Ask a Manager

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

1. We got a complaint call about a new hire before she started

We hired a new executive director, who starts in a week. Did multiple reference checks (including a former direct report and a former supervisor), criminal background check, employment and education verifications, licensure verification, and some casual googling (by an internal HR professional, not an external service). We also have been getting unsolicited “this is an amazing hire/human” calls from various people in the industry around the country. We don’t ask on our application whether there are any pending or potential outstanding liabilities, and have not yet directly addressed this with our new hire.

Yesterday, our comms manager (whose info was on the press release about the hire, which went out six weeks ago) received a call from a woman who identified herself as a former employee of the new ED’s current organization. She said she was filing a lawsuit against that organization for wrongful termination, her program area was not prioritized by the ED, and a couple of irrelevant personal gripes, “just to make us aware.” Our comms manager asked her to put it in writing and send it to our HR (she has not done this yet). A quick google of this woman turns up multiple lawsuits she has filed — not saying any are not legitimate, just that there are several (for varying things, none of which appear to be similar to her current claims).

I feel like our organization has met both our legal obligation and followed reasonable industry best practices for prehire screening. That being said, what would you do in this case?

It’s less an issue of legal obligations and more about guarding against a new organizational leader who could bring serious issues along with them.

But I’m not terribly concerned in this case. It’s hard to say for sure without knowing all the specifics, but when two of the three things mentioned are that the ED didn’t prioritize her program area and some irrelevant personal gripes, there’s probably nothing here you have to pursue. Caveat: I’d be more concerned if the wrongful termination claim is based on truly alarming facts, like if the ED personally led a damaging retaliation campaign after a good-faith complaint of discrimination. But assuming it’s nothing like that, and with the rest of the context provided, this doesn’t sound especially damning, assuming you had a thorough interview process along with the post-interview due diligence you described.

Read an update to this letter. 

2. Employer sent my rejection to my father, not me

I went into the same industry as my father works in. Recently I applied and interviewed for a position where the manager happened to know my father. There were no chances of me ever encountering my dad while working this position, and in fact even the manager rarely interacted with him. It was really just down to a happenstance of networking. We have an uncommon shared last name and a family resemblance, so while I never made any reference to the family relation in my application or interview, it wouldn’t be difficult to make the connection between us.

The manager ultimately chose not to hire me. Rather than tell me that, though, they reached out to my father to explain that I was a wonderful candidate, someone else with more years of experience interviewed, etc. It was humiliating and infantilizing, and my father wasn’t very impressed either. It’s not like I was a teenager looking for a summer job at my dad’s shop, I’m an adult who simply followed the same career path as him.

How do I avoid being demoralized from this, and at what point does networking become living under my father’s shadow? I’m absolutely mortified, and it was one of the few jobs in the industry that even interviewed me. I’m beginning to question my own qualifications. Was I only considered as a candidate because of my last name? What do I even do about this whole thing?

Is this part of a pattern where you’re continually referred to as “Portius Warbleworth’s daughter” and people see you as an extension of your dad and don’t recognize you for your own skills and achievements, or was this just one weird hiring manager? I’m guessing it was one weird hiring manager since you don’t mention it being part of a pattern … and if that’s the case, you’re giving them much too much power in your brain. There are outlier hiring managers who will do all sorts of weird things, but they’re not representative of what you can expect to find while interviewing.

For what it’s worth, my guess is that the interviewer didn’t decide, “I will relay the rejection through her father, as he is the proper conduit for all matters concerning her professional life” but rather this an employer that doesn’t send rejections at all (which is super common) so you weren’t going to receive one regardless. But then the interviewer wanted to mention it to your dad, the same way they might contact someone who had referred a candidate to let them know the person was great but they ultimately didn’t hire them. That’s still not okay; this is your work life, not your dad’s, and he didn’t refer you — but I suspect it explains what happened.

3. Recruiter asked me to rank my enthusiasm for the job on a scale of 1-10

I’m interviewing for a new job and, for the first time in my career, I’m working with a third party recruiter. After a first round interview last week, I had a phone call debrief with the recruiter, and they asked me: “On a scale of 1-to-10, with 10 being ‘I would accept an offer for this job right now, the organization sounds great’ and 1 being ‘I’m not interested in this position, I’d like to be taken out of the running,’ where would you rank things after that interview?”

