Ask a Manager

This is a transcription of the Ask a Manager podcast, episode 4: “My Employee Works From Home Too Much”.

Alison: This week we have a question about working from home, from the boss’ perspective. As a manager – or at least as a good manager – you want to give people the flexibility to do things like occasionally work from home when their job allows it, but you’ve also got to balance that against the needs of the work. What do you do if you have an employee who’s using that flexibility in a way that isn’t quite working for your team? That’s the question on the mind of our caller this week. Welcome to the show!

Guest: Thanks for having me, Alison!

Alison: Thanks for joining us. Why don’t you start by reading the letter you sent me, and then we’ll talk about it?

Guest: Great. I wrote in to ask about working from home. Our company doesn’t have a work from home policy; it’s completely up to manager discretion, and I lead a small team that requires a lot of face time with senior leaders, but I try to be as flexible as possible. There’s no policy for when you can and cannot work from home. It’s up to the employee, and I just ask they join any meetings remotely and give me a heads up if they aren’t going to be in the office.

One of my employees works from home a lot. It’s more than once per week, on average six times per month. It’s often at the last minute, although half the time it could have been planned – something like childcare coverage, or her husband traveling for work. The other half of the time, it’s unplanned, like car troubles or a sick child.

I work from home approximately two days a month, typically planned a week or more in advance, and the other two members are about the same. And it should be noted that out of all of us, the employee who’s taking about six times per month is the least senior in terms of experience on the team.

Here are my issues with it: first of all, I feel like a lot of this could be planned in advance, but the employee is disorganized. I prompt her, and the entire team, to share upcoming PTO, work from home, etc. in our weekly team meeting and our weekly 1:1 meetings, but there’s still a lot of last minute remote work. Secondly, there are perceptions that she isn’t around very often and is therefore difficult to get a hold of. Since most people do not work from home, colleagues often stop by and see she’s not there and assume she’s out. Thirdly, it’s hard for me to gauge how productive this employee is when she’s working from home. She tends to hit deadlines, but I worry she may be purposefully setting longer timetables. And finally, when I collected feedback for her review, people mentioned unreliability and disorganization. Her work is okay, but there’s room for improvement. And, I want to give her more work, but worry that she’ll be unable to stay on top of all of it.

I don’t want to be punitive – this isn’t a problem yet, but I worry it could be. And I want to give her more responsibility, but the erratic schedule could be problematic. How can I address this before it becomes a concrete issue, but still allow her valuable flexibility?

Alison: To start with, I want to say that if she were doing a really great job, I would tell you to give her as much flexibility as you could. That still wouldn’t mean total flexibility – I mean, if she needs to be in the office more so that she’s accessible to people, you could still say that. But otherwise, I would be relatively hands-off – if she were doing outstanding work. But that’s not really the situation here.

So let me ask you some questions. I wondered about the piece of this that’s about her doing it at the last minute with no notice, in cases where she could have told you in advance if she’d planned better. I wanted to know, does that bother you because it impacts the work, or is it more that it’s adding to this overall picture where she already seems disorganized?

Guest: I think it’s mostly because it adds to this picture where she already seems disorganized. I know sometimes she will say, “I should have told you this sooner,” or “I know that this has been happening a lot,” and I think that that’s why it bothers me a little bit more.

Alison: And have you ever talked to her about what you’d like her to be doing differently with any of the work from home stuff?

Guest: We haven’t talked about work from home specifically, because it wasn’t until really the last quarter of the year that I started realizing, when looking back through all of our text messages – because that’s how she usually alerts me – that almost every text message was “Can I work from home?” or “I need to work from home,” and that’s when all of a sudden I realized, this is happening a lot. But in general we’ve talked about disorganization in general, or being really clear with timetables for our internal customers. A lot of times we don’t have a hard deadline on something, but I push our team to set a deadline so that our customers know when to expect that they’ll hear back from us. So we haven’t really talked about working from home specifically.

