Ask a Manager

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

1. Getting an employee to sign paperwork when she’s always too busy

I’m in HR and have an employee that gives me a very hard time when it comes to signing any new policies or procedures, evaluation forms, or notes. It is draining to constantly follow up with her regarding her signature, and she always says “I will do it later, I am so busy right now.” How should I work with this employee to be able to get her to sign the forms?

Well, it’s possible that she’s genuinely too busy with higher priorities, and you don’t want to appear to be valuing paperwork over actual work. That said, if stuff needs to be signed, it needs to be signed. I’d say this, “I understand, but we do need to get these signed. What’s the earliest I can get a short block of time on your calendar to deal with these? It should only take X minutes.” Or, “What’s a five-minute block you have open this week when I can bring this stuff by and get your signature?” Alternately, assuming you’re acting as HR here and you’re not her manager, you can ask her manager to make sure this gets done on your behalf.

But also, it sounds like there’s an unusual amount of stuff that needs to be signed. I’d take a look at whether you’re requiring signatures more often than you actually need to.

2. I think my coworker has a learning disorder

I recently had a third person join my team (in a very client-facing company) and I was put in charge of training/mentoring her. While she’s eager to do a good job and tries very hard, something is… off.

She seems to have difficulty remembering simple things and I find myself having to reexplain four or five times (and we’re talking SIMPLE things, like how to ship something via UPS). What concerns me is when she asks me for help with something, it’s usually followed up with a defensive “well, no one’s explained this to me before,” which is not only untrue but I also have follow-up emails/training session notes that clearly show we did go over it multiple times, and will often try to gently remind her of this/resend the emails to her, which goes over about as well as you think it does. Tasks I give her take much longer than they should and when I ask her if I can help with anything or answer any questions, she brushes me off. She seems easily distracted, often doodling when she should be taking notes or zoning out completely and unable to answer any questions I ask her.

Additionally, the way she interacts with her coworkers is very stilted and odd, to the point where I’ve had other coworkers come to me complaining about it (since I’m not her manager, I’ve just tried to deflect/end the conversation by offering up that maybe she’s just nervous since she’s only been here for four months). She doesn’t understand social cues (often bogarting conversations); she randomly jumps into a conversation between two people and begins talking about something totally off topic; if someone tries to explain/correct something she becomes very defensive… I could go on. If I had to guess, I’d say either adult ADD, being somewhere on the autism spectrum or maybe both.

As a mentor and not a manager, I hold no authority and therefore am hesitant to give her any feedback about these things. However, since we are a client-facing company, I’m worried about putting her in front of them. How in the world do I approach this issue? Should I set a meeting with our director and discuss it with him? Should I try to casually bring it up to her over coffee as a concerned coworker? I want her to be comfortable here and do a good job, but if she’s struggling with the simple stuff, what’s going to happen when the time comes for her to be in charge of a large, complicated project?

Talk to her manager. This one is beyond what you as a peer can address; it falls squarely on her manager’s plate to figure out how to handle. Have a conversation with her manager and explain what you’ve explained here. (I’d leave the speculating on specific diagnoses out of it, but include all the details you have in your second paragraph.) The manager need to step in and observe more closely, and then talk to the employee about the problems and figure out how to proceed.

3. Bizarre behavior from HR over new hire processing

I have recently started my first post-graduate position and have had what seem like unprofessional contacts with the HR department. I started the employment paperwork on schedule and just had to provide proof of citizenship to the HR representative requesting many sensitive documents (birth certificate, social security card, or passport). I emailed the HR representative multiple times over a week to schedule an appointment to bring in these documents (the HR department is located offsite) but never received a response.

When I went by their office during normal business hours, no one was present to collect my information. I finally was able to drop off my employment information to the payroll office. A few days later, I received an email from the HR office informing me I was late on my employment information and asking me to come in with my proof of citizenship and my marriage certificate. The representative also requested my social security information via email. I informed the HR representative that I had already given my social security number and employment data to the payroll office, and I felt uncomfortable providing the data via email. I also asked why my marriage certificate was required to start employment. The HR rep told me never mind and gave me a date and time to provide my citizenship information.

I went by the HR office at the appointed time and no one was there to collect my information. I had another long email exchange with HR and set up another appointment. I again came to the office right on schedule but ended up waiting 45 minutes to see the HR representative. When I came in, the HR rep was very skeptical of my documentation and made me show multiple proofs of citizenship. I ended up providing my birth certificate, passport, social security card, and driver’s license before the rep considered my application acceptable.

