how to make your team’s operations less complex

by Alison Green on December 24, 2013

Ask anyone who has ever worked on a team of people (i.e., most of us) whether they’ve ever felt that the team’s processes and operations were overly complex and you’re likely to hear a resounding “yes.” After all, if you’re doing work yourself, it’s generally pretty straightforward. But add more people to the mix, and it’s not long before you’ve got processes, procedures, decision-making protocols, and bureaucracy. And of course, even though “bureaucracy” is often used as a dirty word, the reality is that you need some of this when you’re managing a group of people, or you’ll end up with chaos: people working at odds with each other, work being duplicated or not done at all, and important details being missed.

But managers can use these four tactics to reduce complexity on their teams – and make their teams more effective as a result:

1. Be relentlessly committed to setting and meeting clear goals. It sounds simple, but far too often managers don’t lay out clear, targeted goals for their team to meet and instead simply tread water or get pulled in too many directions instead of figuring out what the most important things for them to achieve are and focusing there. Clear goals can cut through the noise and make it easier to see what matters most – what must be done in order to have a successful year (or quarter or whatever your goal period is).

2. Talk explicitly about what NOT to do. Clear goals only have power if you’re disciplined about working toward them – which in some cases will mean saying “no” to other activities. If you say yes to anything that sounds like a good idea – or if you let your staff do that – your focus will dissolve, your time will be spent less effectively, and you’ll find your team pulled in too many directions and trying to juggle too many projects. Instead, be rigorous about asking what the best uses of your team’s time are – and deliberately choosing not to do things that don’t fall in that category.

3. Be clear about roles and who is in charge of what. Getting multiple perspectives can be a good thing, but too often it devolves into confusion when people aren’t clear on their roles and projects languish for lack of a clear driver or decision-maker. In projects where multiple people are playing roles, be vigilant about articulating who should play what role throughout the work – who should own the project (with overall responsibility for its success), who should act as a helper to the owner, who should be consulted, and who must approve it.

4. Invite and welcome input from your team on how to streamline processes. Often your staff members will be better positioned than you are to spot inefficiencies and ways to streamline your systems. But you won’t hear about it unless you create an environment that welcomes and rewards that kind of input. For instance, try asking, “If we were to stop doing one thing this year, what should it be?” and “What’s one system we have that makes it harder for you to get things done?”

I originally published this at Intuit QuickBase. 

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why are employers turned off when they hear how much time I spend on my job search?

by Alison Green on December 24, 2013

This was originally published on October 18, 2011. (I’m reprinting some posts this week while I’m eating enormous amounts of rum balls and drinking sparkly beverages.)

A reader writes:

I have been unemployed for 6 months and it’s been very challenging! I find looking for a job (a job that is the right fit for me) to be a full-time job! In the past 6 months, I have enrolled in career counseling and have attended resume and interview skills workshops, hidden job market seminars, and job search strategies workshops. I feel this is important for my own personal growth and development, plus it gives me an advantage in my search.

In interviews, when I am asked what have I been doing the last 6 months while unemployed and I say all the above, I feel like I’m being judged, perhaps, or those answers and what I’ve been doing isn’t good enough… Any suggestions?

Yes, they’re judging you for it and it’s not reflecting well on you. Here’s why:

1. Those activities are all about getting a job. But your interviewers don’t care about your job-searching skills; they only care about what you’re going to be like once you’re in a job. So they’re looking for answers like volunteering, taking a class, learning a new skill, working in your community — something that’s going to make you a more valuable employee when you do return to work.

2. It’s … excessive. I don’t know what kind of advice you’re getting at these workshops and seminars and counseling, but a good career expert could give you the basics you need in less than a day. So — fairly or unfairly — it’s coming across as both excessive and desperate, and it’s raising questions about your judgment in doing so much of it, and questions about why you need so much of it.

3. On a more human level, imagine that you’re on a first date. You ask the guy how he likes to spend his time, and he tells you that he spends most of his free time going to relationship seminars, reading dating advice books, and practicing his dating skills. Turn-on or turn-off?  Similar thing here.

