining her team later.

      1. MrsPitts*

        FWIW – if there is someone else in a similar role that is expecting, it will make them look bad to have a shower if LW doesn’t have one. (This happened to me and a colleague pointed this out.). I love the book idea, but diapers and wipes are always good ideas too.

  8. allathian*

    I work for the government, and most government jobs in Finland require at least a Batchelor’s degree, some require a Master’s. HR, or even a decent ATS, can be great for screening out the candidates who lack the formal requirements of the role. But in my org alone we have hundreds of job descriptions. I’d say that HR may be great at screening out the least suitable candidates, but not necessarily at picking the best candidates.

    I’d say with the caveat that sometimes the peers of the postion you’re hiring for can give valuable input, especially if the hiring manager doesn’t have any experience in the role they’re hiring. I work as a translator in a comms team, none of the managers I’ve had has ever worked as a translator, and as a consequence I’ve been a part of the hiring team three times. The first two times I got to see the application materials of the candidates we interviewed, the most recent time I got the chance to see all the 20 or so applications that we got, and my contribution was vital (my manager’s said as much) to ensure we picked the strongest candidates to interview.

    I could’ve worked with any of the candidates we interviewed, but my manager offered the job to the candidate I felt was the strongest, and she accepted.

    1. Lily Rowan*

      Yeah, I am also in a niche role in a larger organization, and I bet our HR recruiters are great at picking people for some of our most common roles, but I don’t expect them to fully understand mine, so of course I would do a better job of screening applicants.

  9. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

    #1 – tech expos. Yeah, I was involved in two major tech organizations and often managers don’t like them. For one reason, some bosses don’t want to send their people there as they may end up knowing and learning too much.

    At one place I worked – the management was scared because their employees were grossly underpaid, and might find out “how the other half lives.”

    At another, the manager didn’t like that their subordinates may have acquired expertise in a particular area, or many areas, and thus they feel they “lose control of their people.” And at another place, they had a “need to know only” attitude – only allow your technical employees to just barely learn enough to do their jobs, and STAY in those jobs. For instance, a manager might get upset if one of his/her people learns new skills that make the employee more agile – and, MORE MARKETABLE.

    And finally, as we get into the second quarter of the 21st century, the way you keep your career going is through NETWORKING. One goes to these tech expos, meets up with professional colleagues, and builds a community within what is somewhat of a small world. There’s often management resentment (and fear) when that happens with someone. It does empower the IS/IT person – and perhaps, emboldens him/her.

    If you network, and find yourself without a situation, you may end up having your telephone ringing before you’re out the door. When I finally retired (for good) at age 70 – I still had employment opportunities after that. NETWORKING is how it’s done today, and tech expos and professional groups generate networking opps.

    So – OP #1 – you might have a difficult time clarifying why you don’t want your employee going to these things. Especially, if, as my Dad used to say, he’s “been around the block and across the border.”

    1. WS*

      All good points, except that in this case Bob has already said that he didn’t network at the last event he went to. I think it’s reasonable for OP to ask why they are spending money on his attendance if he is not, by his own admission, networking; also to clarify what OP would like him to be doing when he does attend.

      1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        By “networking” I meant networking and developing one’s self, not necessarily foot-stomping for your company,

        1. Jezebel*

          But if Bob attending the event isn’t beneficial to his company, why should his company pay for him to attend? Your comments all focus on why it’s beneficial for Bob personally to attend the conference, not on why his company should want to send him.

          1. Marion Ravenwood*

            Yeah. If Bob wants to network for personal reasons at these events that’s fine, but then he needs to do it on his own dime (and time) and not at the company’s expense. (It’s different if he’s making those personal connections as a side effect of going as a company representative, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.)

            1. Lily Potter*

              This is similar to education benefits. A former employer paid for about 75% of my graduate degree. Their policy stated that the employer would pay for coursework directly related to the employee’s position or next step up on the promotional ladder. “Directly related” was somewhat of a judgment call, and thankfully I had a boss that would approve just about anything even tangentially related – but there were still courses in my program where I couldn’t prove a benefit to my employer and I understandably paid for those myself.

              1. ANalyst*

                The benefit is that the degree is a benefit and you have to take that course to get the degree…

                1. Lily Potter*

                  That’s the thing though – the acquisition of the advanced degree, in and of itself, didn’t provide my company with any benefit. Getting the degree was a benefit only to ME as an employee looking to move on to another job. The company was willing to reimburse for the courses with at least some relationship to my current or immediate next job, but not for courses that didn’t benefit them. For example, they didn’t pay for my thesis credits because my thesis research topic didn’t benefit the company. It seemed a fair trade-off.

          2. Pescadero*

            “But if Bob attending the event isn’t beneficial to his company, why should his company pay for him to attend?”

            It may be beneficial to his company in that “we get to keep Bob as an employee”.

            Sometimes, the very benefit is employee loyalty/retention/happiness.

            1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

              And he may garner enough technical and professional knowledge to make him a better employee. THAT IS, if the company wants him to develop his knowledge base and professional skills. As I said, that’s not always the case with some corporate managers.

              But for a techie, knowledge expansion is critical.

              1. Lenora Rose*

                If he actually thinks he will learn enough new information at the conference to make a difference, it’s on him to make that case. Which is why both the LW and Alison seemed to think he needed to talk over his reasons for wanting to go rather than unilaterally deciding he’s going on his workplace’s dime and arguing with his boss in the chat about it.

                I would also agree she can’t stop him going privately (assuming it allows private registrants) if he believes it to be of benefit and she and the workplace disagree, but that doesn’t seem to be the current issue.

          3. e271828*

            Exactly. If Bob wants to take vacation for a week-long conference he pays for himself, godspeed him as long as it’s not in his employer’s busy season or something.

        2. Ferret*

          Ok but he is asking the company to pay for it… it’s not unreasonable for them to want to get some benefit out of it.

          If you tell your manager they should pay hundreds of dollars for you to go to an event so you can do X, then come back and say you didn’t do X, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they are no longer willing to shell out for future events

        3. MK*

          If it’s only benefiting the employee, they need to ask for time off and pay all expenses themselves. Your post has a very strange vibe of “employers suck because they don’t prioritize their employees career development”. That’s not reasonable. A good employer will not hinder an employee bettering themselves, but something that only benefits the employee can be offered as a perk/reward/retention startegy; you can’t expect your employer to spend hundreds or thousands, so that you will be able to find other work easily if you want. Your development is your own responsibility.

          And the employee is the ones who needs to clarify why they should go to this thing as much, if not more, than OP needs to clarify the opposite. Assuming the expense is money coming out of the team’s budget, a) OP as the manager needs to ok it and b) it needs to a a justified expense.

          1. Seashell*

            I agree. Also with it being a nonprofit, they should be extra-careful about spending money on things that will help the organization rather than just the employee.

            1. Red Sox are the best Socks*

              Agreed, how often do people blame non profits for not spending money fully on the mission? If you have someone spending half a month at conferences that’s going to look like waste.

        4. fhqwhgads*

          The letter says Bob didn’t talk to anyone except the one person. That’s not networking. Don’t know where you’re getting the “foot-stomping for your company” bit. Networking, whether the goal is to benefit yourself OR your company generally involves talking to people. Multiple people.

          1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

            Agreed and adding: Networking requires talking to people you do NOT already have a strong connection with, especially complete strangers in your field.

      2. Sloanicota*

        It’s also a nonprofit so it’s totally normal to have a “professional development” line item in the budget and tell people they need to prioritize within that (or use their own funds). $500 per person is already high in my nonprofits, never mind another one a short time later. It must be different in different sectors, but I mean, someone had to donate $1000 for that.

        1. I Have RBF*

          Even major companies that have a “professional development” stipend only allocate a few hundred a year, IME. If you want to use that toward a conference that benefits your development, fine, but any overage you need to pay for yourself.

          If your management says “We need to show the flag and represent at X conference, therefore Bob, Brenda and Barskley will be going to man our booth.”, then the company foots the bill out of its marketing budget. But that decision is made by Marketing and upper management, not an IT IC.