I like the recruiter—and I really like the organization!—but I didn’t like the question. I replied that what I’d learned about the organization so far seemed great, and that the interview I’d just participated in was encouraging. But, I said that I didn’t have enough information to accept a job after just one interview. I made it clear that I wanted to move on to the next stage of the interview process, but that I wasn’t looking to rush into a new position without hearing more.

The tail end of the debrief wasn’t awkward, per se, but there was definitely some silence after my answer. I don’t think the recruiter was happy with my response.

Did I misstep here? Is it worth contacting the recruiter (or the company itself) to further clarify that I’m interested in this position? (Beyond what I said to the recruiter and in my thank-you note after the call?) Maybe I’m just overthinking things. Thoughts?

Your answer was fine and you didn’t misstep. Some recruiters try to ensure that candidates are Really! Enthusiastic! at every step, because they don’t want a situation to get to the end of the hiring process and have the candidate turn down an offer. They’re assuring their client (the employer) that you’re interested as the process moves along, and they feel it will reflect badly on them if they put you through the whole process and then you turn it down — or they at least want the opportunity to make sure any concerns you have addressed early on. (Alternately your recruiter is just used to people playing along and giving a number and didn’t like that you declined to partake of their scale. Either way, your answer was fine.)

4. Am I supposed to leave work when I run out of things to do?

I have been working in blue-collar jobs for the past decade (construction, warehousing, etc). My early work experience was mainly in customer service, including front desk/secretary work. As I am transitioning away from manual jobs to more office work, I am having a hard time with the pace that comes with sitting in front of a computer. How much work am I supposed to get done in a day?

I am frequently under-tasked, and since my positions are for small companies and at an arm’s length, it can be hard to get clear answers and/or more work assigned in a short time frame. So I end up leaving early for the day rather than sit around and twiddle my thumbs. I am always scrupulous about only charging for the hours worked. However, that means contracts that are meant to be 24 hours a month are often only bringing in 18 hours of pay. Some of my friends who have more experience in this environment say I am being too honest and that it is up to my employer to make sure they provide enough instruction / tasks to fill my shift. I am so used to being in roles where if you are not actively (physically) working, you aren’t being paid. (Note: none of these roles are public-facing — if I leave one hour early and miss a late in the day email, nobody is affected.)

Your friends are right. It’s not about being “too honest,” but the expectation of most office jobs is that you’ll stay for your whole shift, even if there’s a bunch of downtime. You’re not expected to leave (and decrease your pay) when you run out of tasks, unless that’s something your manager specifically instructs. Part of what you’re being paid for is your availability to take on work if it does materialize. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t — but they’ve hired you to be there for a specific set of hours, and you don’t need to leave early when you run out of things to do.

If you want to be conscientious about it, you should ask your manager if there are long-term projects you can work on when things get slow. Or you could see things that need to be done and propose your own projects. But even if you don’t do those things, there’s nothing unscrupulous about staying until the end of your scheduled day.

5. Network access and equipment return after a layoff

My questions are about my responsibilities around network access and equipment return. I’m a remote worker with a company-issued laptop, and was told to expect an email from IT about how to return the laptop; so far, a week has passed and I haven’t heard from IT. What’s a normal timeline for this kind of thing?

I was also told my network access would be revoked at 5 pm on the day I was laid off … but a week has passed and I still have access! (I know this because I have MS Teams on my phone and am still getting chat messages; I have not accessed the company’s cloud storage, VPN, or email servers, or even turned on my work computer.) About 48 hours after my access should have been terminated, when returning my signed severance paperwork, I told the HR person that I still had access and shouldn’t. Do I have an obligation to keep mentioning it, or should I just offload Teams from my phone and forget it?

You don’t have any obligation to keep reminding them to secure their systems. Remove Teams from your phone and forget about it.

With the laptop return, you should have heard by now but sometimes it does take longer (especially if IT was affected by layoffs too). Give it two to three weeks before you get concerned; email again at that point and say you need instructions for returning the laptop ASAP as you’re not comfortable being responsible for it indefinitely.