Additionally, the rep again asked for my marriage license. I asked why this was required, and was told that since I listed my wife as my next of kin, HR needed proof of the authenticity of our marriage. My wife and I are queer so I am somewhat concerned that homophobia may have been motivating some of the treatment I received. My wife is also non-white with an obviously non-white name, so I find myself wondering if that contributed to the extra citizenship paperwork I had to provide. At the end of the meeting, I was told that because I was late with my documents, I would not be receiving my first paycheck. I then emailed the payroll staff (who were very nice) and assured me that they would make sure I got paid on time as I had turned in all my paperwork before my start date.

Is this normal procedure for HR? If this behavior is out of line, can I bring this to someone’s attention? I cannot file a complaint with HR as there is only one person staffing the office. Should I be concerned about how I will be treated by the HR office in the future?

Whoa, no, none of this is normal. Some employers do ask for proof of marriage in order to add a spouse to a health care plan, but just to list her as next of kin? That shouldn’t be necessary. And your state law requires that you be paid on time; she can’t unilaterally decide to withhold your check.

How’s your rapport with your new manager? If it’s decent, I’d tell her what’s going on — as in, “I got the sense that Jane was skeptical of my documentation, as she kept asking for more and more, including multiple proofs of citizenship and a marriage certificate to prove my wife is really my next of kin. I almost got the sense that it was related to my wife’s obviously non-white name or — well, I don’t know what. She also said she was going to withhold my first paycheck because she hadn’t received my documents in time, but I’d tried to contact her multiple times during my first week to arrange to bring them to her and never received a response. Payroll tells me there’s no problem with getting me my check on time, but I’m a little uncertain about dealing with Jane in the future.”

If your manager is good, she’ll be concerned and escalate this for you.

(Apparently it’s Talk to Your Manager Day here.)

4. Publicly sharing the reason you’re taking time off

Is it right or legal for your boss to make you write out on a board the reason you’re requesting time off for everyone to see?

It’s legal. Whether it’s smart or not depends on exactly what’s being required. If you just have to write “vacation day” or “sick leave” or “doctor’s appointment,” that’s sufficiently vague that most people aren’t going to find that a privacy violation. If you have to write “colonoscopy,” then yes, that’s unreasonable.

5. Asking for a modified schedule to attend class — for something unrelated to my job

I have become quite unhappy with my career, and have decided that I want to go back to school to take some classes in something that doesn’t at all correlate with what I am working now (complete career change). The classes are after work and only two days a week for nine weeks. I will have to leave work a little early in order to make it to these classes. When I ask for a modified schedule (coming in earlier, taking a 30-minute lunch on those days), do I have to disclose exactly what I am doing or is there a way to let them know I need the time off without disclosing that I am taking classes and will likely leave after I finish?

Nothing requires you to disclose that, and you can be vague in making the request — something like, “I have an after-work commitment on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next nine weeks.” But it’s possible that your manager will ask what the commitment is — either out of friendliness or because knowing will help her judge how much weight to give the request. (If it’s an inconvenience and she’d rather say no, she might be more willing to suck up the inconvenience and say yes if it’s, say, a recurring medical appointment rather than a standing paintball game with friends.) So you’ll want to be prepared for what you’ll say if she asks.

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

1. Interviewer wants me to bring $350 to the interview

Today I received a call from an armed security company for an interview. I was excited, but when he mentioned I needed to bring my driver’s license, social security card, AND $350, I started to become skeptical. The interviewer received my application from Indeed, where my resume is posted, and after doing research I could not find any info on the company he called from. The $350 is for a firearms class, which could be true, but I am still worried. Is this normal? What should I do?

Nope, it’s not normal, and it’s probably a scam. Cancel the interview. Reputable employers don’t tell you to show up to an interview with money.

2. Library administrator asks staff to do his personal reference work

I’m on the reference staff of a large public library. One of our top administrators, a step below the director, routinely asks us to do his personal research. Examples are vacation planning or church matters. Many of us feel and have expressed resentment among ourselves at this practice – we hustle to keep up with the daily volume of emailed reference requests from the general public.

He has ample research training and experience himself, and access to the same resources. More importantly, he is an influential member of the executive group overseeing information services, whose recent policies and decisions have greatly eroded the overall quality of reference work systemwide: inadequately-trained paraprofessionals doing librarians’ work, a “Google-is-good-enough” attitude, a devaluing of tools such as electronic databases. The morale among many of the librarians is very low these days, which I believe management has failed to grasp (we’re faulted for being change-resistant, which is untrue), and there’s a great deal of “Why doesn’t he just Google it?” and “I thought we didn’t need databases” grumbling when his queries come in. Using staff in this way makes him seem remote, tone-deaf, and clueless at best, entitled at worst.

I know the well-being of the staff and the institution are important to him, and he’d likely be horrified to know he was being perceived in this way. I don’t know whether the director or the manager in charge of our email reference service knows he’s doing this. Any advice? I want to add that of course we’ve been fine with helping him research library-related questions.

