Ask a Manager

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

1. My employee wants me to teach her a skill she doesn’t really need for her job

I currently manage a team of eight people. How much additional knowledge and information should I share with my employees outside of what is needed for them to do their job? For example, one of my staff members asked me to train her on using Microsoft Excel. Everything I’ve learned about Excel I taught myself, plus I needed to know it for my position. In her position, she doesn’t really need to know anything more than just the basics, which she already knows. So where do I draw the line? This would be advancing her Excel skills on a more personal level, but it’s not necessarily a good use of company time since she doesn’t perform any advanced work in that program.

On one hand, helping employees increase their skills and develop professionally is a good way to retain strong people, and you don’t need to be 100% rigid about ensuring that it’s directly related to their job duties. However, there are limits to that; you want to balance professional development against factors like how strong the employee is (and thus how much you care about investing in them and retaining them), how much time, money, or other resources the development would take (in general, as well as relative to what you might be interested in doing for others on your team), and how far away from the person’s job the skill is.

In this case, she’s asking not just to spend her own time learning a skill that you don’t think she’ll need for her job, but also for you to spend your time teaching it to her. That’s a pretty big ask and it probably doesn’t make sense for you to spend your time that way. But maybe you could tell her a bit about how you taught yourself,  point her toward any online tutorials or other resources that you found especially useful, and suggest that she explore that way, as well as offer to show her a few specific functions if there are some that she’s especially interested in.

In other words, not a flat “no,” but a “how about this instead?”

2. My coworker told her manager that I called her a rude name

I had a conversation with a peer, Ann, who works for another manager, during which time I called Ann’s manager an inappropriate name and showed her why that name was justified. At the end of the conversation, I recanted and told Ann that this conversation stays just between us and she agreed.

However, I was called into a conference room by Ann’s manager the next day and she asked me about the conversation (quite politely). I refused to answer, as I assumed it was a mutually agreed private conversation between Ann and me. Now I have a meeting with HR on Wednesday. What is my best course of action here?

Probably to apologize and say you realize that calling her a name was unprofessional and that you won’t do it again.

Don’t lean too hard on the “it was a private conversation” angle, because you’re unlikely to win that one. Conversations with coworkers — especially conversation with coworkers about work/other coworkers — don’t have any special right of privacy attached to them. They may get repeated, and they may get repeated in ways that cause problems for you (as happened here). And your employer is less likely to care that your coworker broke a confidence with you than that you’re calling a colleague a (presumably rude?) name.

The fastest way to make this go away is to say that you understnad that it was poor judgment and that you’ll be more thoughtful about what you say at work in the future.

3. Can I decline a pay raise meant to keep me exempt?

I recently received a raise without being notified. The raise was applied to my employment profile on the company’s online HR portal on the day the president signed action to raise the pay at which employees would get overtime pay. The raise I received put me just over the $50,440 threshold to not have to receive overtime pay. The raise was to $51,000; my previous annual pay rate was $50,000.

Do employers have to notify employees of raises and are employees allowed to decline pay increases?

Employers do not have to notify you if they decide to pay you more, although most employers do, because raises are generally seen as a morale and retention strategy, and they risk squandering those benefits if they do them covertly.

I suppose you could try to decline a raise, but (a) it would be weird, and (b) in this case they’re not going to let you, assuming that they raised your pay in order to keep you exempt under the proposed* new overtime threshold rule because they’ve calculated that it’s in their financial interest to do that. (For people unfamiliar with this: The Department of Labor has proposed raising the minimum salary required for an employee to be exempt from overtime laws to $50,440 from its current $23,660.)

* Note that new rule is still just a proposal and not yet current law. The commenting period is still open, and the final change (which may be in a different form than the proposal is) isn’t likely to go into effect until next year.

4. Starting a new job while still technically employed by the old one

My wife has a quick question regarding starting a new job prior to completing her last day with her current company. She works for a consulting group and is currently “unassigned,” which means she is waiting on a new project. However, she received an outstanding offer which she accepted but must start immediately, which means she may have two salaried jobs at the same time. Will this cause an issue with future background checks? Is it unethical? Or if her current employer just doesn’t take time to try and staff her (which is the case – there are a lot of folks doing work on the side while on the “bench” apparently), should she only quit once the employer takes notice?

