Ask a Manager

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

1. How should I tell an employee that she’s talking too much and needs to get back to work?

One of my employees talks too much and it affects her productivity. Her coworkers are able to talk a little bit, but are still able to meet their goals. However, she joins in their she winds up talking more then them. How do I explain to her that their talking is not an issue because they are able to meet their goals?

Why not keep the focus on her need to meet her goals? If she seems stumped on how to do that, you can point out that she shouldn’t be spending time talking to coworkers rather than working. Alternately, though, it’s certainly legitimate to just say directly, “Jane, I’m noticing you socializing with others a lot, while your productivity isn’t where it needs to be. I need you to do less talking to coworkers and stay focused on your work.”

2. My HR rep used offensive language

I work at a small-ish company with a friendly culture, and we just have one HR person. She’s at the senior manager level and has been with the company for just under a year. I never really get the chance to interact with her much, but she has always seemed like a nice person.

Today during regular business hours, she was talking to a coworker who sits near me. They are not close friends and it wasn’t a “friendly chat” sort of conversation. Basically it was the HR manager expressing frustration about a program on her computer. She sounded very angry and called the situation “retarded” at least 3 times and didn’t bother to keep her voice down.

I was honestly quite shocked to hear this. First, because I just find this word to be very offensive and I think it needs to fall out of popular use. Second, I was disappointed to hear that an HR manager out of all people would be throwing around this word repeatedly in an office setting.

I had been considering going to her with a small HR issue, but now I’m hesitant to reach out to her. I don’t know if she would be able to help me solve my issue in a professional and judgment-free way, to be honest, and I don’t know if I would ever be comfortable going to her. Am I being too sensitive here?

I don’t think you’re being overly sensitive in being bothered by what she said, but you’re probably being overly sensitive in not feeling comfortable talking to her about professional issues now. The word “retarded” is still in something of a transition in phase in our culture: Many people recognize that using it in a pejorative way is offensive, but plenty still don’t; there are many people who truly haven’t thought about why that usage isn’t okay, who hear it said by others around them and think it’s fine, and who haven’t been clued in yet that it’s not. Why not clue her in and see how she responds?

3. Should I mention to my interviewer that I’m interviewing for another position in the same company?

Yesterday, I applied to two jobs at the same company. I used your advice and made sure each cover letter was different, mentioned why I was qualified, and that I did apply for the other one. Well, I now got a call for a phone interview for one and an in person for the other. Do I assume that they each know they have contacted me, do I say something in case they don’t, or just leave it alone and act as if it is two different companies?

It obviously is a good predicament to have, but I am wondering about the protocol.

If it’s a small or small-ish company, I’d acknowledge it; it’s weird if you don’t. When you next speak to each, I’d say something like, “By the way, I want to make sure you know that I’m also talking with Jane about the XYZ position.”

4. Should teachers be allowed to go clubbing?

My friends and I are having a debate about whether it is ok for a preschool or teacher’s aide to go to a bar or nightclubbing. We have mostly the cons over the pro, but I would like to hear it your side.

What?! Yes, of course it’s okay. Preschool and teacher’s aides are allowed to have adult lives outside of school, and nightclubs are not bordellos.

5. Should the body of your email be the same as your cover letter?

Should the body of your email (when you submit a job application) be the same as your cover letter? In the past, I’ve sent a very short email with my resume and cover letter attached as PDFs, but now I’m wondering if I should have pasted the text of my cover letter into the initial email.

Pick one or the other — don’t do both. It’s annoying to have it in both places, since then I need to wonder if the letters are the same or different and spend time finding out. If you put it in the email body, there’s no need to also attach it, and vice versa.

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

1. Employer offered me a job, but said I rubbed half the team the wrong way

I was recently told by email that I would be receiving a verbal offer, followed by a written offer. During the verbal offer call, the hiring manager volunteered interview feedback both critical and positive. The critical feedback was that half (!) the team who interviewed me were rubbed the wrong way by my “edge.” I thanked her for her candor and she said, “We can work on that one.” I expressed concern about whether this feedback would handicap me before I’ve even started to work for them.