Someone should say something to him. Who that someone is depends on roles and dynamics there, but your manager or director is probably a good place to start. Ideally that person should say, “Bob, our reference staff are pretty swamped with work and it’s hard for them to take on the personal requests you’ve been sending them. They’re of course happy to help research library-related questions, but at our current staffing levels, personal requests end up conflicting with their other priorities.”

3. Protecting my references from reference fatigue

I’ve been job hunting for about six months, two months in earnest since I’ve been unemployed after my small nonprofit reorganized and my role was eliminated. In the last two months, I’ve been fortunate to get quite a bit of traction and interviews, and was a finalist three times, with all of my references being called. Unfortunately they went with another candidate each of these times. Upon asking for feedback, they all assured me that my references were amazing, that it just came down to personality/work style in one case, and in the other two, they had a last minute application from someone they worked with previously who was a “known commodity” and who they hired essentially on the spot.

While this is disappointing to me, I realize it’s becoming frustrating for my (C-level) references, who have now invested in three reference checks for me in the last six weeks, and now have the prospect of doing it again. I’m very worried about reference fatigue, but it seems to be a growing trend to check references with multiple folks still in the mix, and often seems to happen with fast-moving companies who would rather have someone vouch for you than spend time looking at work samples or having you do a sample project. I don’t want to pass up a reference check that could lead to an offer, but I’m also hesitant to let my references be contacted if they don’t truly have an offer ready for me. How can I phrase this request at the reference check stage without looking silly? (I’m obviously not eager to share with potential employers that I’ve been passed up at the last stage three times this month!)

You can’t really ask that your references only be contacted if an employer is ready to make you an offer, because some employers use references as a genuine part of the decision-making process; they’re asking the references nuanced questions and using that to help determine which finalist will be the best fit. Saying “don’t contact them until you’ve already decided to make me an offer” would be like saying “don’t interview me until you’re ready to hire me.” (I mean, obviously not exactly like that, but similar.)

You can certainly ask that they only be contacted late in the process, but that’s probably already the case.

I think your better bet is to touch base with your references, thank them for the time they’ve put in for you, and get a feel for whether they’re okay with continuing to be called on. They probably are — at least assuming that these are phone calls and they’re not being asked to fill out lengthy written forms (the former is the most common, but the latter is happening more than it used to). Most references are happy to take more than three calls, and understand how this stuff goes.

That said, I’d also do some digging about what kind of references you’re getting — and don’t assume. Being knocked out of the running at the reference stage three times says that it’s possible that at least one of these references might not be as enthused as they need to be — and it’s worth finding out if that could be happening here.

4. Can I direct employers to my LinkedIn recommendations in lieu of references?

This is a follow-up to the question above:

Is it worth it to ask my references to give the quick reference on my LinkedIn profile that would be visible to potential employers? Then potentially I could say something like, “My references have actually vouched for my ability on LinkedIn if you want to take a look there first. To protect their time, I’d prefer they only be contacted directly as a last step before extending me an offer, as I don’t want them to spend that valuable time more than once.”

Nope. Employers don’t usually put a ton of stock in LinkedIn recommendations, in part because they’re public (so obviously no one is going to say something critical about you there) and in part because the value of a reference lies in being able to ask specific, targeted questions and not just reading a pre-written statement. References aren’t just about vouching for you being a generally competent person; they’re about probing deeply into your strengths and weaknesses, how you work best, what kind of management you do best with, and so forth.

5. I was overpaid and now I need to pay it back

Due to a payroll error by my employer, I received overpayment in my paychecks. Now they want to cut my checks or have my consent and signature on a contract they created to grant access to my bank account to withdraw to pay them back for the erroneous extra amount given to me. The contact does not state the amount they will deduct/withdraw, but looks like they want to cut all of my checks for five months straight until it adds up on what was given extra to me. But one thing is they did not mention how much they will deduct from my paychecks or how they came up on the total amount I need to pay back.

I’ve been feeling bullied and harassed and stressed. I do understand it was a error and I’m willing to pay it back, but I cannot have all my checks for five months straight to be taken away as I have bills, rent, car payment, medical bills, and other pending bills.

Ask them for clarification. Say this: “Can you show me how you calculated the total amount of the overpayment? And how much you’d like to deduct from each check?”

If the amount they want to deduct will cause you hardship, ask if they will consider a different arrangement. Say something like this: “Deducting that much from each check would cause me serious hardship; I wouldn’t be able to pay all of my bills. Could we instead deduct $X and spread it out over Y checks?”

Most companies will be willing to work with you on this (at least to a point), especially since it was their error.