Just curious as she would make some extra salary while holding both positions – which is always welcome!

If the new job needs her to start right away, she should be honest with her current employer about that when she gives her notice. Giving two weeks notice and planning to work for the new company during that time and just hope that the old employer doesn’t notice and assign her any work for her last weeks would indeed be unethical. Even if they’re not currently giving her projects right now, they’re paying her to be available; if she’s no longer available, she should be honest about that.

A good litmus test of the ethics: If her current employer knew she starting the new job immediately, would they choose to keep her on payroll? Presumably not, and quite reasonably so — and she shouldn’t be deceptive about that. If I’m wrong and they wouldn’t care, then she should still be honest with them about it and confirm that.

5. Employees have to provide receipts from their vacations in order to get time off

My daughter works for a chain retail clothing store. She just found out that if an employee wants to take a vacation, the managers require them to provide a copy of their plane ticket if flying or gas receipts if driving, along with a copy of the hotel receipt. Employees do not get paid vacation. Can they do this? What if they just want a week of to relax at home?

They told one person who was only getting 15 hours a week that she could not get another job just in case they needed her to come in to cover a shift. That I know they cannot do!

My daughter was working at an internship in the evening for 2 weeks. She had worked a day shift and was ready to go out to the internship, but they called and told her they didn’t need her that night. She went into the store to purchase something and the manager told my daughter that she had to tell her (the manager) when she was available just in case she needed her to come in.

Bottom line is these girls are terrified of their managers. Does a boss have a right to know what you are doing in your off time? This is a minimum wage job with no benefits.

That’s ridiculous. It’s not illegal, but it’s ridiculous. The best thing you can do is probably to let your daughter know that  this isn’t a normal thing that she should expect from an employer (so that this doesn’t mess up her norms for what is and isn’t okay), and perhaps encourage her to consider finding a job that doesn’t treat her like an indentured servant.

(By the way, it actually is legal for them to prohibit employees from having second jobs. It’s particularly stupid to do that with a 15-hour-a-week employee, but there’s no law that prevents them from being jerks.)

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

1. My boss won’t let me use any of my vacation time

One of the benefits of my job is the ability to accrue paid time off for vacation. However, I seem to be in a position where any time I request time off I am denied by my manager. On the other hand, my manager takes vacation time off all the time. Am I missing something here? I have a family who I would love to take vacation time with, but I am cut off any time I try. At the same time, my days off have accumulated to almost one month and I am just at a loss of how someone in good conscience would not even consider allowing me. How do I approach this situation?

Say this: “I get X days of vacation each year as part of my benefits package, and it’s important to me to be able to take it. You haven’t approved my most recent vacation requests. Can we talk about what dates do work for me to take vacation time, so that I can schedule it?”

You can also try this: “I need to schedule a week away with my family in the next two months. Is there a time period that’s best, or any weeks that won’t work?”

If you get a flat “no, you can’t take vacation,” say this: “Are you saying I’m not able to use the vacation time I earn at all? Can you help me understand why?”

And then strongly consider whether you want to continue working somewhere that in practice gives you zero vacation days.

2. I’m uncomfortable with the way my friend talks about her students

My best friend and I met in college when we were getting our teaching degrees. I work at a private day-care center. My best friend is a teacher at the local high school. As far as she tells me, she’s very popular with her students and does a good job. However, the way she speaks about her students when we are meeting to catch up concerns me. Occasionally when she’s relaying a story about advice (often about relationships and career choices) “a friend” gave her, she slips up and reveals to me that her “friend” is really one of her students. She also talks openly about playing favorites with her students and how she can’t wait for my daughter to get to high school age so that she can be her “teacher’s pet” for four years. I worry that she is actually not a great teacher at all, but that she abuses her position of power over the students, picks favorites, and crosses professional and personal boundaries in what she speaks to them about.

I have tried to tell her that she should make a stronger effort to keep better boundaries with her students, but she brushes it off and tells me that this is “the direction education is heading.” My daughter will be high school aged in two years, and I’m dreading sending her to this school now. I feel like calling the school administration to voice my concerns is going too far as I am not currently enrolling a student there. Is there anything I can do?