Alison: When you talked to her about the disorganization, have you seen any improvement since then?

Guest: Yes and no. For things that we have to do on a regular basis, I’ve seen improvement. We’ve worked together to set reminders in her calendar so that she doesn’t forget to do weekly tasks. But I would say on project-type work I haven’t seen a general improvement. It’s usually a lot of me asking, “Can you please type up a timeline for this and send it over to me?” or “Hey, let’s look at the calendar and figure out, if you have three things due on the same day, maybe we need to reset our customers’ expectations.”

Alison: Yeah, that makes sense. I think there’s a couple of different pieces here that are intertwined. One is the work from home stuff, one is the bigger picture performance/organization stuff, and they’re both feeding into each. So let’s take them one at a time. On the work from home stuff, here’s what I think is going on – and tell me if this sounds right, because I might be off base. But I think that your instincts are to be very flexible with people, which is great, but at the same time you do have expectations for how people will use their work from home time, and that’s reasonable too. And I think that maybe you’ve avoided spelling out those expectations very explicitly with her, because it feels like if she would use her common sense maybe you wouldn’t need to, or just because you don’t want to pull back on the amount of flexibility that you’re giving people now. Does that sound like the right track?

Guest: Yeah, that sounds about right. I mean, one of the situations we’re in is, it’s me and the other team members, and we’ve fallen into a general sense of respect or rhythm around it. So it felt like we got along without having to explicitly talk about this for 18 months as a team, and now I feel like it’s too late to set the expectation with her. Will it feel like I’m taking something away if now I’m saying, “I really need to be alerted XYZ timeframe in advance”?

Alison: An organization that I work with has a really great phrase for this. They call it “making the implicit explicit.” The idea is, you want to take the expectations that you have in your head and explicitly articulate them to your staff. Because you’re probably going to hold people to these expectations whether you spell them out or not, so you should share them so that everyone is working from the same playbook. And it does sound like yeah, you want to give people flexibility, which is great, but the job doesn’t allow maybe as much flexibility as she’s using. And that’s okay, it’s normal to have some restrictions on how you want people to use work from home time. It does sound like you don’t really want her doing it as frequently as she does – maybe you want more advance notice – but right now you’re in this middle ground where you want her to change what she’s doing, but you don’t want to have to tell her to change it. (Laughs)

Guest: Yeah that sounds about right. (Laughs)

Alison: I think that’s really normal, but ultimately you’re sort of hoping she’ll read your mind, and she’s not, and you’re getting frustrated. So I think you have to spell it out really explicitly, because she’s not guessing correctly. And I definitely hear what you’re saying about how you don’t want her to feel like you’re taking something away. She might feel that way, that’s the reality of it. But I think if you just frame it as, “Hey, I’ve realized we’ve never talked explicitly about expectations around working from home. I want you to be able to have flexibility that you can use when you need it. We have jobs that require a lot of facetime with senior executives, we’ve got to be accessible to people. And I think that right now the amount that you’re using it is a little bit too much. I tend to use it about twice a month, and I’m not saying you have to do exactly twice a month, but I’d like you to be closer to that than what you’re doing now.”

As long as you tie it to the needs of the work, and it doesn’t sound arbitrary, I think it’ll be okay. She still might feel like, “Ugh, this sucks that I suddenly have less flexibility,” but I think it’s better for you to get it out in the open rather than silently penalizing her for it in your head, which is what’s likely to happen over time.

Guest: Right. And I love the way you help set up the phrasing and the framework of that, because it isn’t something that’s a big issue yet, I want to prevent it from becoming one. So I’m curious about your opinion on this as well, because I have three team members – obviously I want to address it with her one-on-one, but do you think I should just address it with all three wither one-on-one as well, or address it with her one-on-one and then talk about it as a larger team meeting and give her a heads up like, “I’m talking with you about this today, but we’re going to talk about it as a team next week.”