          So it’s not just the cost, but the purpose and how that affects who pays.

    2. bamcheeks*

      you might have a difficult time clarifying why you don’t want your employee going to these things

      If LW holds the budget, it wouldn’t be difficult at all— it is completely reasonable to say, “we don’t have budget for that this year”. Yes, even if it’s a great opportunity for the individual to network. Yes, even if they might come back with valuable new knowledge. A business can’t afford everything all the time, and it’s completely reasonable for a manager to ask for a business case and a clear RoI before approving a conference or expo attendance.

      LW could delegate the budget and decision-making to the employee of she wants, but she doesn’t have to. There’s nothing wrong with retaining that decision-making power at the top, especially if it’s a small company and she’s got the clearest oversight of the budget and strategy.

      1. LaminarFlow*

        This is a really good response! Conferences and business travel can add up to a few thousand dollars for an extended weekend conference. The part where this employee stated that he didn’t want to network on the company’s behalf at the last conference would make me less likely to send him to more in the future. If he wants to attend something on his own time & dime, that’s his decision to make.

        I think LW definitely needs to lay out/create some sort of documentation that outlines the expectations for attending conferences for the future. This situation does seem like a bit of a misunderstanding, but inviting other employees to a conference that requires travel expenses is pretty clueless, especially at a non-profit.

    3. Roland*

      > the way you keep your career going is through NETWORKING

      That’s nice. It doesn’t mean you employer needs to sponsor this and give you extra time off for it at no benefit to them.

      1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        It COULD be. If you’re a growing company and you may need expanded technical support in the future. If the employee can gain knowledge that he can put to work, even better. Also the notes on employee retention and development.

        And from a techie’s standpoint – if you can’t grow, or your boss holds you down, it’s not a good place to be.

        Been there, done that.

        1. Red Sox are the best Socks*

          Right, but that’s not how academia works and it sounds like that’s not how the nonprofit world works.

          1. I Have RBF*

            IME, it’s also not how tech companies work. It’s still mostly marketing and sales engineers that get to go to conferences.

        2. Kevin Sours*

          That doesn’t mean letting your employees unilaterally attend any conference they care to on the organization’s dime. It’s not like Bob hasn’t been allowed to attend conferences. Nor does it sound like he’s being prohibited from attending this one — they just don’t want to pay for it because it doesn’t align with the organizations goals. That’s … normal.

          In fact part of the reluctance appears to be the lack of results from paying for previous conferences.

    4. yagasjai31*

      I hadn’t even considered this angle, but I will keep it in mind. I was more concerned about him re-assigning other staff that have things to get done that won’t get done if they are off at a trade expo.

      1. Curious*

        Well, is he allowed to assign other staff?
        If yes, then it is his problem how all the things get done nonetheless. If he isn’t, then that is a clear misstep on his side and you can clarify that he has to run these things through you before communicating them.

    5. Ellis Bell*

      Anything that only benefits you, not the company, should be done on your own time and at your own cost. Then you can do as you please!

    6. Boof*

      This is a bit silly – of course any org is not going to pay for something that is not going to benefit them except as part of an employees overall compensation package to keep them working. It’d be like expecting them to pay for degrees and so on – sure sometimes orgs do that for various reasons but I doubt many places are nefariously BLOCKING employees from going to trade conferences because they might get uppity either. I mean I’m sure there’s toxic places that operate that way but I imagine those are the outliers.
      I’m in medical field not tech but the networking I do at conferences, sure, could lead to another job but most of the time it’s about getting a heads up on what advances are brewing and which look the most promising, it’s where new results are announced and where you can talk about them in detail with people who are doing it, it’s where you get contacts you can reach out to informally if you are stumped or second guessing yourself – there’s plenty of things that can potentially benefit the employees work quality depending on the conference.
      … of course they could also just be party/schmooze fests without any big boost so do be sure to evaluate the actual business purpose periodically. But I would be careful about micromanaging/making it tedious if it does clearly help the employee stay cutting edge enough to justify the cost, and/or just limit the amount of conferences (ie, pick two)

    7. Helewise*

      I’ve had a boss like the ones described here, but this seems to be unnecessarily assuming a lot of ill intent. Conferences/expos cost time and money; there’s presumably a line item in the budget that’s something less than infinite. Unless this employee controls their department’s budget, assuming that they can both go to a conference and invite others is an overstep.

    8. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      Your response doesn’t have anything to do with the letter. She clearly articulated why she didn’t want him attending, you’ve just chosen to ignore her reasons.

      Maybe you could spend some time working through your feelings about your past managers so you don’t turn your responses into a therapy session.

      2. Lex*

        The response is perfectly aligned with the letter. There is evidence that the stated reasons are not the full story. Therefore, the idea that the comment was about feelings and therapy is overwhelmingly rude. Please familiarize yourself with the commenting rules:

        https://www.askamanager.org/how-to-comment

        1. Lexy*

          “Don’t invent possibilities simply because you could imagine them to be within the remote realm of plausibility”

          And yet, “the management was scared because their employees were grossly underpaid, and might find out “how the other half lives.””

          1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

            Well, that was at ONE place I worked at in a 50 year career in IS/IT. I had many, many great managers and directors that I had the pleasure of working with, and under them.

            My “therapy session” in the instances where I had BAD managers – was to vote democratically.

            WITH MY FEET. I invoked my 13th Amendment rights. My psyche and bank accounts/portfolio were (and are) much better for it. Better sleep, better health, better living.

            I think we see enough “manager from hell” stories in here from people early in their careers. I like to offer them hope – that, they may find a better world out there if they choose to look.

            As Boof said, those bad companies may be the outliers, but yeah, they DO exist.

            I always worked for for-profit corporations, all of which were publicly (most) or privately (some) held. We did make money, and, that was the idea.

            The IT professional in OP #1’s non-profit may not be used to operating or working under such constraints. That’s why I chose – after my first two gigs – to ONLY work for “blue chips”. And to ensure that I didn’t work under mad men.

            Attending these conferences reflected well on any company I worked for because they showed that our firm was technically progressive, and, a good entity to do business with. I did, guessing, around 50 technical presentations at these conferences through the years. They reflected well on the employers who encouraged me to participate. As a by-product, I enjoyed a degree of job and career security for the last 36 years of my working life.

  10. r..*

    LW2,

    I am more than fine with HR giving me their opinions on various candidates, and I’ll gladly work with HR to help them understand better my reasons and thoughts on how I form my own opinion on candidates that may or may not align with HR’s.

    In the end though I am responsible for both the outcomes produced by my department, and for spending the department’s budget wisely. HR is responsible for neither.

    This means that for expensive hires (many of my reports take home a six-digit sum or are close to it) or critical hires (where we’ve been looking for a long time, or where the skillset is of particular importance) I will almost always want people involved in the decision making who are qualified in the professional domain we are hiring for, and people familiar with the team.

    This could either be myself, or other people, but whatever that may be the case this necessarily means that the hiring manager, plus potentially another person, will see all candidates for the position, and that HR will not make decisions on whom we will offer an interview and whom not.

    That doesn’t mean HR can’t add very valuable input here! There are many things that HR can do to make processes equitable, prevent bias, and flag questionable decisions, for example by making sure all forwarded resumes are blind (no data on name, age, or gender, and with nationality/citizenship reduced to “has/has permission to legally work in the country”).

    HR can serve as a challenge to make people justify decisions, and that is valuable in itself even in cases where discrimination is likely not a problem, because hiring can, like any other process, always be improved.

    1. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

      Yeah, I’m a big fan of a structure where HR screens, but before sending rejections, the manager gets an opportunity to spot-check. Our HR team is great at enforcing our equity principles in screenings, but is not able to apply as much nuance on must-have skills as the hiring manager. I usually spot check 3-5 rejections just to make sure the HR team isn’t rejecting on misaligned criteria (which can happen if I define the needs in an unclear way). 90% of the time I am fully on board with HR’s choices to reject and really value their skills at spotting candidates who technically qualify but aren’t going to wow me, but the spot checking process helps make sure we’re aligned and has built trust between me and HR over multiple hires.