Since she’s your best friend, why not be direct with her about how you’re feeling? You could say something like this: “I’m not a teacher and so don’t have the same perspective as you, but I have to be honest with you — hearing this kind of thing is really unsettling to me. I would have been so uncomfortable as a student to know that my teacher had favorites or wanted me to give them relationship or career advice, and it makes me uncomfortable as a parent now.” If she brushes you off again, you could say, “I understand that we have different takes on this, but it really makes me uncomfortable to hear.”

If she continues pushing this kind of conversation on you after you’ve cleared toward her that you’re not comfortable with it, it might be time to reexamine the closeness of the friendship. A good friend will respect a stance like this even if she sees it differently.

(I’m giving the friendship perspective here though. I’d love to hear from teachers on the professional elements of this.)

3. Limiting emotional venting from coaching clients during initial intake sessions

I’m a coach, and my clients often have stressful lives. I would like to know how to keep conversations, mainly during the first call that we use to ascertain whether an appointment with me would benefit them, from becoming a “dump session” with them laying out all of their problems. On one hand, I do get information to be able to help them better. On the other hand, my goal is to get them in for a one-on-one session, so we can actually work to get their lives more manageable and joyful. I don’t have time to listen to all of their problems at this stage, and the techniques I use do not require that I hear all of this information.

What is a professional way to say “please stop dumping (emotionally) on me”? I understand a bit of venting is allowable, but I can truthfully only handle so much, and the idea is that we use effective processes together so that their subconscious thoughts change. This actually changes the experiences they attract for the better. So, they won’t feel the need to “dump” as much on people, because their lives improve. Still, this can take more than one session.

Well, it may be that some of this is part and parcel of the line of work you’re in.

But you can probably cut down on some of it if you lay out clear guidelines for that initial call ahead of time (probably via email before the call takes place): how long you’ve allotted for the call, what topics you’ll cover, and what is and isn’t most useful to cover. You could even say something like, “Because this is an initial intake call, I ask that we focus on X and Y rather than Z, in order to most effectively figure out if we’re the right match for each other.”

You should probably also be prepared to redirect the conversation if you see it start going down a venting road. For example, you might say, “That does sound frustrating. For this call, it would be most helpful for me to understand (topic you want them to focus on).”

But again, with this line of work, I think some of this is probably unavoidable.

4. Raise for internal promotion is less than others with the same title are making

This is happening to a former colleague of mine, and I am really curious what you think. This friend is a marketing coordinator at a large, private company. When a colleague was promoted to marketing manager of a different business unit within the company, he asked her to transfer to his team, with a promotion to senior coordinator. Both this new manager and her current manager report to the same director.

She agreed to make the move on certain conditions (that they move her quickly and completely, so she’s not doing two jobs for a long period of time). She knew the move would upset her former manager, who is very sensitive. Also, I think both her current manager and her prospective new manager have rubbed their director the wrong way in recent months (a point I don’t think she’s putting enough stock into). I think regardless of her own actions, she’s being painted with their brushes.

She asked for the same salary she believed other senior coordinators were making, but which represented a huge raise from where she was (specifically, her ask was for a 56% increase! This begs another question of salary disparity…),.

She went through the formal interview process and was offered a position via HR. They offered her 20% more than her current salary, but 25% less than other senior coordinators make at the firm (confirmed). She asked for more and they adjusted their offer within a week to a 30% raise for her but 18% less than other senior coordinators were making.

She feels slighted and doesn’t know what to do. On the one hand, playing hardball with her existing managers and directors seems like a bad idea. She has to work with these people. Also, she has no leverage – they know her current salary and title and they currently employ her. On the other, she is right to ask for the same salary as others at the firm are making for the same job. What should she do?

She can ask them to help her understand why her work will be worth less than the other people with the same job title. Who knows, maybe they’ll actually have an explanation that makes sense — different responsibilities despite the same title, more experience, tougher clients, or something else. Beyond that, though, there’s not really much else she can do (unless she can point to a pattern based on sex, race, or other illegal factor). Lots of companies have policies that you can only increase your salary by X% when moving internally; it’s a bad policy, but if they’re wed to it, she’d need to decide if she wants the job for that salary or not.

5. Letting my internship know that I need to start looking for full-time work

I graduated from college in June and have been doing a paid internship since graduation. They love me there, have asked me to extend my internship, and have offered to give me more hours. I’m super productive, super helpful, etc.

However, I know that there is no opportunity at this company. It’s very small and competitive to get in, and someone just got hired at the level I would have (she was hired before I even became an intern, but just started recently).