I’m a bit perplexed about how to proceed. This information gives me some serious pause — regarding leadership style and office culture, namely. My expectation would be that this would be an opportune time to “white lie” to the candidate and express the team’s (albeit, democratically) enthusiasm for extending a job offer. I don’t know how this feedback benefits my work performance before I have even accepted an offer.

Yeah, that should give you serious pause, because it’s a sign that this place might not be a comfortable fit for you. And remember, the goal isn’t just to get a job offer; it’s to end up working somewhere where you’ll excel and be happy. I’m curious about how aligned you felt with their culture before that phone call; did these feel like your people, or were you already getting the sense that it might not be a perfect match?

In any case, as for what to do now … I wouldn’t take the job without getting a much better understanding of what the concern is and what “we can work on that one” means.

(Also, be grateful for employers who don’t indulge in “white lies” in the hiring stage; you want to know what you might be getting into. It’s the ones who sugarcoat who cause the real problems.)

2. Can an employer impose restrictions on when vacation days become available to employees?

If a salaried, non-exempt employee is granted 20 total vacation days per year, are there restrictions that an employer may impose as far as when and how many days are available throughout the year? We have a situation where the salaried employee has been on maternity leave since December, has depleted her 2013 vacation days, and now wants to use some of her 2014 allotment. My fear is paying vacation days before the employee has even reported back to work in 2014. It would seem logical that she is allotted the 20 vacation days spread incrementally over the year so as to not deplete in too short of a period (if she quits, the employer has paid vacation for the whole year!).

Yes, you can impose any restrictions you want. Typically companies don’t front-load all the year’s vacation days in January; rather, employees accrue them at a steady rate through the year. For instance, with 20 annual days, people might accrue 6 hours of leave with each paycheck (assuming you’re paid every two weeks). And typically people don’t accrue any PTO when they’re on unpaid leave.

3. My boss doesn’t want me including his telecommuting in an attendance report

I have a question and I think my dislike of this job in general is clouding my judgment. My office is a remote branch of a national company, and there’s one branch manager who’s my direct boss (I’m an admin). When I first started, I was told by HR to send them an attendance report with a record of everyone’s absences for the branch (including the manager). But he gets upset whenever I put that he’s out of office working from home. He only wants me to record when he’s actually out of town. I checked with HR, and they clarified the working from home format, but he still gets annoyed. I realize it doesn’t affect pay, but I’m uncomfortable recording something I see as inaccurate. He also implied that if I mark working from home, it means he didn’t actually work. (But seriously, I’m not sending value judgments of his week or writing that he was unproductive, just that he’s in the office or not). He comes in to the office significantly less than 40 hours so this is bound to come up soon. So, am I being a stickler? What should I do?

I agree with your boss that there’s no reason an attendance report needs to indicate when someone is working from home. Telecommuting is working, just as much as working in the office.

But are you saying that your HR department has specifically asked you to record when someone is working from home, including your manager? That’s bizarre and I can’t imagine why they need to know that. But in that case, you might send a clarifying message to HR saying something like, “Bob told me not to use the working-from-home category. I don’t feel comfortable overriding his instructions to me, but if it’s an issue on your end, it might make sense to work it out with him directly.”

4. Can I decline a job opportunity but recommend a friend?

I am a marketing major in the college of business at my school, and I have a friend who lives out of town who has been trying to get a job at a local bank so that she can move here. She has applied at every bank in town and hasn’t heard back from any of them. A couple of days ago, I was presenting an assignment in my Management class. I was passed a business card later that had a message on the back. It said I have great presentation skills, and that if I’m interested in a career in the banking world, I should email him. However, I still have a year before I graduate, and I have a summer internship that pays enough that I don’t have to work during school. So, I don’t really want the position. Would it be impolite to pass this person’s contact information on to my friend? Would it be impolite to bring her name up to him? I want to handle this as tactfully as possible.