  11. curious mary*

    #1: I got a potentially weird vibe about the technical expert and networking. He went to an event his boss wanted him to attend and only networked with the person who invited him. Did that event skew older? Now he’s really excited to go to a younger skewing event and has invited some other coworkers to go with him (are those other coworkers younger guys as well?). Basically, I’m wondering if the technical expert is a younger guy who doesn’t really know how to professionally network outside of bro-ey events. My apologies if I read too much into this.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      Is there anything that should be done differently if that’s the case?

    2. ecnaseener*

      FWIW, we’re not told that the one person he talked to invited him to that first conference, only that they’ve now invited him to the second conference.

      Maybe he doesn’t know how to network, maybe he just chose not to, maybe he’s more comfortable with a younger crowd, who knows – I don’t think it’s terribly relevant to the question in any case. If LW is going to consider sending him to the second conference, there definitely needs to be a conversation about why he didn’t network with employer partners at the first one. No point in guessing.

      1. Sloanicota*

        It also sounds like maybe OP didn’t express any concerns in the moment when the employee reported this. They presumably also didn’t set any expectations beforehand. So OP is already annoyed at this guy out of the gate but he has no idea. The reason I don’t manage is because I’m not great at calmly addressing things in the moment, but that’s an essential skill.

    3. Qwerty*

      I think you are reading too much into this, there’s plenty of explanations. Networking can really suck at tech events – sometimes the only social people are recruiters and sales people.

      Think about the letter we had recently from someone whose coworkers only talked to each other. I’ve run into that a lot at tech events – the last conference I went to (and was a speaker at), I made zero connections despite being a bubbly outgoing person because it was tough to get people to have a conversation with someone they didn’t know. At other events, I’ve done well by having a default friend attend with me, because I guess a group conversation was less scary than a 1×1 with a stranger.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        Right, but until OP has the convo with the guy, it’s not clear if he didn’t network at the first one (other than that one person) because that event just wasn’t very good, or if he didn’t know he was supposed to, or he knew but chose not to, etc. And it sounds like OP’s calculus on the value of the next one did account for all of the above. Like, whether it’s just unlikely to have good contacts, or expects the employee to not make good use of the time there, OP didn’t think this event was worth it. But now that the guy announced he is going and invited others, OP needs to back him up and explain what the process is going to be at this org for deciding both what conferences/tradeshows to send people to, and who to send. Maybe he knows he overstepped, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the people he invited think he has this authority and maybe they don’t. OP needs to clarify for alllllll of them.

  12. Alice*

    Maybe there is skill of which I am unaware when it comes to filtering the list of applicants. But in the hiring process I’m part of right now:
    – HR said they would advertise the position on a BIPOC job board, but did not
    – HR sat on applications for two weeks before pssing them to the hiring manager. We invited some middling candidates to interview because they seemed like the best of the bunch, then found out that several more great candidates had applied. Huge waste of time for everyone involved, including the middling candidates.
    – HR’s “filtered” shortlist for the hiring manager included two people without any relevant experience
    So I can see why the hiring manager needs to build trust with OP instead of acting like trust has already been built.
    As they say about marriage: it’s not hiring manager vs recruiter; it’s hiring manager and recruiter vs the problem.

  13. DeliCat*

    #4 is throwing out alarm bells – largely because something similar happened to my partner and his employer hadn’t factored in that overtime was at time and a half.

    If the employer is citing cost cutting measures I would be reluctant to assume that they’re moving to non-exempt status in good faith.

    LW – please make sure, aside from the necessary clarification re: his required availability during the quieter periods, that his employer states that he’ll still be getting overtime pay (I believe it’s 1.5 across the board?) when he exceeds those 40 hour weeks.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I agree that those are important things to get in writing, but I don’t know that I agree about “in good faith”. The goal is almost certainly to align staffing costs with business volume, but they’re being pretty transparent about that.

    2. PSU RN*

      I would also be cautious about how the new status will affect earned PTO or benefits. If I’m in the slow period and haven’t accrued enough PTO how do I take time off?

      1. Samwise*

        Right. If I don’t have enough hours, what happens to my health insurance? what happens to my retirement match? that would worry me more than time off, tbh.

        He should be job searching. Employer may go under, or may start cutting positions, including his.

      2. Turquoisecow*

        Benefits are a good point. Some companies you only qualify for, for example, health insurance or 401(k) matching if you work a certain number of hours/week in a year. If this guy goes down to 20 hour some week, what will it do to retirement savings or insurance premiums? (As well as PTO and sick time)

        1. Momma Bear*

          This. I know someone who has gone PT (not by choice) and collects PTO at a reduced rate, but the company still provides health insurance at the same level, presumably because they know they would outright lose said employee if they didn’t sweeten the pot a little. Get it alllllll in writing.

    3. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      I don’t know if the company is not operating in good faith, its probably true they intend to pay Bob as agreed. But it sets a precedent. Okay, we are moving you from salaried to hourly with a 20 hour minimum committment. Great. But what happens when there isn’t 20 hours externally or internally someday?

      the company is doing this due to financial issues. Bob needs to see the writing on the wall. Unless he has reason to believe there will be a major positive change in the company, this is not a viable place to continue working. He needs to use his reduced work time to look for another job.

    4. Llama Llama*

      Honestly, this would make me extremely wary. and I would go in with assumption that I am getting 20 hrs a week and that’s it. The company is making cost cutting measures for a reason. I am going to also assume they will quickly freak out that he got overtime. Then steadily ensure he only gets that 20 hrs.

      Or there will be less and less work and 20 hrs is all they have to do anyway.

      Even if he does get the same wages in the end because of some of those overtime weeks, unsteady income is crappy.

      1. Momma Bear*

        If I were told I was being cut to 20 hrs, I would arrange my life (time in office, bills, etc.) around those 20 hrs and be looking for other employment.

    5. #4 OP*

      Thanks for the warning. They talked very explicitly about the time and a half for overtime and we believe his employer is operating in good faith. In general, his employer is happy to pay the overtime because he would only work overtime if there is work to be done that can be billed directly to a client — and the rate the client is billed for his work is many times the rate my husband is paid. So even paying him time and a half, the company comes out ahead for every hour of overtime my husband works.

  14. Panda (she/her)*

    I’m a hiring manager who recently hired someone HR had screened out. I work in a highly specialized area of IT that requires some specific skills that don’t necessarily come from a standard background or education, and can be challenging to describe specifically. The posting got about 250 applications, and my recruiter narrowed it down to about 20 of which I picked 5 to interview. When none of the candidates in the first round had the right skills for the job, I went back through all the resumes and found another 8 people I wanted to interview. That round ended up being a lot more aligned to what I needed, and the person I hired from that round has been fantastic. In the future I would probably ask the recruiter to just screen out the ones who obviously don’t meet the requirements – I received so many applications that:
    1) had nothing to do with the job I was hiring for (think someone whose experience is all llama training applying for a teapot painting job)
    2) didn’t meet the minimum education or experience requirements (and yes, I know how problematic these kinds of requirements can be, but there are specific regulations I have to follow and there’s no wiggle room)
    3) had clearly just copied and pasted the job description into their resume to get past an ATS (WTF? Did they think I wouldn’t recognize the job posting I wrote?)

    1. Observer*

      had clearly just copied and pasted the job description into their resume to get past an ATS (WTF? Did they think I wouldn’t recognize the job posting I wrote?)

      Yeah. That highlights one of the really problematic parts of that advice. Which is, what do these people think will happen once the resume gets past the ATS. Even if you do put it in a white font so you think it won’t show up, that is *really* not something you want to depend on.

      And of course, as your experience shows, you don’t need an ATS to do stupid screening, so getting over-focused on beating the ATS is not all that useful anyway.

