Ask a Manager

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

1. Our board volunteer makes everyone’s jobs harder

I was recently made the chair of the board for a local community service group. The board receives money each year to buy supplies for community service events, but being on the board is a volunteer position (no one is getting paid). Basically, anyone who wants to be on the board can be because we really need the extra help. Historically, people have only been asked to step down if there is an ethical concern. The parent organization that provides funds does not provide rules or guidance on staffing, only on how we spend the money.

We have one board member who is making everyone else’s jobs harder through no fault of his own. John has been the secretary for a very long time, and he’s in charge of scheduling meetings and taking notes (he doesn’t contribute to event planning or anything else).

John is a very kind, elderly gentleman who struggles with technology. He will take a week or more to schedule a meeting when I could schedule it myself in five minutes. This is an issue when an urgent problem or opportunity pops up that requires a board vote. We’ve been trying to use OneNote to track meeting minutes and event information, but John isn’t comfortable using it (he will only work in Word or on paper). He’s hard of hearing, so he can’t hear what anyone says in the meetings. We end up pausing every few minutes to tell him exactly what to write down (costing us ~20% of our meeting time). At this point, everyone is doing more work just so John can keep his position.

I’m not sure how to deal with this. On one hand, he is objectively hurting our outcomes and making more work for an already stretched-thin team. On the other hand, our organization frowns upon turning down volunteers and John loves being on the board because he’s “lonely and gets to talk to people at the meetings.”

Should I act like this is a paid position (set a performance improvement plan and ask him to step down if he ultimately can’t meet expectations)? I wouldn’t be able to replace him; I’d be eliminating the position entirely. I also worry that excluding him would be akin to discrimination based on age or disability (which is important to me even if this group isn’t bound by employment laws). I also wouldn’t have anyone to replace him with, so we’d just be getting rid of the position entirely.

Or should I try to find a different role/task he can reasonably complete without impacting the rest of us? That feels wrong too, like I’d be infantilizing him by keeping him busy but not letting him do anything meaningful. Is there a third option here?

A performance improvement plan would be overkill in a volunteer position like this.

But you definitely can’t spend a fifth of your meeting time coaching John on what to write in the notes. And if you’re already hurting for volunteers, you really shouldn’t risk making people not want to go to your meetings.

Can John stay on the board without being the secretary? Can he just be a board member who provides input into the direction of the organization without having a specific task list that affects other people?

If not, then at a minimum, it sounds like you need to just tell him that the board is moving to OneNote and no longer needs him to take notes. If he pushes back, be matter-of-fact about why: “We’re spending a lot of time in every meeting discussing what should be written down, and OneNote will take care of it all without discussion, which we need because people are stretched for time. So it’s going to be OneNote from here on out.” Or, “We’re going to try out OneNote for the next two meetings and see if it works.”

You could be pretty blunt about the meeting scheduling: “We’ve been waiting a week or more to get meetings scheduled, and we need that to happen faster. It’s something I can do myself very quickly, the same day it comes up, so my plan is to take over scheduling them unless you are up for getting it done the same day it’s requested?”

The other option is to just lay out what needs to change and let him decide if he’s up for it or not: “We need the secretary to do XYZ, which is different in ABC ways from what’s happening now. Do you want to stay in the role knowing the requirements will be changing in that way, or do you want to take a more of a general board member role where you’re not responsible for XYZ anymore?” If he says he wants to remain in the role but you still don’t see the changes you asked for, at that point you’d revert to the steps above.

2. Is it unrealistic to expect a raise while you’re on a PIP?

I recently had my annual review with my boss, and I was marked as “below expectations.” I expected it as I had been put on a performance improvement plan (PIP) due to “communication issues.” Quick backstory on the PIP is that I am the kind of person who if you assign me something, I will get it done, then update you, whereas my boss is more of the “update me as you go along” kind of person. Different communication styles, I get it, and I’m more introverted and task-focused, which caused me to often forget about communication updates to the stakeholders, which can definitely be improved upon. While I felt the PIP was unreasonable as I was still producing results, it was not totally out of line. I fully expect to pass this PIP, and my boss also communicated that during our review.

Back to the review: my boss told me that I would not be getting a raise, as it is company policy that anyone on PIP will not get a raise. Fair enough, again not a good policy, but sure, I get it. However, I argued that in the past year, my roles and responsibilities had increased drastically, including taking on what is traditionally in my industry a complete other person’s job scope. It is a small-ish company, so I understood it as a logical extension of my work. (The PIP was not a result of me being unable to handle the additional responsibilities.) That was in March of last year. Since then, the company has grown in leaps and bounds and hired much more back end staff. I felt that if I was to continue doing both teapot sets of work, I would need to be paid more. His counter was that anyone on a PIP would not be entitled to a raise.