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

1. An employee forced an unwanted kiss on my employee — and now they want to do mediation

I run a nonprofit. Six months ago, a male employee of another nonprofit began kissing my female employee on the lips at the end of a series of remote events when they were closing down the day’s activities. Both are married. My employee was deeply upset because she thought the guy was her friend and was afraid she had encouraged him in some way. She finally told me what was going on, and I contacted his boss and told her that my employee will no longer work with her employee, and why. This keeps him away from my employee, but also forces my employee to give up projects she has invested a lot of time and effort in.

Most of my employees are women, and I’m not comfortable asking them to risk similar behavior from the man, but the two organizations have several joint projects that we have equal responsibility for.

My wife believes that the unwanted and non-consented kissing is assault, and that the person who should be removed from the projects is the male from the other organization. The manager at the other organization has suggested mediation between the two employees, but that seems to imply there is some middle ground to achieve, and I can’t see what that is. Our workplace policy is clear that any non-consensual touching is out of bounds and grounds for termination, but that has no power over the employee of another organization. What do you suggest?

Listen to your wife. Your employee shouldn’t be removed from projects she’s invested in because of this man’s behavior; he’s the one who should bear the consequences, not her. It’s true that you don’t have power over another organization’s employees, but you have control over what situations you send your own employees into. You should tell the other organization that you won’t send any of your team members to work on projects where their problem employee is present, so they’ll need to staff your future joint projects differently. (Be clear about this: It’s not just “Jane won’t work with him again.” It’s “I won’t subject any of our employees to that.”)

And mediation? Mediation?! Absolutely not. Their employee harassed and assaulted someone. They need to deal with him on their own, not expect your employee to somehow work through this with him.

2. How to handle an employee refusing to do a critical duty

Our team is required to work on-call after hours to handle client emergencies. It’s an eight-week rotation, so one week out of every eight. Everyone hates it, but we do it. It is unpaid; we are salaried.

Our newest team member claims that he had no idea this was expected, despite the fact that we talk about it all the time. He has stated that this does not suit his lifestyle and he will not work on call.

Whether he was informed about this before he was hired is a point of contention. He says no, but it is in the job description. The way he was brought on was odd in that he never met with our manager; HR interviewed and hired him and then assigned him to our team.

Our manager asked for his resignation. He essentially refused, sending an email that equated to “I won’t resign; fire me.” Outside of regular layoffs, no one ever gets fired. He has called in sick every day for the last two weeks, since this happened.

How would you handle such a situation, especially knowing that the rest of the members of the team would surely also refuse to work on call, if that’s allowed for one person?

I’d be willing to believe HR never discussed it with him during the hiring process, given how strongly opposed he was once he found out. Sure, it’s in the job description, but it’s pretty common for people not to scrutinize those (or to assume there’s more to it, like that they’d only be on-call rarely, like once a year versus every eight weeks, or that the time would be paid). Either way, with something like that, an employer should make sure anyone they’re considering hiring is fully aware of the requirement and on board with it … because otherwise you end up with the situation you’re in now.

As for what to do now, your manager really only has two choices: hold firm on the requirement and fire the guy if he won’t comply (which doesn’t need to be punitive; it can be a civil discussion where she explains she’s really sorry if he wasn’t informed but she can’t bend on the requirement), or exempt him from it and figure out a way to keep it fair to everyone else who’s still doing the on-call shifts (which presumably means adding some kind of incentive, like extra pay or extra vacation). There aren’t really other options at this point.

3. I’m not allowed to keep coffee with me at my job

My work has a coffee machine that we’re allowed to use. I’ve been making my coffees on break, and then leaving it in the staff room to take sips of throughout the day. I’ve been told I can’t do this, and I’m not allowed a coffee in a flask, but I can have water or juice in a bottle/flask I can carry with me throughout the day. Can my work forbid me from drinking coffee?

Legally? Yes. But it would be interesting to ask why they object, if you’re allowed to carry other beverages with you throughout the day.

4. We have to cover for another team’s weaknesses

At the beginning of last year, I was hired into a brand-new team to work on a new project. A month later, a new team was also hired to do the same work, as there was quite a lot to do.