  15. Dog momma*

    #4. to go from 40 hrs a an plus overtime, and benefits ( will assume that since it was not mentioned) ; to 20 hrs minimum
    ( which means no health insurance, or any other benefits), that’s a HUGE drop. Plus you’re basically ” on call”, just in case there’s more work, which obviously isn’t guaranteed. So the extra time off is no fun. Btw, 30 hrs is the minimum where they need to provide health insurance, & the company is trying to avoid that, imo. Been there, done that.
    Dust off that resume.

    1. WellRed*

      I don’t think they were getting overtime, they were salaried. The letter doesn’t mention benefits. Assuming he has those, the employer may still offer those if he’s part time, but it’s absolutely something that needs to be clarified along with everything else.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yeah I’d assume benefits would be part of the outrage if that were a factor but definitely clarify any changes to *total* compensation package.

      2. #4 OP*

        Yes, WellRed, you’re correct that he was previously salaried, so no overtime pay but a consistent paycheck each week. He does have benefits and his employer is continuing to provide those, but it’s a good suggestion to get more explicit clarity around the benefits, PTO, etc.

        And Dog Momma, yes, the issue of being “on call” where he can’t really enjoy the time off is I think the toughest part for him! He’s getting paid less but doesn’t really feel like he’s getting the benefit of that in terms of more truly free time.

    2. Skippy*

      >Btw, 30 hrs is the minimum where they need to provide health insurance

      This isn’t a universal. Some companies give full benefits at 32h; some prorate below a certain level; in lots of places employees don’t need to offer any benefits to anyone.

      1. HollyQueen*

        My company offers the same benefits to full and part time employees. And part time starts at 20 hours.

      2. fhqwhgads*

        The ACA says employers with 50 or more employees must offer health insurance to those who work an average of 30 or more hours per week (or 130 hours per month). I assume that’s the 30 being referred to.

    3. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      We don’t know that there won’t be benefits! The company makes that choice – nothing is inevitable.

  16. CityMouse*

    I can’t see #4 as anything other than a huge sign that Bob needs to find a new job. First, making a serious cut to employee pay is generally unacceptable. Many people would very understandably struggle with a 25% pay cut and it sounds like this would potentially be even more. That’s not normal. Second, this is a very big red flag about the busines’s viability. Yes, sometimes businesses have to cut things, but cutting a senior employee to that extent in a senior client billing role suggests they’re cutting into activities that can cause a business to lose that client billings and start death spiraling. Bob may not have a choice.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      If nothing else, it sounds like Bob isn’t happy with the idea of being ‘on call’ without guaranteed work (100% understandable) and should be looking for a better aligned situation.

    2. Brookfield*

      This is what happened to me in 2023 – company lost the contract that I had senior director oversight on, and they couldn’t afford to keep me on overhead. I agreed to stay on for 3 months as an hourly employee, with full benefits (USA = med insurance + retirement account) and guaranteed 10 hour weekly minimum. This was OK with me, as they had additional projects (recruiting for new contracts, participating in RFP responses, business development mtgs) that added 10-20 hours/week on top on the minimum, and I was happy to spend non-working hours on moving to our new home.

      After the 3 months was up, no new contracts had been signed, but the execs were SO SURE that our next big deal was about to close that I stayed another 3 months… then six… then nine… then I found a full-time gig elsewhere and left. The company execs asked me to be available for periodic consulting hours, but I’ve literally never heard from them again. (The new job, thankfully, is awesome.)

      LW4 & Bob, take a clear-eyed look at the company’s financials and future prospects. If I had to do it again, I’d have started my full-fledged job search as soon as my hours were cut. In hindsight, it’s clear that the company’s “big deals” were wishful thinking (2 years later, they’re still limping along with a couple of small government contracts) and I was never going to get my full exec role back.

    3. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah I would view this as pocket money to keep me going while I job hunt. This job is not financially tenable.

    4. Generic Name*

      Yup. This company is circling the drain, but they’ll never tell you that (if they even admit it to themselves). Use your free time to apply and interview for jobs. Your bosses may want you to hold your time open for them, but unless you sign a contract or have a “on call” rate paid out to you, they cannot legally demand you twiddle your thumbs while they wait for work to magically appear.

    5. I Have RBF*

      I agree. The company is a drain circler. Cutting hours and pay to part time and hourly is an RGE.

  17. bamcheeks*

    LW4: my first question is what is the benefit to your husband of continuing to work for this company on an hourly basis rather than a) contracting directly to clients, or b) becoming a contractor for the company. I’m not saying those are necessarily better options, but I would look at them carefully to really understand what level of flexibility, autonomy and security your husband would have under each possible employment situation:

    a) hourly part-time– minimum 20 hours guaranteed; overtime at certain times of the year; client attraction, billing etc handled by the company; lack of flexibility over the other 20 hours.

    b) contractor to the company– no guaranteed work, no benefits, higher hourly rate, freedom to contract elsewhere and seek other work, autonomy over his time and availability, client attraction and billing still handled by the company

    c) full autonomy and ability to set prices, but handling own client attraction and billing

    b) and c) may not be on the table, of course, but you never know. Considering them as options is a good way to really clarify what your husband and you value and what trade-offs you are prepared to accept, and he might want to go back to the company with an alternative proposal.

  18. Coffeemate is searching the globe*

    As someone who has been a manager, I usually trust the HR teams to do their jobs and filter the candidates appropriately. But it’s never been a problem if I’ve asked to see some that didn’t make it through just out of curiosity about the candidate pool.

    And given some of the reasons for rejecting candidates I’ve seen here (aol address, didn’t like the resume format, etc) I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to do a spot check

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Yes, very much this. And HR can make mistakes, or being more hard-line on a qualification than a manager would be given full context. If HR wasn’t willing to share the full candidate pool with a manager, that would make me suspicious about what their filtering process was (and I say that as HR)

    2. Observer*

      And given some of the reasons for rejecting candidates I’ve seen here (aol address, didn’t like the resume format, etc) I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to do a spot check

      What you see here is just the tip of the iceberg. Poorly thought out screening criteria are a well documented issue.

      1. Coffeemate is searching the globe*

        I’ve been lucky for the most part in working w/recruiters who are very collaborative

  19. sagewhiz*

    LW 1: why is this tech dude being paid more than you, the Exec Dir of the org??? My mind boggles

    1. Georgia*

      Some technical positions are like that. I probably make more than my owner boss because I am paid market value for my degree and position and it’s a small business. OP also works for a nonprofit so executive salaries are probably capped. If they need a highly skilled IT person for their mission then they’ll have to pay to get one.

      1. yagasjai31*

        He is a technical expert in the field, with 10 years of experience, and it was hard to fill the position, we had to offer a lot to attract a candidate, and in the process, no one was looking at how that would work later on to have him reporting to someone that makes less than him.

        1. Curious*

          “no one was looking at how that would work later on to have him reporting to someone that makes less than him.”

          I am curious about this. You mentioned this also in the letter even though it has nothing directly to do with your question. Does this make you insecure our do you think in order to exercise authority you need to make more than him?
          Under normal circumstances, the question if he can go to the event or not has something to do with budget, capacity or expected benefits to the company, and nothing with salary.

          1. Peter the Bubblehead*

            I got the impression from the OP’s letter that perhaps the Tech Guy has the attitude, “I make more money than the ED, so I don’t need to listen when they tell me no.”

            1. Curious*

              But how would he even know?

              I am sure there are ways to find out, but – under normal circumstances – why should he be prompted to do that?
              LW knows for sure, because they are the boss. Employee doesn’t necessarily know.

              1. nonprofitemployee*

                Nonprofit 990s are publicly available and list nonprofit exec salaries….and often regional newspapers report the salaries of nonprofit execs and publish lists of them.

            2. Boof*

              I can’t tell if Tech Guy has the chip on their shoulder or if LW1 does right now – maybe LW1 can elaborate why they have brought this up twice (in the letter + comments).

