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 →
how can I help an employee who has no attention to detail? by Alison Green on September 5, 2018 A reader writes: I am an attorney and have recently been promoted to the point where I am supervising junior attorneys’ work. One of the juniors who works with (and for) me, let’s call her Jessie, and I are pretty friendly. She’s a genuinely lovely person — friendly, kind, and we have a good working […] Read the full article →
beware of bosses handing out “crap sandwiches” by Alison Green on August 22, 2018 If you’ve ever taken a management class — or been managed — you’ve probably come across the “feedback sandwich.” Known more colloquially as the “crap sandwich,” the idea is that when giving criticism, managers should sandwich it between two pieces of positive feedback: open with some praise, then offer the criticism, then close with some […] Read the full article →
my employee isn’t doing her job — but I think she’s in an abusive relationship by Alison Green on August 14, 2018 A reader writes: I work in a very seasonal business, one where I can really only retain one person in the off-season, as we can’t afford (nor have the work for) anyone else during that time. In the six years I’ve been here, we’ve built up a good core staff that returns most years, and […] Read the full article →
I manage an easily distracted manager, and it’s frustrating her employees by Alison Green on August 8, 2018 A reader writes: One of the departments I manage has a new manager. She’s an external hire and it’s been four months now. I’ve been getting complaints about her from employees both inside and outside of the department. They all say the same thing, that she loses focus, gets easily distracted, and goes off on […] Read the full article →
is it OK to take vacations and share clothes with your boss? by Alison Green on August 6, 2018 At Slate today, I wrote about managers who try to be BFFs with their employees … raising concerns about favoritism and objectivity, sometimes pushing for more intimacy than their employees want, and generally overstepping boundaries. There are stories about a manager who took expensive spa vacations with an employee, a boss who regularly broke into tears while […] Read the full article →