Look, I know the job market is horrible and it’s scary to be out of work, and hiring practices can seem mysterious, and the whole thing is incredibly anxiety-producing, and so I understand how you could end up throwing yourself into this kind of thing in the hope that it will help.  And if you want to do it and find it helpful, fine (as long as you’re actually getting good advice from these experts, which I’m questioning). But it’s not a good answer when employers ask you how you’ve been spending your time.

Do something that will make you more marketable. There’s tons to choose from (see answers in point #1 above).

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update from the reader who didn’t want to invite her boss to her wedding

by Alison Green on December 23, 2013

Remember the reader who didn’t want to invite her boss to her wedding, but the boss was assuming she’d get an invitation? Here’s the update.

The wedding was early in November. I only ended up inviting one person from my new library (whom I socialize with regularly outside of work) and almost everyone from my old one. I just didn’t talk about it in mixed company and never brought up the fact that I had invited the old director. Whenever it was appropriate (such as when someone brought up the wedding or how plans were going) I casually mentioned just how many people were coming and how I wish I had the budget to invite more. There was only one blatantly uncomfortable moment when one of my supervisors came right out and said that it’s good etiquette to invite your supervisor and director at the very least. I played it off with an “Oh, I know…I feel just so terribly rude but I just can’t afford another guest at the rate my caterer is charging!” (I felt kind of bad throwing him under the bus like that. He was actually a fantastic vendor and allowed me ten extra people without charging extra!)

A few months have passed since I submitted my original question and I can tell you that I have learned a LOT about my new library since then. I probably would have just taken the wedding drama in stride had I been here longer and knew what I know now. The director is a difficult person to get along with to say the least. She’s friendly and funny — almost manic — one minute and a fire-breathing dragon the next. As a result, the other employees (especially those in a supervisory or responsibility-heavy position) tend to be on edge more than any place I have ever worked. The days when she’s on vacation or at a conference, the atmosphere is notably lighter and more pleasant. Though everybody is obviously aware of the issue (and its source) nobody talks about it for fear of repercussion.

Let me just give you one example of what I’m talking about and I’ll wrap this up. The most recent situation that occurred was our holiday luncheon which, as the new gal, I was in charge of planning. Since we have two libraries (my old one and my new one), I initially started planning a shindig for both of them and was told that this party was for library A only and library B was “doing their own thing.” I took this at face value and planned accordingly. This past weekend I was at a party with a couple of the employees of the other library and was told that they had all blocked out their schedule for the day and time of the luncheon and were fully expecting to get an invitation (because, after all, we are one department under one director even though we have two locations). Of course they were never invited because I didn’t invite them and evidently the director never told them that they were on their own for the holiday. They are now rushing to plan something at the last minute because they never received an invitation to participate. I felt like dirt but I was following our director’s express directions.

Needless to say, I’m toughing it out here for a while to beef up my CV then I might seriously consider moving on. Working in an environment like this has got to prematurely age a girl.

Thanks to you and your readers for the great insight and support!

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here are the best things about holidays in the workplace

by Alison Green on December 23, 2013

If you’re grumpy about having to work during the holidays when you’d rather be at home by the fireplace and Christmas tree, don’t despair! There are plenty of things to enjoy about being at work around the holidays.

No, really. Here are seven of them.

1. Working when everyone else is gone. Some people consider this a negative, but working when not many others are around has loads of advantages: Your office will be quiet and you can work without interruption – something that might not happen at any other time of year. It’s also a great time to clean your desk, organize files, purge old documents, and catch up on projects that you’ve been putting off for lack of time.

2. You can relax – a bit. If your workload slows way down at this time of year but you have a job that requires you to be physically present anyway, in many offices you can have more relaxed days than normally: Play some music, make some cocoa, and simply enjoy the quiet day. (This obviously isn’t true for jobs where the workload doesn’t slow down, but it’s true for many!)