              1. Not My Usual Name*

                To be fair, they brought it up in the comments because someone asked “why is this tech dude being paid more than you, the Exec Dir of the org??? My mind boggles”

                1. Boof*

                  Fair! That’s an overcall on my part – I’d be interested to see updates on how the conversation goes with Tech Guy and LW1. Fingers crossed everyone just needs to clarify budget/expectations around conferences/continuing education.

          2. Sloanicota*

            I agree. It has nothing to do with the issue. It’s a difficult situation but it’s not really the employee’s fault or something to hold against him (the solution is to advocate to the board for a raise for you. Also, I’m guessing someone who is used to better compensation will be expecting his own raise at evaluation time and you’re going to have to address this sooner or later, along with the expectation that he has an unlimited professional development budget). But it can’t really come from a place of resentment.

        2. Boof*

          Unless you find fault in their work consider giving them a discretionary budget to do events/trainings/etc they think are helpful. It sounds like they were hard to attract and may be used to similar perks where they came from; if it wasn’t spelled out what their budget was now is the time to do it.
          (as a physician my org gives a certain amount that covers various discretionary professional expenses + we can ask for more we just have to get it approved – the amount hasn’t been changed tho so now it barely covers one conference – like just the conference and plain ticket not the hotel etc – since there are two conferences that I think are important to being a regional/national leader in the disease I see and picking trials to open or tell people it might be worth traveling for I pretty much always have to ask for more which is annoying but I also appreciate that they’re always approved so really try to leave thoughts over salaries out of it and focus on the work needs and product)

        3. I Have RBF*

          I’m sorry, but he’d have to be pretty brilliant to be an expert in the IT field with only 10 years experience. Yes, some tech bros claim “expert” after on 5 or 10 years, but they are usually not well rounded in their expertise.

      2. MsM*

        Yeah, any role where the person could be making way more in the private sector (IT, finance, etc.) tends to be…still not paid at private sector rates, but there’s definitely more wiggle room for negotiation than program roles.

        That said, if EDs don’t have a ton of managerial experience, they’re still generally subject matter experts with connections that would be hard to replace as well, so stinting them’s not a good idea, either.

      1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        Kinda like in baseball. The players often make more than the manager.

        1. Pescadero*

          Yep.

          MLB managers who make over $4.5 million: 3
          Highest paid MLB manager: $8 million
          Average MLB salary: $4.66 million.
          Highest paid MLB player: $70 million

          The *average* MLB player makes more 90% of the managers in MLB.

          1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

            It’s interesting to make the comparison between techies and baseball players.

            Often a manager or senior analyst can’t code. They may have been mediocre-to-good coders and tech employees, but preferred managing. And they survived in the tech world on their guile.

            Likewise, if you look at some of the great baseball managers – you’ll observe that most weren’t great players. But they survived in the game on their guile, too.

    3. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

      Speaking as a tech dude, I make more than my boss (according to my boss), and he recently told me that based on salary bands, I would have to be a director or even senior director before I would be considered underpaid. I have niche skills, and I was hired after a bidding war between companies making me competing offers.

      1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        Been there, done that. I advised my boss in that situation = “Now you have some leverage to get yourself a raise. USE IT.” As a front-line senior tech guy, and I will admit, the fit was perfect – he DID use that to his advantage. And I was very happy for him.

    4. Ask a Manager* Post author

      It’s not weird for an IT person to be making more than the ED at a small nonprofit; the market is different for each of them, and the IT position takes more money to attract the right level of candidate.

      I think it’s a red herring here, though; it sounds like the OP may feel weird about it, but it shouldn’t be relevant to her ability to calmly and matter-of-factly run the org and manage him.

    5. Jennifer Strange*

      To be fair, I’m also the ED of a non-profit and our tech person is paid more than me, but A) she’s been with the company for almost 20 years and B) the non-profit itself is tech focused so we would literally stop working without her :)

    6. Ann O'Nemity*

      There is real pushback in the philanthropic community about high-paid executive directors. In my experience, most EDs make peanuts compared to their counterparts in for-profit companies, even after controlling for company size. And yet, some people are lining up for those low paid ED positions anyway.

      It doesn’t seem to play out the same way with tech positions. Less pressure for low salaries from donors, and far fewer tech candidates applying for low paid roles.

      1. Your Local Password Resetter*

        I’m guessing that’s partially because it’s not a management position?
        Easier to be motivated by the organizations goal if you get to actively direct the organization to achieving that goal, compared to a support role that won’t be much different from a for-profit company.

      2. fhqwhgads*

        Well there is also, for example, a separate minimum exempt annual pay for computer professionals in California. It’s a lot higher than the minimum for any ol’ non-computer exempt employee. It’s $118k right now. So even if a small non-profit ED is making $100k, if they’re in California, they’re gonna make less than any Computer Professionals they have on staff.
        And if anyone is thinking “well, that person could just not be exempt and then you can pay them less” yup! But in my experience, those non-profits realllllllly want all the extra hours out of their tech people, and it’d be more expensive if that were all overtime – which shows that the minimum is appropriate and works! But it also means the ED might make less.

  20. radish*

    Alison, for #4, what if his employer wants him to go back to salaried when/if they enter a busy period again? Is it legal for an employer to switch an employee back and forth from exempt/non-exempt at will, so they’re always paying the lower paycheck?

  21. Coffeemate is searching the globe*

    Wasn’t there just a letter earlier this week about “gifting up” for a baby? My thoughts are the gifting up rules are a good overall guideline, but for things like a baby gift, or holiday secret santa where it’s a small amount it’s perfectly acceptable.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      Strangely enough, that letter mentioned that it wasn’t a small item at all; the team had spent a lot of money on a big ticket item. I think you shouldn’t sweat it if someone gifts you socks one time, but even small amounts add up when they become a regular part of the culture.

      1. Coffeemate is searching the globe*

        I’ve been fortunate to work in environments where these things were rare, and when there was nobody cared if you contributed or not. But yeah if it was a regular occurrence it would get old fast

  22. Eldritch Office Worker*

    “I am the executive director of a nonprofit, without any formal management training.”

    This is no disrespect to you OP, but this is such an issue with the industry. EDs are expected to be fundraisers, leaders, program directors, strategic planners, HR many times, public speakers – they usually have training on maybe half those things. It’s great that you’re gut checking – and also push the board for a raise, this guy should not be making more than you.

    1. yagasjai31*

      Well said. I have been considering asking for the raise, thanks for the nudge in that direction.

    2. Sloanicota*

      You could, and perhaps also should, push for executive coaching or management training. It’s probably a bigger priority for the org than this guy’s second conference.

  23. Coffeemate is searching the globe*

    I feel like I’ll never completely understand exempt vs non-exempt. I thought the job duties themselves determine the status, not whether the employer prefers one or the other. Or is it strictly the offer of OT that makes it ok to switch?

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      It’s sort of a square/rectangle thing. Only certain roles are allowed to be exempt, but generally any of those roles can be non-exempt. Roles that only qualify for non-exempt status can’t be exempt though.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        Yeah, I think it can be helpful to remember that “exempt” is short-hand for “exempt from the overtime requirements of the FSLA*.” Employers can always follow the FSLA (i.e. treat all of their employees as non-exempt). Employers have to meet certain conditions before they can classify their employees as exempt from those overtime requirements.

        *Fair Labor Standards Act

    2. A. Lab Rabbit*

      Employees exempt from the FLSA typically must be paid a salary above a certain level and work in an administrative, professional, executive, computer or outside sales role.

      Employers are not required to pay overtime to employees who are properly classified as exempt. They may, however, choose to compensate such individuals for extra hours worked through benefits packages.

      I’ll post a source in a follow-up comment.

    3. ecnaseener*

      To be exempt, you must be salaried. (And meet other criteria including job duties.) Ergo, if the employer wants the employee to be non-exempt, all they have to do is switch from salaried to hourly.

      1. whatchamacallit*

        No, you can be salaried and non-exempt. If your salary is below the threshold you are non-exempt and entitled to things like overtime.