Is it unfair to expect a raise to reflect my new expanded job scope, even though I am on a PIP? I argued with him for about 10 minutes over this, and his counter was still that last statement above. I felt like I was talking in circles.

Yeah, you’re not going to get a raise while you’re on a PIP, at least not more than a cost-of-living increase at most. Raises are recognition that you’re now contributing at a higher level than when your salary was last set, and if you’re performing below expectations for the job (and by definition with a PIP, the issues are serious enough that you could be let go), very few employers are going to increase your salary in the middle of that (again, excluding COLAs).

The problem is that a year ago your company added significantly to your work without compensating you for it. Maybe that was more reasonable than it sounds on the surface — you can have a job composed of two separate areas of work and still have them be one reasonable full-time job at the original salary. Or maybe it’s unreasonable; your company wouldn’t be the first to pile extra responsibilities on someone without paying them at market rate (or what they would have to pay someone for the same job if they hired for it externally). But you’re not likely to be successful in arguing that while you’re on a PIP.

3. Public-facing employees are upset that other employees do work outside our office

I work for a large educational institution. During Covid, we all worked remotely without issue. Even after returning to the office, there was some flexibility; as long as our work was getting done and our supervisors approved, we could work remotely as needed.

Recently, with a change in leadership, an email was sent stating that everyone must be present in person unless they have explicit approval from their boss. This has created a toxic work environment. Most of our clerical staff have always been required to work in person because they are public-facing or their roles demand it. However, many of us have jobs that require us to be in the field, visiting other sites and meeting with stakeholders. The issue is that the clerical staff is now monitoring when people come and go, leading to resentment, tattling, and unnecessary tension. HR has been unhelpful in clarifying that different roles have different expectations, and the clerical staff feels it’s unfair that not everyone has to be in the office all day. To make matters worse, some employees are now misusing their access to our management system to check who has recorded an absence or who they believe is simply not in the office. They fail to recognize that this is an invasion of privacy — people’s absences and their reasons should not be office gossip.

How can we address this growing hostility and get leadership to acknowledge the differences in job responsibilities while also ensuring privacy is respected?

Wait, the clerical staff is upset not that other people at working from home but that other people are out of the office to visit other sites and meet with stakeholders? That is … a weird new twist on this.

That said, there’s not a lot that you as non-management can do about it. You can point out the tensions to your boss (and maybe HR if they’re competent). You can make a point of being more specific than just saying you or someone else will be out of the office and instead say “I’m meeting with a client” or “Jane is doing a site visit” or so forth. You can counter the comments when you hear them (“part of her job is going to clients’ sites”). You can also just ignore it; internally roll your eyes and figure it’s not your problem to handle as long as it’s not directly interfering with your ability to get your job done. The last one is likely your best option; you might get the most relief from realizing you can’t fix it and don’t need to fix it.

But behind that, what you’re describing is a significant culture problem, and one that requires intervention from management to resolve it. If they don’t care to do that for whatever reason, that’s on them.

That said, if there are specific violations of privacy that you can cite (like someone’s medical information being accessed/shared), you should definitely escalate that.

If I’ve misunderstood and the resentment is actually about people who have their managers’ permission to work from home — not just working from non-home locations — the advice above still applies.

Related:
should I get rid of remote work because our in-office staff thinks it’s unfair?

4. My coworkers tune out so much background noise that it worries me

We have a hybrid office. Some people work with headphones on, others don’t, but many lose all awareness of everything else while working. I know that it’s common in offices for us to be completely focused on our work, but surely we should remain aware of where we are?

We’ve had people be surprised at things happening right next to them. We’ve even had them unaware that we’re talking about them while saying their name out loud. The worst example came when I went out of the room to move things upstairs, always a 10-20 minute process each week. A manager then asked me if I could move things upstairs, having not noticed that I had left the room, done the task, and come back as usual. This manager’s desk was right next to the door!

I’m worried that this lack of situational awareness will lead to more trouble than mild surprise. What if there was an emergency? We haven’t had a fire drill for a long time, I don’t know how quickly they’d react. What about verbal warnings; would they hear the security guards warning them to evacuate? What can I do? What should I do?

You don’t need to do anything! It’s very normal for people to adjust to office noise by learning to block it out so they can concentrate; that’s how they’re still able to do work that requires focus. In all but the most extreme cases, their brains will still recognize and respond to fire alarms, shouts to evacuate, and other noises outside the drone of more routine background noise.