3. Fewer phone calls. It’s not just your coworkers who are away; vendors, clients, and others outside your office who you normally work with are generally away in large numbers too. Some of their companies may even shut down entirely during the last week of the year. This makes it much less likely that you’ll be interrupted by outside questions or a client’s last-minute rush project.

4. The constant stream of holiday food. Most office workers can count on a bonanza of cookies, pastries, cheese balls, and other holiday snacks, whether they’re brought in by coworkers, supplied by the company itself, or sent over by vendors and clients. (Of course, this also belongs on the list of the 10 worst things about holidays in the office, if you’re trying to watch what you eat.) Speaking of which…

5. Potlucks. This is another item on the list that some people love and some people hate, but taken in the right spirit, potlucks can be enormously fun. You get to try dishes that you might never have tried before, particularly if you work with coworkers from diverse cultural backgrounds. And you can see what sorts of things your coworkers like to cook – and you might be surprised to learn that Joe from Accounting makes amazing biscotti or that Paula from Communications has a recipe for rum balls that you’ll spend the rest of your tenure at your company trying to wrangle out of her.

6. Holiday bonuses. At many companies, the end of the year is bonus time, meaning that you can expect some extra holiday cash – in some cases, a lot of extra holiday cash. Bonuses are more common in some fields than in others, but even if they’re routine in your industry and at your company, remember not to take them for granted – they’re extra money that can vary from year to year. (Unless you have a contract that requires a bonus, in which case it’s not really a bonus at all – it’s more accurately part of your normal compensation that comes late in the year.)

7. Paid holidays (if you’re lucky enough to have them). No matter what else you might think of your employer, it’s nice to have paid days off. And if you’re fortunate enough to work at one of the many companies that close down between Christmas and New Year’s and pay employees for that time, you have a full extra week of paid vacation to enjoy.

I originally published this at U.S. News & World Report.

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is it okay to fire someone close to Christmas?

by Alison Green on December 23, 2013

This was originally published on December 16, 2011. (I’m reprinting some posts this week while I’m busy eating cookies and looking at shiny ornaments.)

A reader writes:

I have an employee who has performance issues that are well documented. In fact, he has been slated for termination several times and, in each instance, managed to convince a former manager that he should be allowed to retain his position. However, after making a major mistake which could cost us a large client, the time has come to part ways.

Given that we are just two weeks short of Christmas, I am curious as to how other individuals and organizations have handled such a situation? Do you terminate immediately, wait until after the holidays, or wait until the new year? In addition to doing what is right by this individual, we obviously don’t want to have any adverse affect on morale by terminating someone on Christmas Eve. Real life experiences would be appreciated. Thanks.

Here’s my take on it:

If keeping him on a few more weeks would cause harm to your business (i.e., he’ll cause real damage in that amount of time), then you need to act now. (And be generous with the severance if you can.)

But otherwise, deal with it for a couple of weeks more and do it right after the holidays. Reasons for this:

* Compassion. You don’t want to be someone who fires people right before Christmas, as long as you can avoid it without real harm.

* Morale of others. You don’t want your other employees to conclude that you’re a jerk who fires people right before Christmas.

By the way, this is yet one more good reason not to put this stuff off (which it sounds like was allowed to happen here). If you put it off rather than acting when you know you should, then you sometimes run into a situation which ends up making it harder to terminate — and not just the holidays. Imagine if you’d put it off and then he happened to file a claim for FMLA or ADA accommodation (unrelated to the performance issues) just as you were about to act. You could still proceed, of course, but now you’d have a sticky legal landmine to navigate, and your risk factor would go way up. So when you know you need to terminate, don’t drag it out.

And yes, most managers, being human, like to give people additional chances and like to avoid telling people that they’re not meeting our needs. And as a result, many managers prolong these situations when they shouldn’t. But you’ve got to do it, so resolve to resolve this as soon as the holidays are over.