        1. whatchamacallit*

          Edited for clarity: I don’t think you “have” to be salaried if you are non-exempt. It just doesn’t really make sense to track hours. I think I misread your comment at first!

          1. ecnaseener*

            Yeah, the whole point of my parenthetical “and meet other criteria” was to acknowledge that being salaried is a *necessary* but not *sufficient* criterion for being exempt.

    4. whatchamacallit*

      You can “offer” OT to exempt employees. Being non-exempt means you are entitled to overtime; it’s not up to your employer to decide. It’s determined partially by job duties, yes, but also by what you are paid. If you make under a certain amount, you are non-exempt. Likewise you can be exempt but still hourly, your employer just isn’t required to pay overtime. You can be salaried and non-exempt, while you might not officially be paid “hourly” your employer does need to track your hours and pay you for overtime.

  24. Again Sarah*

    re #4
    Not US here, so maybe this is my misunderstanding but if he’s exempt wouldn’t Bob be able to claim to be paid for any queries he answers outside his core hours? Wouldn’t that basically class as overtime?

    That said, I don’t blame him for wanting a structured set of hours – for one thing being on call constantly prevents him taking on any other work to compensate for the loss of salary, so if the boss wants Bob exclusively, he should be treating those as work hours, or run the risk that he does not get Bob outside the hours he’s agreed to.

    1. ecnaseener*

      He should be paid for any time he spends working, yes. Quick queries and scheduling would easily fit into his 20 guaranteed non-billable hours.

      It would only count as overtime if he worked more than 40 hours total in a given week.

      I don’t get the sense he would be “on call” as in required to be available at all times — probably more like a “check your messages at some point in the day” situation, which again that time spent checking messages is paid time.

    2. Sloanicota*

      He should also be able to bill the time he’s checking email for inquiries. If I were Bob, I would shift to a set schedule as much as possible. The company is putting him in a tough position here so they should expect a little give and take. I’ve worked nonprofits with part time roles and they ALWAYS want you 10-3 M-F as “part time” (plus available “if things come up.”) It’s much better for the employee to have a full workday off or at least leave at noon, and defend that schedule. They’re not paying you a FT salary, so don’t let them nudge you into essentially being available full time!

    3. Parenthesis Guy*

      If he’s non-exempt, he’s eligible for overtime.

      But there’s no concept of core hours. Bob gets paid overtime if he works more than 40 hours a week, and not if he doesn’t. In addition, he’s only allowed 20 hours a week for non-client work. If he works more than that on non-client work, he’ll still get paid, but he’ll probably be fired afterwords.

  25. FashionablyEvil*

    announced he was going, and invited two other coworkers to go with him, without ever running it by me first

    I dunno, this plus the arguing is a major red flag to me. He’s actively deciding himself how organizational resources should be used and then complaining about being called on it? I’m not usually into this mode, but I’d keep an eye on this guy/think you may end up having to fire him.

  26. doreen*

    “Not US here, so maybe this is my misunderstanding but if he’s exempt wouldn’t Bob be able to claim to be paid for any queries he answers outside his core hours? Wouldn’t that basically class as overtime?”

    If he’s non-exempt, he’s entitled to be paid for any additional work he does but it generally wouldn’t be called “overtime” unless he worked more than 40 hours in a week (or depending on the state, possibly 8 hours in a day) I think there might be an exception for something like a literally two minute phone call. If a person normally works 20 hours a week and works 30 hours this week , they would get paid for the extra 10 hours. If the person is exempt, they generally would not be paid anything extra for working additional hours or different hours.

    1. Sloanicota*

      Yes having worked PT *salaried* (unlike Bob in this example) I can tell you that’s one thing that’s difficult. If you’re paid for 20 hours and work 30 hours, that’s not “overtime.” Overtime doesn’t kick in until you’re over 40. And if you’re PT salaried those extra ten hours were just your generous donation. You have to really push for comp time (uncommon in my field) or just be super disciplined about not “donating” when you’re not getting a FT salary.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        That is not my understanding of how PT salaried works. If you work 10 extra hours, you still need to be paid for them. But they aren’t OT. And if one week you only work, say 19 hours, they’re not going to pay you less.

  27. Meow*

    I work in HR and learned early in my career you have to set your ego aside and find where you can be helpful instead of being a roadblock in a process. One thing I’ve done in the past is offer to screen out “obvious nos” so that I’m still saving the hiring manager time and adding value to the process without stepping on toes. Obvious nos would be applicants who don’t mean the minimum reqs, previous employees who aren’t eligible for rehire and folks asking for significantly over the salary range. You should always have a conversation to confirm these obvious nos first. I’ve found hiring managers are generally open to this, especially when roles are receiving 500+ resumes.

  28. Qwerty*

    OP1 – Tech people use these events as professional development, so you are coming at this from a very different angle than your employee. We go to conferences and expos to learn – usually the networking part is for our own future job search, not for the company. It is pretty standard for compensation packages to have a set allotment to spend on conferences each year and the approval process to be just making sure the team has coverage. So from his perspective, getting shutdown with no explanation is going to be a lot harsher than you intended and could look like a boss blocking people from professional development. AAM’s advice is good, I just wanted to give a little extra context on the tech side since I’m not confident he’ll be able to articulate it well.

    You say you’ve never had management training so that is something you really need to seek out. You are in the top position for your organization, being a good manager is key. In this letter, you come across as overly authoritarian – this is common in less experienced leadership and in someone who may feel they have to prove themselves. The people we lead are going to make mistakes – lots of them – and we as leaders have to remain calm and collaborative.

    Tech guy messed up – but once it was out there you now had three employees excited about the idea of a conference and you can only control your actions. Shutting it down immediately by say you weren’t sending anyone to the expo was harsh. Expecting no further discussion is fanciful and enforcing that would be more in line with a toxic workplace. What I recommend is to redirect “We have a few expos lined up this year that have a higher potential leads. Fergus, how about you swing by this afternoon to chat more about what you learned?” – this gives insight into how you evaluate expos (lead generation) and sets up a time for you and Fergus to disagree in private where he can feel heard, while also being open to Fergus having obtained information that might change the expos line up (like maybe his network contact is going to give him a personal intro to Big Client)

  29. Grizzled*

    #1 – during your discussions with him, remember that you can say, “I’ll think about your ideas and get back to you tomorrow.” That way you don’t have to make a decision under pressure at your meeting with him. It gives him a response in the moment (you’ll get back to him), and you can cool down and sleep on it before deciding what to do.

  30. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    #2 – if sounds like you are taking this personally (“he never did it when my boss was in my current position”).

    There are plenty of other reasons why he could change his approach – the market is different, the jobs he’s hiring for are different, the business objectives have changed, he’s concerned that people are gaming the system with buzzword fluff or AI-generated resumes, etc.

  31. Parenthesis Guy*

    #4: I’m struggling to understand how Bob would be better off under the current setup. Under the current setup, he would still have the issues with needing to be responsive to clients, making vacations difficult. He would still not know his full hours in advance. You’ve mentioned a bunch of problems with the new setup that seem to have already existed.

    Bob should consider what he doesn’t love about this set-up. Is he planning to find a second job to help make up the salary he’s losing? Is he about ready to retire and want to wind down a bit?

    Depending on those answers, he can go back to his boss with things he wants changed. That could mean maybe saying that he wants a 40 hour cap, and doesn’t want to do overtime. It could mean saying that he’s willing to do overtime if and only if he gets notice two weeks in advance. It could mean saying that he’s not willing to work for a week that he’s taking leave in and someone else needs to be able to cover those meetings. It could mean saying that he’s unable to do work from 9-12 and is only able to do work from 1-5 and then some work later in the evenings.

    If he’s willing to work for thirty hours a week and 3/4s of his pay, then there should be room to work everything out. It’s just a case of being able to articulate the concerns to his boss.