I’ve met people from the new team, and they’re all incredibly friendly, nice and seem like generally good people but their manager is a lot more laid-back than ours. I get the impression that they’re struggling with a number of the tasks that we do on a regular basis, to the point where my team often has to redo their work alongside our own. When we’ve approached our manager about this situation, separately in our one-to-ones, she first explains that the team is new, which is true, but only by a month, and that she doesn’t have any say over that team since they have their own manager. I also get the sense that she doesn’t like talking about the other team with us, which is understandable, but it leaves us feeling a bit demotivated because it seems like they could really do with some additional coaching, and it feels as though our concerns are not being taken into account. Is there anything we can do as a team to approach our manager, or is she right in her view that she can’t discuss another team’s performance with us.

Her view that she can’t discuss another team’s performance with you is a bit of a cop-out, because you need to be able to discuss things that have an impact on your team’s ability to do its work. Sure, she shouldn’t say, “Yeah, Gene is really a crap manager” — but she does need to hear you out about problems you’re encountering and figure out how to manage those things (which should include her speaking to the other team’s manager if necessary, or to her own manager).

On your and your coworkers’ side of things: Focus on the impact on your work. Bring her the specific problems the other team’s work deficiencies are causing for you (like that you’re having to spend time redoing their work) and ask for her help in solving that.

5. An organization for helping job-searchers sucks at responding to job-searchers

Over the last decade plus, I’ve been a full-time student and a stay-home parent. I haven’t had a full-time job in over decade. Now, pushing 50, I have my degrees, my kids are at an age where demands on my time are fewer, and I’ve begun looking for casual or part-time work as I try to transition back into the workforce.

In my town, there’s government-funded nonprofit that help folks find work. They offer resume services, interview training, career counseling, all that stuff. I wandered in last autumn and they were very helpful. My early attempts at plugging back in to the workforce had been met almost exclusively with radio silence from employers. Working with them, for the first time I felt encouraged, supported, and optimistic. In November, my caseworker let me know a part-time position in their organization was opening up and encouraged me to apply. I didn’t even get to the interview stage — it went to an unexpected internal candidate. Disappointing, but the hiring manager let me know a casual position was opening up and would I like to apply? Yes, I would!

I was told in December to expect an interview the first week of January then … silence. I sent a follow-up in early January, then again in mid-January. I received an apology and an interview for late January. The interview went well. I was nervous, a bit rusty, but prepared. There was much smiling and nodding on the part of the hiring team throughout. I left feeling positive. A few days later, the hiring manager emailed me that another candidate’s interview had been delayed but I would hear from her the following week. Then, again, complete silence. Fair, perhaps. People are busy! Still, in my insecure little heart, I am annoyed and discouraged. I sent a follow-up yesterday and discovered the hiring manager is on vacation. My caseworker reached out this week for a general update so I mentioned I was still waiting to hear about this job but was optimistic. She, also, hasn’t responded.

I’m a faithful reader of this site and I appreciate employers can be notorious for delays. I’m trying to keep my frustration at bay and have an open mind but this is an organization that specializes in helping people get jobs. What I see is that they’re behaving like every other place that has ignored, ghosted, or put me off me since I started looking for work. Am I the problem? Are my expectations unreasonable? I’ve held this organization to a higher standard because of the work they do and because they encouraged me to interview but maybe I’m wrong to do that? If I’m not wrong and they’re being legitimately flaky, is their lack of reliable communication and follow-up a red flag? I know I’m not entitled to this job; maybe I’m not a good fit for them and that’s okay! But I’d like to know one way or another where I stand.

You’re not wrong, but yeah, your expectations probably aren’t realistic. Hiring gets delayed. Higher priorities get in the way. People go on vacation. They’re not deliberately ignoring you, but it’s really common to wait to respond to candidates until there’s something concrete to say. And they don’t have that yet because they’re waiting to hear back from a decision-maker, or waiting for another candidate’s interview to get rescheduled, or there’s some snag with the budget, and on and on. Should they know better, since they deal with anxious job-seekers as part of their mission? Sure. Are they still subject to all the pressures and conflicting priorities that other hiring orgs deal with? Also yes. Is this so common in hiring at organizations of all sorts that you can’t conclude anything from it about what it would be like to work there? Also yes.

The best thing to do is the same thing as when you’re waiting to hear back from any other job: assume you didn’t get it, put it out of your mind, and let it be a pleasant surprise if/when they do contact you.