5. I got my years of employment wrong in an interview

I just had an interview that I thought went fairly well. However, immediately upon leaving, I realized I said I held a position eight years when it was really six; it was an honest mistake, my bad-at-math brain just visualized “2014-2020” in my head and did the math wrong. But I’m worried that they will think I intentionally lied. Should I include a clarification in my thank-you email?

Sure. It’s unlikely to be a big deal, but on the off chance they did notice it and wondered about it, it would be fine to include a very brief mention in your thank-you note — something like, “Also, right after I left our meeting I realized I said I was at Oatmeal Village for eight years; in fact, it was six, and I didn’t want to leave that uncorrected.”

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

1. Should I apologize for my coworker’s behavior at a conference?

Recently, I attended an industry conference hosted by an important client. People in my field from across the country attended for purposes of brainstorming and networking. I attended with a senior colleague from my company, Jane, who is one of my mentors and has a significant influence on my career here.

On the last night of the conference, after the official events were over, many of the attendees and client representatives met at the hotel bar. A smaller group of us then proceeded to a local bar, and everyone was drinking throughout the night. By the time we reached the final bar, Jane was pretty drunk and engaged in some obnoxious behavior toward another attendee. For some reason Jane repeatedly commented on the other attendee’s appearance, kept implying she’d had cosmetic surgery, and then teased her when she denied it. The comments were completely inappropriate. If Jane had been male, the comments would have been downright creepy and harassing. It was clear that the other attendee was very annoyed and offended. I was embarrassed and tried to acknowledge the incident and apologize to the other attendee as we were leaving the bar.

I’m pretty sure Jane has no recollection of her behavior (she was still drunk the next morning when we flew back) and I have not addressed it with her directly. I don’t believe anyone from the client is aware of her behavior either, and there’s little chance that I’ll ever directly interact with the offended attendee. However, I’m still bothered by what happened and concerned it might affect my professional reputation. The client is circulating all attendees’ contact information and I’m torn on whether to contact the other attendee. Was my acknowledgement and apology in the moment sufficient and I should let sleeping dogs lie, or would it be appropriate to reach out to this other attendee and offer a more substantial apology?

No, leave it alone. You already apologized once which made it clear you didn’t condone Jane’s behavior, and so it’s unlikely to affect your reputation. Emailing the other attendee to apologize again would be overkill.

2. A professional acquaintance messaged me on a dating app and his profile is gross

My field is relatively small, and there is a lot of personal/professional overlap because so many of us went to college and/or worked together at some point in our careers. Due to the nature of my job, many people in my field who work in my region know who I am and communicate with me professionally.

I am also a woman in my late 40s who, after a long period of being happily single, recently created a dating app profile. I received a message on the dating app from a man who stated that he knows me professionally and that we are connected on social media. I don’t know him on a personal level, but we have met in passing and we have a number of mutual friends and acquaintances. I also know I’m not interested in dating him, but I went to peruse his profile before declining the request to chat.

His profile was WILD. There were references to his proficiency at oral sex. He mentioned warming up with Tai Chi before pleasuring his lady. He referred to himself as a God looking for a Goddess. Granted, I’ve only been on this app for a month, but I had never seen anything this blatantly sexual even from the scads of young 20-somethings on their sustained cougar hunts.

I understand the potential for exposing myself to this kind of material on a dating app. Had this been some random man I would have just laughed, deleted, and moved on with my life. But this man knows me professionally and took the time to POINT OUT that he knows me professionally, all the while knowing what I was going to see if I clicked on his profile. That feels intentionally inappropriate to me and I am completely icked out by it.

I’m not even sure what my question is, aside from where do I go from here? I immediately declined the connection on the app, but my instinct is to disconnect with him on socials as well. Is that an overreaction? I know this doesn’t equate to sexual harassment, but I’m utterly creeped out by him now! How do I handle any kind of professional communication in the future? What if I run into him at a conference? If nothing else, just tell me that I’m not the crazy one for thinking he was out of bounds here.

You are not the crazy one. This man messaged a professional acquaintance knowing she would read about his tai chi enhanced oral sex hobby. If you’re going to have a dating app profile that’s so overtly sexual … don’t message professional acquaintances from it. If you must message a professional acquaintance from it, maybe clean it up first.

I don’t think it’s an overreaction to disconnect from him on social media. He grossed you out, and you want to minimize further contact with him.

If you need to communicate with him for work in the future, being scrupulously professional is the way to go, and hopefully he’ll pick up on those cues and follow your lead.