  32. spcepickle*

    I read letter two and thought – they could be writing about me.
    Not once, but twice our HR has filtered out candidates that I had personally reached out to and convinced to apply to jobs that would report to me. When I called HR on it they said the person had the wrong experience, which was not true HR simply did not understand how different types of experience work in our field.
    Sure when hiring for entry level position or positions that obsoletely require a given license I will ask HR to filter the list, but otherwise I do want to see all the candidates.
    Also seeing all the candidates helps me understand who we are getting to apply and if we are getting subpar candidates we need to look at our job posting wording.

  33. Observer*

    #2
    I also want to put up a boundary because I work in HR, meaning I am dealing with sensitive information he isn’t allowed to see.

    This is a red flag to me and helps me to understand where the manager is coming from, without needing to know specifics.

    For one thing, the idea that the resumes (aside from the EEOC that should be kept separately anyway) have information that the manager is not allowed to see is a problem.

    Outside of that, there is nothing about your being in HR that makes you inherently more suited to do initial screening of resumes. And, with all due respect to the really good HR / recruitment professionals out there, we *know* that HR sometimes gets it wrong, even with *good* and collaborative HR. “Boundaries” of this sort are highly likely to increase the errors you make.

    While the job market is not as sizzling hot as it was a couple of years ago, it’s still not sooo easy to find really good people that you want to take any chance that you’re going to inadvertently filter out potentially good matches.

  34. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    #1. Is Tech Bro expecting to use company time and/or expense account for these events? Because that’s the easiest way to rein this in.
    “Hey Tech Bro, just so you know, because there’s so many possible events in our field, we can’t send folks to all of them. If there’s an event you want to attend as a rep for our company, please follow our procedure to request it. Requests need to be in X days prior to the event. If the event isn’t in our budget/plan, but you still want to attend, make sure you’ve got your PTO request in.”

  35. spcepickle*

    #5 – I work for state government and we hire people after one hour long interview. Several times after I have offered a job the candidate has asked for a follow up chat or sent questions in email. I would be very happy to connect you via phone or a teams meeting (or an in person meeting if that worked for both sides) with someone at your level, with your direct supervisor, with anyone who would report to you. I can also hook you up with HR for detailed questions about our benefits. It is not an odd ask, and I assume that because you are coming from federal you understand things about how government works – like I can’t pay you out of class, things are going to involve so much extra paperwork, and what we can and can’t offer in terms of benefits (yes to vacation time – no to free food).

      1. Also bad at names for these things*

        I work for a very large municipal government and when I’ve been involved in hiring we’ve been the same way, very happy to talk more and connect you peers etc.

        About a year ago I interviewed for a federal job and had the same issue of how to decide to commit when the super short rigid interview didn’t feel like enough info. It was a different city, so I had to do some digging, but I found a couple of people in my network who connected me to people working there. Those conversations were so helpful to get any feel for the place. So that’s another thing to try and something I know most of my colleagues would be happy to do if asked.

  36. Emily (not a bot)*

    #1 I agree with some of the comments about how there’s a disconnect in terms of expectations because of the nature of his work and how his other organizations have likely treated this. Even in tech companies that aren’t super-lavish, having some professional development budget that can be spent on conferences, even if there’s no direct benefit to the employer, is very normal. And at organizations even when that’s not the case, I would never expect to hear that I can’t go to a conference — I would expect to hear “pay for it yourself and take PTO.”

    You can draw whatever rules you want, but I would think about this from the perspective of what this person’s other options likely are and have a conversation about how important this is to him and where you’re coming from.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I’ve also always had annual professional development paid, usually 4 days+ .
      However, I always had to ask my manager for permission, usually just a quick informal request, before signing up to something that cost my employer money and my time. I couldn’t just unilaterally decide this – and certainly not announce without permission that coworkers would come with me; we’d request together or singly.

      Also, afterwards I had to provide any conference notes received plus present any useful info I gained

  37. TQB*

    “(And frankly, some people are primed to see women exercising authority as bitches no matter what you do, so you might as well just carry on with your job and get things done. Let the people who have a problem with that self-identify.)”

    Just wanted to say thanks for this on behalf of all the women getting the things done.

  38. Ginger Cat Lady*

    OP1 when a man views the world through a sexist lens, there’s nothing a woman can do to change the fact that he is going to see any woman who tells him what to do or disagrees with him as a bitch.
    You need to stop worrying about that and just do the things that need to be done and let them think what they want to think about you. Just be kind, unapologetic, and firm.
    “Dudebro, if you want to attend this conference, you’ll need to do it on your own dime and use PTO. I have already made the decision that the company is not sending anyone to this conference.” Put it in writing, very clearly, so he doesn’t go tot he conference and try to submit for reimbursement.
    I do not believe it was an accident he announced this in front of the team and put you in this awkward spot. He is counting on you being too afraid to stand up to him so he can get his way. Do not let him.

  39. Cacofonix*

    On #1, when any of my employees just want something significant not already planned and it’s something I’d otherwise have to tease out why, I sit them down and go over a template I created that forces them to articulate what it is, why we need it, cost table, benefit to the organization, its clients and employees, and any ROI and anticipated outcomes. Sounds long, but it’s a one pager, but it definitely takes them time, because they usually haven’t thought about it. Then we go over it together. Works for major purchases, conferences, hires, new programs etc. If the employee believes in it, they need to think it through. Then I make them accountable for administering it if I agree. Had way better outcomes this way and it stops frivolous requests cold. Good employees can make this case verbally because they think beyond just their personal interests, but others need a push, especially for those who have not demonstrated value in the past as LW’s pushy employee had not.

    1. Pay no attention...*

      I agree. Writing a justification for the unbudgeted expense is fairly normal in business, especially for amounts in the $thousands — like paying for several employees to attend a conference, including travel, hotels, and meals.

      However, I think I would assume that employees who decide to attend an event without FIRST clearing the budget with their employer are planning on doing so on their own dime and time. I would approach the discussion as though that was his intention and you are just clarifying that, and making sure the office isn’t so short-staffed it can’t function if they all go. That might sus out quickly if this event has any real value or if he just sees it as an excuse to be out of the office.

  40. JobHopper*

    for letter number three..
    instead of throwing you a shower ask them to have a diaper drive or other baby things drive for families in need. there are a lot of agencies that desperately need it. two of my local banks sponsored one recently

  41. EA*

    Lean into the second baby! When I had my second baby, I told everyone that we weren’t doing a registry or baby shower because we were fortunate to have everything we needed saved from baby #1. It was pretty effective and the only things we got were small and more personalized (e.g. some crocheted booties, a burp rag with a cute design).

    IMHO it seems condescending to say “You make less than I do, so don’t get me a gift” because… it is pretty condescending. At the end of the day, it’s their money, and they get to decide how to use it, and as long as you are very clear that you aren’t expecting or asking for any gifts, I don’t think you need to worry about the “gifting up” issue.

    1. metadata minion*

      I think the “no gifting up” thing is more about power than salary. You don’t want to have employees in a position where they feel pressured to spend money on their manager to be seen as a “team player” or whatever, even if it’s not a financial hardship.

    2. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      “it’s their money, and they get to decide how to use it”

      Sure, as long as no one decides to take up a collection to buy a really big baby gift, and people feel pressured to contribute. When the owner at one of my previous jobs was about to become a father, he told the office manager to take up a collection among the employees for a baby gift, and she refused.

      The backstory is that a few years earlier, he was planning to get married right before Christmas and then go on a honeymoon. (None of us were invited to the wedding.) The office manager told me that she was going to take up a collection from all of us to buy him a wedding present. I said okay because I didn’t know what else to say. I had no idea how much money she was going to ask us to contribute.

      On his last day at work before his wedding, he said, “Oh … we didn’t have a Christmas party, did we?” No, we didn’t, but I hadn’t expected one, because we hadn’t had a party the previous year, or the year before that. I didn’t know if the company had ever had a party. He said said that when he returned from his honeymoon, we would have a party.

      In January, the party got postponed until February, In February, the party got postponed until March. In March, the party got postponed until April. In April, the party got postponed until May. By the time May rolled around, the party was never mentioned again. The office manager never did take up a collection for his wedding present. To this day, I don’t know if she didn’t take up a collection because we didn’t have a party, or if we didn’t have a party because we didn’t give him a wedding gift.