P.S. I do not advocate this approach for relationship break-ups! If you’re waiting to break up with someone until the new year, stop leading them on and deal with it now.

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is my inactive blog giving employers a bad impression?

by Alison Green on December 22, 2013

A reader writes:

Be warned, this may be a silly question, but I’m genuinely unsure of how to go about addressing it.

My background is in health communications– writing and editing printed materials and/or social media content related to public health. I decided to start a public health blog as a way to showcase my previous publications and keep a “library” of current writing samples to refer employers to, since in my industry, they usually ask for writing samples to accompany a resume and cover letter.

At first, I was totally on top of it, posting regular updates, generating a decent following, engaging with other users, writing about current health-related topics in the news, etc. That lasted about 3 months, and I’m ashamed to say that for the past 10 months, it’s been inactive. (To make things more awkward, my last entry was meant to be the first of 2 parts, so at the end of my last entry I made mention of what the next post would address.) Granted, I’ve had a lot going on this year — my husband and I bought our first house, which needed substantial work, which we were mostly doing on our own with very little outside/contracted help. Then my grandfather got ill, and I went to spend a couple months with him. My extended family lives overseas, in a part of the world where internet access is spotty at best, and nonexistent in parts of the country. I’ve also been volunteering with a public health-related nonprofit, first as a member of the board of directors, and then as chair(WO)man of the board. While my personal blog was growing cobwebs, I was managing our Twitter presence for the nonprofit, in addition to doing other chairman-y stuff.

Throughout this time I have been applying to jobs in my industry, with little success, and I have to wonder if it’s because of how I’ve abandoned my blog (I realize it could be because of my resume and cover letters, but for the purposes of my question I want to focus on my blog as the culprit).

Things are finally starting to calm down for me, my grandfather is doing a bit better (so no trips to remote areas planned for the foreseeable future), and I feel like I have the time and attention to devote to the blog that I did pre-house craziness. So my question is: do I just pick up with my next post and finish off the second part of my last topic, like it’s no big deal that my blog was inactive for 10 months? Or do I address it in a “by the way here’s what I’ve had going on for the past 10 months” type of entry, and follow that with the second part of my topic?

My worry in addressing it is that, to an employer looking to scan my writing samples, it would sound unprofessional and like I’m making excuses. On the other hand if I don’t address it, an employer may notice the large time lapse in the dates between my last 2 entries, which wouldn’t look good. I’m eager for your thoughts both as an employment guru and as a successful blogger.

Your blog is almost certainly not the culprit.

And I say that because the Internet is filled with abandoned or neglected blogs. They are normal. They are not shameful. They are still an illustration of how you write and think, and the fact that it’s been 10 months since you wrote something there does not mark you as a Terribly Irresponsible Person Who Cannot Finish What She Started. It marks you as someone who had some things to write about and then got called away by other priorities. In other words, you are perfectly normal and not a shameful layabout.

An employer who spots your not-recently-updated blog isn’t going to be dismayed or disgusted. The likeliest thing they will think is, “Oh, great, an archive of her work — this is helpful.”

That said, there are things you can do now to polish up the overall impression the site creates. For instance, you could edit that “first of two” post and remove the promise of a second part. Ta-dah! Now that’s taken care of.

Also, decide whether you truly want to return to blogging regularly again. If you don’t really want to, you could rework your website a little bit so that the content is no longer presented as a blog (with the expectation of regular or at least semi-regular posts) and instead is more of a static site (with less or no emphasis on when the content appeared there).

But if you’re eager to get back to it, then yeah, I’d say just dive right back in. There’s no need for a detailed explanation of your absence; you can simply launch your first post back with a sentence or two acknowledging your break, and you can be vague about the reasons if you want to. (Or you can share them if you prefer that; I’d just err on the side of not throwing out too many personal details that you wouldn’t normally share with an audience that could include prospective employers.)