Related:
https://www.askamanager.org/2016/09/i-matched-with-a-coworker-on-a-dating-site.html

3. Asking my boss for a letter to a country that he hates

I happen to be in a profession that is globally in demand, and for a wide variety of personal, professional, and political reasons and because *gestures at everything*, I am considering immigrating to a Commonwealth country. The emmigration process itself, however, is not what gives me pause.

In the later stages of the process, I would be required to get letters from past and current supervisors documenting that I meet certain professional experience requirements. The problem: my boss has called the country I am most seriously considering a “communist nation” and a “failed socialist state” multiple times, in meetings, no less. Alison, it’s Canada! WTF!

I am concerned that I can’t rely on him for the aforementioned letter. I am thinking that, if I get to that stage, I should go to his boss (my department head) instead and leave my boss off of the immigration piece of things. Am I just being unreasonably cautious or does going around my boss sound justified? I could use a gut check here.

I don’t think you’re being unreasonably cautious. It’s possible that your boss would be perfectly happy to write you the letter without his opinions of Canada (!) interfering with what he writes — in fact, that’s probably likely (since disliking a country is very different than trying to sabotage someone’s chances of moving there) — but with something so high-stakes, I can see why you’re concerned. If your boss’s boss knows you well enough to write the letter, there’s no reason you can’t approach him about it.

Obviously there are all the normal cautions about letting your employer know you’re actively making plans to leave your job, but if your work is in demand, that may be much less of a consideration (and it sounds like the letter is required regardless).

4. Is this employer BS’ing me about a salary transparency law?

I was recently offered a job from a NGO based in Colorado. The posted salary range was between $70-80K. The range was below what I was seeking, but the job could be a great fit. At offer, they offered me the high end of the range — $80K. Great!

But, when sending my offer, they also sent the official job description, which showed a salary range for the role that was far larger, between $60-105K. I was bummed out — even though they gave me a number at the top of their posted range, it was far lower than the top of their actual range, and with my experience, far lower than where I would theoretically sit within their full range.

When I attempted to negotiate, they told me due to pay transparency laws, they were unable to do so. Is this accurate? Due to the law in Colorado, are they really unable to negotiate when their stated range in the job description is different from the (more narrow) range they posted publicly?

The Colorado law does say that an employer may ultimately pay more or less than their posted range, as long as when they posted the range, that was what they genuinely believed they would be willing to pay for the job. That said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their lawyers have told them they need to stick to their advertised ranges so there’s no room for challenging that.

Possibly more important, though, the larger range you saw in the job description might refer to the salary band for the role itself, while what you saw in the ad might be for new hires. It’s not uncommon for a salary band to go higher than what they’ll start people at (meaning that you can get raises that move you above the range they posted, but they won’t start you above the posted amount).

Related:
how to ask about salary when you’re invited to interview

5. What’s the deal with skip-level meetings with my boss’s boss?

I am scheduled for a skip-a-level meeting with my manager’s manager. What are these for and what do I do at them? Are they useful to me and how do I utilize them?

Yes, they can be very useful! They tend to be general check-ins — a chance for your boss’s boss to hear how things are going from your perspective, spot problems they otherwise might not know about, and offer a chance for you to ask questions, inquire about upcoming strategy, or raise issues about your manager. It’s also an opportunity for you to get to know each other better, which can be helpful if you ever want to, for example, apply for a promotion.

Typically you don’t need to go in with any particular agenda — your boss’s boss will likely drive the meeting — but it’s smart to think ahead of time about whether you do have questions you want to ask or things you want to raise, as well as be prepared to answer, “So, how are things going?”

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

1. Should people be fired for big, public mistakes?

I’m curious about your thoughts on Major League Baseball’s recent blunder. They released a new series of hats that have the logo imposed on top of the team location. For the Texas Rangers, they did not think through the word they would create.

Tetas is a slang word for breasts in Spanish. If you were managing a team that let this slip through, how would you handle it? Would people be fired for something like this?

I’m not a fan of firing people for single mistakes in their work (conduct is in a different category), unless there’s something about the mistake that goes to their fundamental fitness for the job. If someone was already struggling, sure, this could easily be the final straw — but if the person responsible was otherwise doing a good job and you were happy with their work previously, there’s no point in firing someone for one blunder (even a big one). In fact, if the person is generally conscientious, there’s a good chance that they’re now more valuable to you than they were a month ago because they just learned a massive lesson that’s likely to stick with them and be incorporated into their work going forward.

