my employee excluded coworkers from his holiday party by Alison Green on December 20, 2018 A reader writes: I am the owner, founder, and managing partner of a small law firm. We employ 15 people. Of those 15, we have four leaders. Three of those leaders are “senior associates” or “junior partner”-level lawyers and one is a non-lawyer accounting/billing manager. Recently, one of the four leaders, a lawyer, held a […] Read the full article →
I’m supposed to fire my husband’s ex-wife by Alison Green on December 4, 2018 A reader writes: I have recently been offered and accepted a job I am so excited about. It is an associate VP level for a solid company that has truly invested in this area of the business. I have been working a long time to get to this level of position. I gave notice at […] Read the full article →
I can’t fire my awful assistant by Alison Green on November 30, 2018 A reader writes: I’m a nurse and I work with several nursing assistants. I have no authority to hire them, fire them, or implement any kind of substantive rewards or consequences, but I am responsible for their work. Most of them are great. One, however, is extremely unpleasant to deal with. If I ask her […] Read the full article →
my assistant refuses to call in when she’s out sick by Alison Green on October 25, 2018 A reader writes: My assistant has been sick quite a bit in the last few months, and she does not “call in” sick (or email or text) to anyone. I have asked her twice to make sure she notifies me each day she will be out. And now for the third time in the past […] Read the full article →
my entry-level employee gave me a bunch of off-base “constructive criticism” by Alison Green on October 24, 2018 A reader writes: I am a manager in a smaller group (less than 20 people) in a huge firm. The hierarchy is pretty firmly established by my firm, but within my group my directors have given me a lot of freedom and I oversee all of the staff and on occasion other managers (who do […] Read the full article →
my employee keeps saying “at my last job, we did it a different way” by Alison Green on October 17, 2018 A reader writes: I have an employee who has worked for us two years now. She is constantly starting a ton of sentences with the words “at my last job…” This is becoming a huge annoyance to many people. I can’t understand how, after two years, she is still making this comparison between our way […] Read the full article →
is it okay for my employees to say they’re “just not cut out for public speaking”? by Alison Green on October 2, 2018 A reader writes: I am a director level mid-manager at a large nonprofit. A large part of my role involves public speaking and training, which I enjoy and am good at. My team consists of my manager, also an excellent public speaker, and two people who I supervise, an associate director and an administrative assistant. […] Read the full article →
my team doesn’t ask managers to hang out with them by Alison Green on September 26, 2018 A reader writes: I have a small tight-knit team of eight people. The people that I’ve hired in the last two years socialize together quite a bit, which is great. The downside is they don’t invite me or the other managers; the junior members will hang out together and not invite the managers. The disappointing […] Read the full article →
my employee is chronically late to work by Alison Green on September 24, 2018 A reader writes: My employee has had an attendance issue off and on for the past six months. I called her attention to it and it improved marginally, but then she told me that she gets a ride to work from her mom and her family is large and there is only one bathroom so […] Read the full article →
my former employee is badmouthing me to my staff by Alison Green on September 19, 2018 A reader writes: To summarize the below story, I had an employee leave the company due to a bad interaction with me, and I’m not sure how to move forward with him or the rest of the remaining staff. I’m a midlevel manager and I work for a small entertainment company. I recently had an […] Read the full article →