And going forward, keep in mind that you can manage readers’ expectations however you want. It’s fine to only post occasionally (although keep in mind that you’ll probably have a lower readership if you do; higher traffic tends to build through more frequent posting, but you might not care about that, depending on what your goals for the site are). Generally, as long as you’re posting high-quality content when you do post, that’s far more important than how often it’s showing up.

Speaking of all of this, this is a good time for me to mention that I’m moving into a holiday posting schedule here for the next week — probably two posts a day rather than our usual four a day — because I will be eating cookies and drinking punch and so forth. Happy holidays!

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update from the reader whose former VP was accusing her of causing a spam influx

by Alison Green on December 21, 2013

Remember the reader whose former VP (at a job she’d recently left) was accusing her of causing a spam influx on her computer? Here’s the update.

Thanks so much to your commenters for giving me such awesome advice. As far has how it’s turned out, it’s been blessedly boring, in that I took everyone’s advice to do nothing, and indeed, nothing has happened. I’m happy at my current job, and things are great overall.

Your advice and everyone’s responses to the post were totally spot-on, and reading everyone’s responses helped me feel much more comfortable about not taking my mentor’s advice, and just opting to ignore the whole thing. (I love my mentor and he always gives me really solid, good career advice, but in this one instance, I think he took it more seriously than it needed to be taken. Being accused of cybercrime is scary, but as you and the lovely commenters at AskAManager said, anyone who had a competent level of knowledge of computers and the interwebs would see that it was totally nuts.)

The VP I wrote about continues to be B-A-N-A-N-A-S from what I hear from my friends who still work there. She moved on from a haxoring witch hunt to accuse another manager and some employees of concocting a nefarious scheme of internal sabotage! It’s probably likely that she’ll move on from that to the next thing in a month or so. I think it’s just an aspect of her personality that I never got much exposure to while I was there since I didn’t work under her.

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4 reader updates: a manager on another team criticized my work, toilet trauma, and more

by Alison Green on December 20, 2013

Here are four more updates from readers who had their questions answered here this year.

1. A manager on another team criticized my work

I did take your advice and speak with my manager when they came back, and I tried to sound as manner of fact as possible. My manager did support me and ultimately it appears that I inadvertently walked into a bit of a nightmare in terms of intraoffice politics, one that was ongoing before I made the proposal. The proposal was quietly dropped, however since then another manager has reviewed the work, found the proposed process worthwhile and is resubmitting it with some modifications (the other manager is more experienced than I (and a pleasure to work with) and is adding some nuance.)

In the time since, for several other reasons, I have reconsidered my fit within the organization, and the differences in focus and approach between myself and the company. While I am extremely grateful for my time at my company, I decided that it was time to move on to an organization with some different approaches and focuses. I did get another position, and, in a bit of a twist, I’ll be developing the design processes and systems for them. This month should be my last month at my current company.

I’m thankful for the advice from you and all of the people who commented. It’s great to hear from other people, and I found the advice valuable in terms of dictating my approach and being more aware of potential personality conflicts.

2. The reader wondering who makes hiring decisions — HR or the hiring manager? (#1 at the link)

In late August, I interviewed for a full-time position for the State of Minnesota. About a month later, I was notified that I got the job and started shortly after receiving the offer. In my job, which is data entry, there are several different forms to input into the database. Each one is different, each one has different rules and procedures in how to enter the information provided. It’s more than just sitting in front of a computer and mindlessly typing.

My boss has told me that I’m doing fantastic because I quickly and efficiently learned how to enter each form, plus I’ve been entering twice as many documents with minimal errors. She told me that the number of documents I’m entering on a daily basis is equivalent to the average employee who has been there for six months while I’ve only been there for two. This is a great job, since it’s rewarding and I work with excellent people. Now all I have to do is pass this six-month probationary period…

3. The coworker who was always peeing on top of the toilet seat (#6 at the link)

I emailed and asked what to do about a coworker who was urinating on top of the toilet seat; well…things got worse before they got better.

It stopped for a couple weeks after she overheard us (intentionally) speaking rather loudly outside her office about the gross factor. However, when it came back, it came back with a vengeance. She stopped “sprinkling” the toilet seats and started just using the floor in front of the toilet.