      As I said, when his wife had a baby, he told the office manager to take up a collection, and she refused. Luckily, he didn’t fire her.

    3. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      What is up with the accusations of condescension? If she wrote in complaining about how her subordinates weren’t buying her gifts for her 2nd baby, she’d be torn to shreds for insensitivity to the power and income imbalance. But she writes that she’s sensitive to that and she gets accused of being condescending. I guess it’s a case of women can’t win no matter what they do.

      “Don’t buy me a gift” is not telling people how to spend their money. And if I tell you I do not want a gift and you buy me one anyway, *you* are the one being condescending by deciding what I want doesn’t matter.

  42. 1-800-BrownCow*

    #2 – I also add to the list of those that think the Hiring Manager is not in the wrong. When I recruited for 2 separate roles on my team, quite often the resumes HR passed along to me were not relevant at all to the positions I was hiring for. I tried giving feedback to HR on a few as to why they weren’t even worth considering (I swear some people just sent resumes to any job that was available). I even spent time highlighting what was important for the role based on the job posting, but they just didn’t have the technical knowledge to really understand what fit the role and what didn’t. It was nothing against the HR person, they do a great job overall. But my input and review on the resumes were certainly needed to find the right candidates for the roles.

  43. tabloidtainted*

    #1: In my company, we’re required to write a short report after returning from conferences and trade shows to explain what we learned there (if we were attending to gather information or grow our network, for example) and/or what we accomplished (if we had a booth or were selling our products). If you’re having trouble seeing the return on investment for sending your employees to trade shows, something like that might be a solution.

  44. PurpleSheep*

    OP #5: My experience aligns exactly with Alison’s advice. I am a state employee who was hired about one year ago. I didn’t get my offer until two months after the single Zoom interview, by which time I had partly forgotten what the job entailed. I asked to talk to the hiring manager before accepting, and they were happy to chat and tell me more about the position. I also talked to two teammates about the role. I had one week to decide about accepting the offer, which was plenty of time to schedule the relevant conversations.

    I’ve been extremely happy at my job, and I love working for the people of my state. It’s more applied than the federal equivalent of my role, and I get to contribute towards decisions on a faster timescale. Speaking of which, I should get back to a report I’m writing. Best of luck in your career at the state level!

    1. No creative name yet*

      OP here. Thanks so much for sharing! This definitely helps me feel less anxious that I can ask for more information to help me decide if I want the job if I end up getting an offer (and to not worry about it for now since I of course might not get it).

  45. Jo*

    #3 I really like the advice to simply cheerfully respond that you’ve have more than you need between the first baby plus family and friends and that the gift of good vibes is plenty. But you might want to add something like: “But if you were looking for an excuse to shop for baby stuff, then consider donating a baby item to a charitable organization or surprising someone you know who has more of a need for new things.”

    1. LW3*

      LW3 here! I love this suggestion – I have no doubt my teams could find some incredibly deserving folks for gifts where they are needed!

  46. L*

    #4 Is this legal if Bob is in a profession stated by law as being exempt? For example, I am an actuary, and I recall reading that actuaries are exempt by definition, along with lawyers, doctors, and some other professions. If Bob is “highly skilled,” couldn’t this be the case?

    1. Kevin Sours*

      There are restrictions on what employees you can classify as exempt, but you are never *required* to classify an employee as exempt.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      It’s always legal to be non-exempt (ie, to pay people OT). To exempt them from being owed overtime pay, they have to meet specific requirements.

  47. An Australian in London*

    OP2, your letter is almost enough for me to think I need to have two sections in my resume: one for the HR/recruiter and one for the hiring manager.

    When I’ve been an Engineering Manager in IT, I could not get our HR/recruiters to send me even one resume that met all the mandatory criteria, and they frequently sent me resumes that did not meet any. I too asked to see the full list and they had filtered out candidates I wanted to interview. They could never explain how they had made their decisions.

  48. Nancy*

    #3: If they want to spend their ‘hard earned money’ on a baby gift that is their choice. How much they make doesn’t matter.

    However, since they are asking you, you can just say you don’t have a registry and don’t need anything.

    If they give you something anyway because you do have a registry and they found it (very easy to do) or they bought something on their own, say thank you.

    1. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      It does matter. Power dynamics are real. Your boss should not expect you to buy gifts. This boss does not expect that. This is a good thing.

      People could also learn to respect each other’s boundaries and accept no for an answer. Stop telling women (especially pregnant women) that it’s okay for their wishes to be ignored.

      If you are hunting down “easy to find” registries after being told no, you need to stop.

  49. Help them help you!*

    #3: Your team will feel good and get to exercise their gift-giving feels if you can ask for something they could give you that feels cheerful and personal but doesn’t cost anything:

    “Create and share with me a Spotify playlist with your favorite calming music, to help the baby sleep (and tired parents to relax)!”

    “We have lots of duplicate books, so please don’t buy any but please do share a list of the ones that were your favorites when you were a kid!”

    “We would love an index card with your favorite child-friendly recipe, whether one you loved or your family loves!”

    If somebody in the department is extra gifty and also crafty, you could say you would love if someone would collect them in an album.

    1. LW3*

      LW3 here! This is an amazing list that I will be adopting :) Especially being fully remote – and spread across the US – this also seems logistically easy!

      I’ve used the lines of “we don’t want/need anything,” but I’ve got some very insistent people. It’s great for the work we do, but definitely put me in an odd spot. Giving them ideas for “gifts” that cost nothing and are still thoughtful is fabulous, I appreciate your suggestion!

      1. Help them help you!*

        I’m so glad! My colleagues and I did the Spotify thing for a wonderful boss who felt just like you (and we loved her the more for that). We were bursting to celebrate for and with her, so we all contributed song ideas.

        Everybody got to decide how involved they wanted to be: those who were busy contributed their ideas and were done, and the gifty types who were more into it had fun talking about all the ideas and putting the playlist in order. Someone designed a digital album cover and made it into a card. It was a feelgood project for the whole department.

        She was very moved. Her joy was our joy and ours was hers, which is what the best gift-giving does. You sound like you’re on track for that kind of shared cheer. Congratulations on that and everything else!

  50. Religious Nutter*

    LW 4 – Your husband’s employer isn’t bringing in enough money to pay him for full time, so they’re trying to:
    1 – Switch him to part time (so they can pay him less)
    2 – But keep him available as though he were full time (so they get the same work from him)

    It’s good that they’re offering overtime, but realistically they’re doing this to try to cut costs. If he works thing out so he’s paid the same, they’ll just come back and tell him to work fewer hours (while magically not sacrificing work quality or throughput).

    It’s frustrating to say this, but the situation isn’t tenable. Its very unlikely that the company’s financial situation will improve, and they’re clearly not prepared to actually have him be a part-time employee (also it sounds like you can’t afford to have him earning nearly 25% less).

    It’s time for him to look for work elsewhere.

  51. #4 OP*

    Thanks for your suggestions!

    I think you’re right that they’re trying to cut costs, but they’re primarily interested in cutting non-billable costs. The rate the company charges the client for one hour of my husband’s time is many multiples of what they pay my husband, so if there is loads of billable work for him to do, they want him to work as many hours as he can, as they make money with each additional hour.

    But I think you’re right that there are questions about the financial future of the business that will require him to think seriously about what comes next.

  52. Pink Geek*

    #4 Bob should have a conversation with his boss about expectations around his time management. Things like: what times he will reliably be “at his desk” for the 20 hours and how much notice he needs for meetings outside of that time. Also, if he’s outside his hours what are the expectations for client interactions? If he’s not “at his desk” can he return the call the next morning? Can he answer (and log time) for the phone call and then do the actual work the next day? If he’s going to get any benefit from the free time he needs to not be atuck at his desk all day.

    It sounds like lots of other people have advice on if this is viable in the long term but he should think about what he needs to make it work short term too.

Comments are closed.