Alison: If everyone else is using it in a way you’re comfortable with, I would just talk to her one-on-one and I would not make it a team discussion, for a couple of reasons. One, she’s going to feel like everyone knows that that’s a team discussion about her, and that is likely to feel punitive, actually, and certainly awkward. And everyone else is likely to start second-guessing, is it directed toward them? Are they doing it too much?

Guest: I didn’t think about the second-guessing piece, that’s a good point.

Alison: Yeah, so I’d talk to her one-on-one. I think that maybe where you’re coming from with that question is that you’re worrying, if you’re laying down a rule for her, does fairness require you to lay it down for everyone? But I don’t think that you have to. You have people that are very in sync with your expectations about this, who are using it exactly the way you want them to, it’s not causing any problems – if that changes in the future, you can talk to them. But I think it would be making a bigger deal of it than it needs to be if you addressed it with everyone.

Guest: Great, thanks, that’s helpful.

Alison: Good. I did want to say – the thing about the advance notice, I think might be a red herring. The part about how she tells you at the last minute where she could have told you earlier. It does sound like it’s more of a problem because she’s already disorganized in general, and that’s playing into it. I do think if it’s causing real work problems, for you or other people, you could say, “Hey, in general, give me advance notice if you’re going to work from home, because of reason X, unless it’s truly an emergency.” But if there isn’t a real work impact, I wouldn’t focus so much on that piece. I do think it’s a flag that the disorganization in general is still around, and that is impacting how you’re perceiving her. It sounds like it’s definitely impacting how other people are perceiving her if you’ve gotten feedback in her reviews about that. I think the disorganization in general is probably something to dig into with her more, from a feedback and coaching and performance perspective. And again, really spelling out what you’re looking for from her there, keeping in mind that phrase “making the implicit explicit.” Really think, “are there things that I’m expecting from her that we have not explicitly talked about, maybe because it feels like we shouldn’t need to?” (Laughs) Maybe because it feels like there are just things that she should catch on to from being a professional, or from working in this particular environment. I would really think through, what are the expectations that are maybe going unsaid? And talk to her about those.

Guest: Even as you’re saying that, I think that sometimes I talk about organization in general, or project planning, or setting deadlines – but that whole making the implicit explicit would probably help in those coaching conversations. Because I’m saying, “You need to have better project management skills,” but not explicitly saying, “by project management skills, I mean setting agendas, and socializing timelines, and those types of things.” It might be such a nebulous ask that she doesn’t even know where to begin.

Alison: Yes! I think that is exactly what often happens in this. You’re assuming a frame of reference on her part that is your frame of reference, and that is often the frame of reference of other people you’ve worked with. So it’s understandable to make the assumption, but if you’re not seeing the improvement you’re looking for, it might be because you are using shorthand or not really spelling out what those expectations are. And sometimes managers don’t do that because it feels too hand-holdy, or even condescending. But if she’s not getting it, you might almost think of it the way you would if they were someone who was from a totally different culture and was brand new to our norms. You would want to really make sure that you were arming them with a good understanding of how things were working in your particular office. I would approach it from that standpoint too, so that she really doesn’t have to guess and she’s really clear on what it is that you’re going for.

Guest: Yeah, I think that’s great. Just talking through it makes it so much more clear.

Alison: Good. That feeling that you mentioned where you worried that she might be purposefully setting longer deadlines for herself than what she really needs, and that you worry about her productivity when she’s at home – you can be pretty hands-on there. If she’s setting deadlines that seem too padded, you can push on that. You can say, “Do you think you could have that by X date instead?” or “So that I understand the context, what’s behind the timeline on this?” or “Tell me more about what’s on your plate right now and how you’re prioritizing things.” Don’t be afraid to really get into that, if you have an uneasy sense about how she’s approaching things, dig in a little more.