Unfortunately, I’m at the point where I need a full-time job. The internship (and the other one I work at as well) just aren’t cutting it. What’s the best way to let them know I reaaally want a job there, but can’t work as an intern anymore at this time? I also don’t want to quit, get a new job and then find out there’s suddenly an opening!

Be straightforward: “I’m at the point where I need to look for full-time work. I’d love to work here if there’s any chance of that. If not, I need to talk with you about what makes sense for an ending date.”

(Or, if you’re willing to stay there until you have a new job lined up, you don’t necessarily need to set an ending date; you could just let them know that you’re looking and will give notice once you have a new job, which is a pretty normal thing to do during an internship if you want to.)

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

1. I saw my coworker with the spouse who assaulted her, despite their no-contact order

I have a coworker who was assaulted by her spouse. He was arrested and spent 4 months in jail, and this was not the first time it has occurred. She is processing through a divorce and there is a no contact order with the two of them. She is also taking a lot of FMLA leave (intermittent) and has used over 8 weeks of leave since March.

The challenge for me is twofold. One is the amount of work she is missing and the burden it is placing on our team to meet deadlines and the other is the amount of time she spends at work sharing her challenges being without a spouse and the mental health issues she and her children are dealing with as a result of year of mental and physical abuse at the hands of this man.

The reason for my letter is that last week I was driving home and saw my coworker’s car parked on the side of the road. As I got closer, I saw she was sitting in the car and her soon-to-be-ex-husband was sitting in the passenger seat. When I was close enough, she saw me and her husband tried, unsuccessfully, to duck out of view.

I understand that the cycle of abuse can be strong and difficult to break, but as her team leader is our employer required to continue to provide FMLA leave to this person who is violating a no-contact order that is the reason for the FMLA in the first place? How should I handle this from an ethical point of view? Should I speak to her? Should I speak to company management?

Yes, your company is required to continue to provide FMLA leave. If someone was taking FMLA for smoking-related illness and continued to smoke, an employer couldn’t revoke their FMLA for that either. As a general rule, employers don’t get to meddle in things that lead to employees’ need for FMLA, even if the person isn’t taking the actions the employer thought they should take. (And that’s a good thing. You don’t want  your employer getting to decide whether you “deserve” FMLA or not.)

And no, I don’t think you should speak to her or to company management about what you saw. It sounds like she’s in a difficult situation and perhaps not handling it especially well at work (as far as the over-sharing goes), but there’s nothing here that would be appropriate for a coworker to chastise her about or report her for and, frankly, there’s nothing here that is her employer’s business. You could, however, suggest your EAP as a resource if your company has one.

If the amount of leave she’s taking is impacting your own work, you should talk to your manager about that element of it.

2. Instituting new processes for every mistake

What is the management style called that where an employee makes a mistake, and management’s solution to every employee’s mistake is: “What can we do, or what process can we implement to ensure this never happens again?”

In my experience, this does nothing but create unnecessary, more confusing processes, before you know it, there are all kinds of procedures in place, over one simple error that was simple human error. Is this style of management good, or is it me that I am one of few who do not agree with this style?

I don’t know that there’s a specific name for it, but yeah, it’s possible to go overboard in that direction. It’s true that not every mistake requires coming up with a whole new system or process to prevent it in the future (although certainly some do).

However, sometimes that’s the kind of thing that a manager will say to probe into what you personally are planning to do to avoid the mistake again. It doesn’t always have to be a new process; sometimes it can simply be that you’re going to double-check your work or not rush through task X or not review data when you’re tired, or whatever. I know I’ve sometimes said to an employee, “What can you do to avoid this in the future?” and I’m not looking for a whole new system (necessarily) but just to hear their take on how they think they can avoid it happening again.

In your case, though, it sounds like you’ve had managers who always require new processes to be instituted for single mistakes. In most contexts, that’s a pretty weird approach.

3. Employer bans job applicants who are applying anywhere else

There were several places that my daughter wanted to apply to work at in her new town, but the first place she applied (a large chain gas station) said they would not consider her application if she was also looking at other places. She was busy with last-minute details for her wedding, so she decided to just leave the application with them and wait until after the wedding to apply at some of the other places she wanted to work. The day after her wedding, they offered her a job. Because she was leaving for her honeymoon two days later and knew that she would need a job soon after her return, she felt pressured to say yes right away, although she was a little disappointed she couldn’t look elsewhere.