No, that’s not impolite. However, to really help your friend, you should make the introduction yourself. Email the person who gave you his card and explain that you’re not currently looking for work but you can recommend a friend who’s great because of X, Y, and Z. Say she’ll be emailing him with her resume soon, and then make sure she does so. (Make sure that you can really vouch for her though; it will reflect on you if you recommend someone bad, or whose application materials will be a disaster. So you want to have some professional knowledge of your friend.)

5. My employer-affiliated doctors aren’t taking my pain seriously

I work for a large auto manufacturing plant in the U.S. I was injured on the job in October. I’m in constant pain and not sure how to proceed. Every time I go to medical to get treatment, I’m given painkillers, heating pads and a cortisone steroid shot and told to go back to work. The pain is getting worse. All recommended physicians work or are affiliated with the plant. What can I do?

Please see a doctor who isn’t affiliated with your workplace. You need an independent opinion from someone who isn’t any way beholden to your employer.

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

1. How many interviews do employers conduct for one position?

I had an interview this morning, and towards the end, when we were going over the hiring timeline, the interviewer mentioned that they had to reschedule a bunch of interviews yesterday because of the weather and she had some more this week. I know these are vague terms, but it sounded like a lot of people. It got me curious — is there a ballpark number of candidates or percentage of applicants that hiring managers will interview for one position?

It varies by the position (and to some extent, by the manager and company). But for a straightforward position that the hiring manager knows she’s going to be able to fill pretty easily, interviewing three to five candidates in-person is pretty typical. For harder-to-fill positions, it can be fewer than that (when there are fewer strong candidates to pick from) or more than that (when a lot of candidates are good enough to make it through the initial screening but not well-matched enough to get an offer).

But that’s for in-person interviews. Smart managers will do phone interviews before those — usually 10-20 depending on the position, and again it can vary pretty widely based on the factors above.

And that’s for a single slot. If you’re planning to hire several people in the same role, you’d often want a larger pool of phone and in-person interviews.

2. Should I warn my manager that I plan to shave my head?

Next month, I will shaving my head as part of an initiative to raise money for cancer research, and I am seeking advice on how to navigate this with regard to the workplace.

For context, I’m female and work as an assistant to the managing director of a very small company and also complete occasional reception duties and administrative support to the office at large. I am a student, so I do this part-time during the semester, and full-time the rest of the year.

Is shaving my head something that I should be discussing with my boss beforehand or is it fine to go ahead and do? Is this something that a boss would even object to? Honestly, I have already decided to participate, regardless of my boss’s response. So, my concern is that if I “pretend” to ask permission, am turned down, and then do it anyway, that that would reflect more negatively on me than just showing up Lex Luthor-style. Do you have any advice?

Whether they’ll care or not will depend on the office. Some offices would care across the board, others would only care for public-facing positions like receptionist, and some wouldn’t care at all. Personally, I’d mention it beforehand so that you know if it’s going to be an issue or not — as in, “I want to let you know that I’m planning on shaving my head as part of a campaign to raise money for cancer research. I assume this is okay, but I didn’t want to just surprise you with it one day.”

If they have a problem with it, then you’ll hear that and be able to decide what to do (which includes the option of saying, “Since I’m committed to doing this, what’s the best way for us to proceed?”). But I think you’re better off knowing in advance if that’s the case.

3. My manager is bringing up my family commitments in my performance evaluation

I have a question about how far is too far when dragging family into things. One of my children was born with a severe birth defect and my wife stays home to care for 2 of our 3 kids. Since she’s often at appointments and therapies, I take our oldest son to pre-school, which is very close to my job. I arranged this with my manager, as it would make me 30 minutes late to work in the morning. The agreement was that I would work through lunch to make up the time, which I do. On my performance evaluation, my boss’ boss gave me a low mark for communication, writing “Personal obligations have kept x from interacting informally with his co-workers.” Is this too far?