Guest: Yeah, for sure. I think sometimes I do that when it’s something that is under a hard and heavy deadline, but there’s no reason why work that’s important but maybe not pressing, we shouldn’t get more into the weeds on managing time on that.

Alison: Yeah, and you might even set it up for her from the outset. If you don’t do this she might wonder, “Why is my boss all of a sudden really getting into the nitty gritty of this stuff with me?” So you might tell her right from the get-go, as you’re working on the issues around disorganization you might say, “Look, I want to be hands-on with you for a little while so that we can work through this together and make sure that we’re getting you on the track that we need you to get on.” That way she has that broader framework, and hopefully she’ll understand why you’re doing it, as opposed to just having to wonder.

Guest: Right, and that’s a little more supportive than that punitive feeling, because I know that this employee’s engaged and does put out great work, I just know she is just right on the cusp of the next level, or doing even more, and I want to support her to get her there. So I think that’s a nice approach.

Alison: Oh gosh, I would say that explicitly, that’s really great framing. If you can say, “I think you do really great work, I think you have the potential to move up to whatever the next level is, this is the issue that I want to work with you on. This is the thing that I think is really important to address so that you’re able to do that. So going forward, I want to be more hands-on with you about this stuff.” That’s a really positive framing for it.

Guest: Great.

Alison: My parting advice is, just get really clear in your own head about what your expectations of her are and share those with her. The more transparent that you can be about how you want her to operate, the more likely she is to meet those expectations. And if she doesn’t meet them after you’ve clearly laid them out, then you know you have a real problem, and it’ll be a lot easier to address. Does that help?

Guest: That really helps, thank you so much for your advice and your time. This was so great.

Alison: Thank you so much for coming on the show and talking this through with me. I really appreciate it; it was great to have you here.

Guest: It was great to be here. Thanks Alison.

Alison: Before we wrap up, some listeners left some messages with advice for last week’s guest who had the overly helpless coworker that was leaning on her for too much help. Here’s what they said:

Eileen: Hey there, my name is Eileen and I wanted to call in with some feedback for the helpless coworker. I’ve worked at the same company for 35 years, so I’ve seen this type before, and I agree with a lot of the suggestions that you made, which is letting the person know “Hey, we’ve gone over this before, why don’t you pull out your notes and let’s see what your notes say? Then you could just follow your notes to the letter, because I already helped you with the notes, so I’m not going to really add anything to what I’ve already told you before.” But I’ve got to be honest, I think pushing it off onto the manager is not going to help. Because if the manager has not addressed this before, she’s probably not going to do it now.

Alison: And here’s a message from a listener named Edwin.

Edwin: I understand there’s questions that need to be answered, and I know she comes back to you repetitively – there’s nothing wrong with asking a dumb question, but if you’re consistently asking them, it eventually turns into a dumb question. So the only thing I would recommend is tell her, “Turn around, read your notes, see what you’ve got.” Or before she has questions, or when she does ask the question, you ask her, “What do you think we should do? What do you think?” Help her analyze it first, and then go for it. Because if you can help her answer her own question, she’ll get a lot better at retaining it.

Alison: If you’d like to leave your own message for this caller, and maybe hear it on the show, you can do that by downloading Anchor on iOS or Android. Just search for “Ask a Manager”, and you can leave me a voice message right there.

Alison: Thanks for listening to the Ask a Manager podcast, produced in conjunction with Penguin Random House and Anchor. If you like what you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Play. If you’d like to ask a question on the show, email it to podcast@askamanager.org. And check out my new book from Ballantine Books called Ask a Manager: Clueless Coworkers, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work. It hits stores May 1st, and it’s the ultimate guide for tackling any and all workplace dilemmas. You can pre-order a copy today at penguinrandomhouse.com or anywhere books are sold.

Thanks for listening! I’m Alison Green, and I’ll be back next week with another question.

Transcript provided by MJ Brodie.

You can see past podcast transcripts here.