While she was on her honeymoon, a family friend called and offered her a position that had just opened as an assistant to a manager in a well-run, strong business where there was room to grow. This was an excellent opportunity – employees who worked there rarely left because they were so happy with the company. My daughter feels she has a moral dilemma because she told the gas station she would work there (it is a large place with 20+ employees, plus it is a national chain), but the other job is a much better fit for her. My husband and I feel that it was wrong for the gas station to not allow her to search for other employment opportunities while they took 10 days to consider her application. What do you think?

It’s not at all normal to tell candidates that they’ll only be considered if they’re not applying anywhere else. In fact, it’s downright weird, inconsiderate, and an abuse of the power dynamics of the situation. I’m wondering why they’d even care; I suppose they don’t want to spend time interviewing a candidate who may decide they prefer a different employer — but it’s just not a thing that’s okay to require or even to ask. (Imagine turning it around and having job candidates refuse to interview with employers if those employers were also talking to other candidates.) I also can’t figure out how they’d possibly enforce it; they’re not likely to know if people are applying other places or not.

Anyway, when an employer behaves that badly, the amount of consideration you owe them in return goes way down. Your daughter should take the job that’s the better fit for her.

4. Former employer won’t let people be a reference for me

Can a former boss tell a colleague or client that they can not serve as a reference?

Your former employer can indeed ban their current employees from giving you a reference (but they can’t ban former employees, since they don’t have authority over them anymore, unless the former employee signed something agreeing to the ban). But I can’t imagine how they could prevent a client from giving you a reference. They could make the request, certainly, but they’d have no way of enforcing it (and presumably it wouldn’t be good for their relations with the client if they tried to push it too hard).

5. Why aren’t my job search strategies paying off?

Although my graduate school program is elite, with many alumni employed in this competitive field, I am soon graduating and near my wit’s end with the job hunt. School has been a struggle for me. I questioned my desire to remain in both this program and the field. A much-needed respite in the form of a part-time job in an adjacent field helped replenish my desire to succeed. The two fields are similar enough and I am looking for employment in both. My current position and place of employment are fantastic, but the position is only for students.

This scenario repeats itself in my search: Before applying for a position, I check on LinkedIn to see who I know knows someone at the hiring organization. I ask my LinkedIn contact if she feels comfortable introducing me and to relay my interest in the specific position. Usually the answer is yes. I schedule a time to chat with the person about the company culture and only discuss the specific position if that person raises it. I send a thank-you note. Concurrently, I individually tailor my cover letter and ensure that my resume is up to snuff. I ask friends, coworkers, and my university’s career counselor to review my application materials. I follow the directions to apply through an online portal or email an HR rep, and receive an automated response, “Application received.” And then… nothing happens.

If the hiring manager’s – and not the HR point person’s – direct contact information were available, I believe I would be more successful. But it feels as though my information is getting launched into the void, and things like an out-of-state residence or not meeting the required qualifications 100% are filtering my application into the garbage bin. This feels incredibly demoralizing. If you or your readers have advice on what I could do differently, I would greatly appreciate it.

The thing that jumps out at me is that you’re being too coy with the networking contact. It doesn’t make sense not to bring up in the meeting that you’re applying for a job there (they already know, after all, since the mutual contact told them, quite appropriately), so there’s no need to play games about that. I suspect you’re doing that because you don’t want to be too aggressive, but they know why you reached out — it’s actually more polite to keep it out in the open.

And then, when you apply for the job, it sounds like you’re not doing anything to alert them to that, which is squandering much of the benefit of having had the meeting in the first place. Instead, when you apply, shoot the person you met with an email that says something like, “I wanted to let you know I just submitted my application for the X position. If you think I could be a strong match for, I’d be so grateful if you’d mention that to the hiring manager (but of course, no pressure either way).”

But it’s also true that if you’re not a strong candidate for a position, this kind of networking isn’t likely to help much. (It could be different if the person knew you enough to vouch for your work, but in these cases they don’t.) If that’s the situation, it might be that you need to revisit what types of positions you’re applying for or whether there’s additional experience you should focus on gaining first. (That’s a frustrating answer, I realize.)