Also, with this kind of mistake, there were presumably many people who signed off on the design and should have caught it before it was finalized. It points to a need to change their processes so it can’t happen again, not to firing a dozen people for missing it.

2. Managing a former friend

I am struggling in my current toxic workplace and I’m keen to get a new job, but opportunities in my niche technical field and local area are rare. One such job has come up this week and whilst it’s not directly what I do now, I think I would be a viable candidate and would be happy working at this new organization. However, I met with the hiring manager who outlined the current team, which includes a friend who I have not spoken to in a year due to her professional behavior (breaking confidentiality and getting former colleagues into trouble, basically acting like she is in Mean Girls). It’s so awkward! I can’t imagine being her manager and supporting her when I feel like she is lacking in values that are core to professional conduct.

Should I still apply for the job and hope I can skate past the awkwardness? Or save myself the trouble? The hiring manager mentioned that line management could be discussed; I have wondered if confiding in him would make me look dramatic. This may all be moot if I don’t even get an interview but I’d rather make an informed decision.

Can you get yourself to a place where you can manage her fairly and objectively? If not, you should pass up the job; it’s not fair to anyone (definitely the ex-friend, but also the rest of the team and the organization hiring you to manage her) to come in already knowing that you’d be hindered by the history in a pretty significant way. But I don’t think it’s impossible to walk into a situation like that and manage fairly! You’d need to keep in mind that people can change and she may have learned some lessons in the last year and be willing to give her a fair shot at showing that she has. If you see that she hasn’t, you’d need to address that the way any good manager would (and you would benefit from knowing what to be looking out for, just like with the letter about the chaos employee earlier this week), but you’d need to come in with an open mind. You’d also likely need to have an air-clearing conversation with her when you start, along the lines of “I know we have history but as far as I’m concerned, we’re starting fresh.”

If that feels impossible, pass this one by.

If you do apply, I think you’d need to disclose to the hiring manager that you know the team member but have fallen out of touch. I wouldn’t share much more than that because of the risk of it just seeming like capital-d Drama, but if you don’t disclose it at all, it’s likely to come out at some point anyway and will seem very weird that you didn’t. (Be aware that if you do that, they’re likely to ask the employee about you … but from a minimizing-drama standpoint, if there’s anything to be aired out there, it’s better for it to be now rather than after you’re on the job.)

3. Executives winning company raffles

I work for a company with about 500 employees. Every year the company hosts a large professional conference and all employees are required to attend. On the final day of the conference, door prizes are awarded.

This year, the organizers had each attendee put their name tag in a box, and names were drawn at random to determine the recipients of the prizes. The prizes ranged from books by presenters to gift cards to one large prize that was worth close to $1,000. When the prizes were announced, four of them, including the large final prize, went to people who work in senior management. This rubbed me the wrong way and I want to know if I’m off-base to think that the most senior staff members shouldn’t be entering raffles like this. I was able to see the drawing from my seat and there didn’t appear to be any cheating. I just don’t feel like their names belonged in the drawing to begin with. I’d much rather see an administrative assistant or the entry-level recent college grad walking out with a prize than someone whose salary is ten times as large. What are your thoughts?

You are not off-base. Senior level managers should not enter raffles where they’ll be competing for desirable prizes with lower-paid employees, and the optics if they win a big-ticket item are really bad. The gracious move would have been for them either not to enter or, when they won, to decline and ask for a new pick to be drawn.

4. Is it weird to suddenly start going by a nickname a year into my job?

I’ve been working in a remote job, my first full-time job in my industry, for a little over a year now. The entire time I’ve worked there, I’ve gone by my legal name, Anne. I use it in my email signature, and pretty much everyone I am in contact with addresses me as such.

However, in my personal life, I go by Annie pretty much all the time. I put Anne in my email signature when I first started because I’m pretty new to the professional world and it seemed like the savvy thing to do, but now seeing how many people I am in contact with use their nicknames in the professional world, I’m more inclined to use my nickname.

Since I’ve worked at this job for over a year and have gone by Anne the whole time, would it be weird to suddenly switch my email signature to Annie? I’m mainly concerned with it seeming weird to my boss, who is the primary person I’m in contact with at my job. Especially since it’s remote, it feels so much more awkward to slyly switch my name in my email signature and hope everyone catches on.

It will not be weird! Switch your email signature to Annie. You can either leave at that, or you can say to your boss, “By the way, I should have said this when I started but I actually prefer Annie so I’ve changed it in my email signature and didn’t want you to be confused.”

And yes, it’s totally fine to go by nicknames at work. Not, like, Keg Master or Big Balls, but a normal name that’s just a diminutive? Yes.