Eventually, one person walked into the restroom and slipped and fell. Incident reports had to be filed, clinic visits etc. Not pretty. Plus the gross factor! Eww!

The VP came to our offices and was red faced mad, one email from him that pretty much said to whomever, you are a gross disgusting person in need of psychological help, do it again and I will personally hunt you down, embarrass you in front of the entire corporation and fire you.

It stopped. Go figure.

4. New hire quit after five days — should I alert her references?

As saw the comments on the blog, I realized I should’ve included more details about our field and the references I was thinking of. I explained this in comments at the time, but to recap: the references I was thinking of telling are two peers of mine in a pretty small field, and I tend to see them in passing pretty regularly. I was never thinking of cold-calling people I have no connection to. Since I always thank my colleagues who give me good hiring tips, and since I’d never previously had a hire fizzle out like this, I was thinking they’d want to know what had happened. I’d want them to do the same if the situations were reversed.

As it turned out, I didn’t see those colleagues (her references) for a couple of weeks, and decided after a while that it wasn’t worth bringing up. The woman who left our office has chosen a different-enough field that I suspect she won’t be returning to our industry, nor need those references. It was a pretty disruptive month for us, but after another search, I hired a great replacement and everything has been running smoothly ever since. Thanks for fielding my question, and for your help!

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my office Secret Santa gave me a sex toy

by Alison Green on December 20, 2013

A reader writes:

The office did a secret Santa gift exchange. I was out on dinner at the time, so my present was left on my desk. Beyond assuming a man wrapped it due to the quality of the wrap job, no one kept track of who got who.

I bought a box of chocolates for mine as I don’t really know him and I figured that if he doesn’t like chocolate, it’s a good quality box and can be regifted.

I received a novelty sex toy. Now, I know because I have common sense and read your blog that this is a massive no-no in the workplace, no matter how it was intended. I threw it in the garbage can, but I now feel a) that I’ve been ripped off because I spent the allocated amount on a “nice” gift for someone and ended up with less than nothing myself, and b) that someone’s opinion of me might be “use this and stop being such a miserable cow.”

My question would be how to go forward. Do I try to roll my eyes and assume I work with someone juvenile who was trying to be funny, or do I ask the receptionist who managed the exchange if she knows who put the package wrapped thusly in and try to take it further? I am offended simply due to the reasons given. I’ll be second-guessing who it might have been for a good long while.

How do you think I should handle this?

Ugh, someone in your office is a giant d-bag.

Seriously, who out there thinks that it’s a good idea to give a coworker a sex toy? In an office setting? Anonymously? For that matter, who out there thinks it’s a good idea to give a sex toy to anyone with whom they’re not intimately involved? (Well, I know the answer to that last one: bachelorette party attendees.)

In any case, it would be entirely reasonable to bring it to the attention of Someone In Charge and point out that the Secret Santa needs clearer guidelines next year … but if rolling your eyes and letting it go feels like a reasonable response to you, I think that’s fine too.

I definitely wouldn’t try to second-guess whether there’s some message for you in there; it’s far more likely that someone was just trying to be silly and badly misfired. (And really, anyone who would try to send a message via anonymous Santa-delivered sex toy is someone who has forfeited all rights to have their opinion taken seriously.)

Update: I want to highlight a point that a commenter just made. She wrote: “Even though you threw it out I would report it to your manager. I can assure you this person is probably doing the same things to other people. We’ve had cases where I work where we find out some creep has been inappropriate with lots of women for a long time but we didn’t know until one of them finally said something to management and we started looking into it. You’d be doing yourself, your employer, and your coworkers a huge favor by reporting it.” I think this is a good point, and I wish I’d taken it into account in my original answer.

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open thread

by Alison Green on December 20, 2013

Olive under treeIt’s our biweekly open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on anything you want to talk about. If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet, but this is a chance to talk to other readers.

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