In another instance, my son with the illness also caught the flu and spent days in the hospital. He was in considerable pain and discomfort. My job was having a large fundraiser on a Saturday and I got no sleep caring for my son the night before. Still, I showered and dressed at the hospital (at 5am), then drove an hour to the event. I worked very hard that day (for 9 hours), only to go home afterward to change and go back to the hospital. 2 weeks later, two of our directors called me into a meeting to discuss the event. I was told that several people gave negative reports about my “lack of energy and enthusiasm.” I apologized and explained the situation, noting that one of the directors knew about my situation. The answer I received was, “Well…perception is everything,” and they continued their criticism. Too far?

I don’t know, because I’m not there to see the stuff they’re commenting on. It’s possible that they’re being ridiculous, but it’s also possible that a reasonable manager would be concerned about the things they’ve raised. I don’t know which it is. But I do know that they’re telling you pretty clearly that this stuff is an issue for them. From there, you need to decide if it’s something that you can or want to change, and if not, whether you’re willing to live with it potentially holding you back there (or worse) or whether you’d be better off finding a job that looks on all of this differently.

Do keep in mind, though, that this isn’t about whether it’s fair for them to judge you on family commitments; it is fair for an employer to judge you on how present you seem at work. What’s at question here is just whether they’re applying that in a fashion that most employers would find unreasonable.

4. I don’t want my old coworker to be above me at my new company

After a decade at my current company, I applied for and was offered a job at another company in an industry I have always wanted to work in. The role is a two tier promotion with a generous compensation package. Now a colleague of mine, who I have been friends with for years, is thinking of applying as well. (This is a new team that has a lot of openings.) The issue I am having is that he would be applying to a role a tier above the one I just received.

We have both been in the industry the same amount of time, but I tried out multiple job paths during my time and he took the straighter narrower path. Therefore, he ended up at a higher position than I did at this point in our careers. I felt that this new job was a chance to bring myself back on par with my peers, even put me a little ahead of them. I don’t even know if he will get the job, but I can’t help feeling a bit deflated even though I should be proud of my ability to land this lucrative role.

Am I just being petty? Assuming he gets the job, the career person in me says I should put it aside, focus on my new role, impress the hell out of them and compete on my own merits while laying aside personal pride.

I don’t think you’re being petty, but I do think that you’re being … unproductive where your own interests are concerned. It’s always a little weird when a peer is suddenly above you, but there’s nothing you can do about it if it happens. Don’t waste the energy stewing over it; if it happens, it happens and you’ll adjust to it eventually. More importantly, you’re not in a race with this guy. You were happy with your new job before this happened, and you acknowledge that you took a path that means the job you got is an excellent leap forward for you. So why does this guy’s own, separate path matter? Keep your eyes on the path in front of you, and run your own race.

5. How to withdraw from a hiring process

I went for an interview today. After much consideration, I decided not to continue to be considered further. The problem is, I’m not sure if the company will ask me for a second round of interview or not. So, I assume it sounds pretty stupid to email and tell them I don’t want to be considered for the application, when they might not want to move me into the second round?

The manager did say she will arrange me to talk to someone from management when he returns, but nothing concrete about whether this will take place was mentioned. From her words, does that mean that I’ll move on to the next interview?

Also, how should I draft the letter about me not wanting to continue with the application. Should I include my reasons or can I just mentioned I don’t want to be further considered and thank them for their time? I feel very bad and guilty about rejecting them.

There’s no way to know if you’ll move on to the next interview or not, but it doesn’t matter. If you’re sure you’re not interested, email her now and withdraw, so that they don’t make decisions (like rejecting other candidates) on the assumption that you’re taking up a slot in their pool of finalists. Just email her and tell her that you appreciated the chance to talk but you’ve decided to pursue other opportunities and wish them the best of luck in filling the role.

And don’t feel guilty. Companies reject candidates all the time, and they’re used to candidates withdrawing or rejecting their offers too; it’s just business. It’s highly unlikely they’ll be thinking about it five minutes after receiving your email.