“my boss won’t let me give my staff feedback in case it hurts their feelings, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

my boss won’t let me give my staff feedback in case it hurts their feelings, and more
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ask the readers: should I talk to my employee about her sex offender boyfriend?

my boss won’t let me give my staff feedback in case it hurts their feelings, and more

Posted: 14 Jun 2018 09:03 PM PDT

It's four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. My boss won’t allow me to give my team constructive criticism in case it hurts their feelings

I have been working at a small company for the last two years, and I’ve been in a management role for the last year. I’m proud of my performance and feel that I’ve helped raise the standards and the quality of work we produce.

My problem is that the CEO rarely lets me actually manage my team. This hasn’t been a huge problem until recently, when a few members of my team began to slack off and the quality of their worked suffered significantly. It has damaged our reputation and relationship with our largest client.

The CEO prefers to skate around these problems so as to not hurt anyone’s feelings. Nothing gets clearly addressed, so nothing gets fixed. It makes it seem that she not only tolerates but also encourages bad work.

This is not my strategy. I think firmly but professionally identifying the unacceptable behavior and correcting it is the way to go. It is best for the business, and it is best for the employees because it sets the proper expectations. But any time I give my team constructive criticism in front of the CEO, she undermines me and tells the employee, “No, no, no, that’s fine, you’re doing a great job.”

What is the point of being a manager if I’m not allowed to manage? Am I way off-base here? I feel like I’m going crazy.

You're are not off-base and you're not going crazy. There's no way to manage if you can't give any feedback or hold people accountable to any standards. You've been told that you're responsible for doing a job, but you're not allowed to actually do that job. And your (terrible) boss is actively undermining you. Get out, get out, get out.

2. Asking for a higher salary after learning more about the job

I am interviewing with a company for a role I would be a great fit for (I have had three interviews and each person has basically said, “wow, it is like we wrote this job description while looking at your resume!”). My first call was with the recruiter and, as is pretty common in my field, we discussed salary. Their range was a bit on the low end of market, but it was something I would consider so I moved forward in the process.

After speaking to the hiring manager and the head of the department where the job is housed, however, it is clear this position entails a lot more responsibility than originally advertised. The job is listed as an individual contributor, but the department head made it clear he expects the person hired for this position to build and manage a small team. Before this team was in place, essentially all the responsibility for one essential function of the department would fall on this position. I have had experience doing exactly this with great success at two previous companies, so I am not concerned with the responsibility. The issue is that I would not do it for even the top of the salary range I spoke to the recruiter about.

The company is now wanting me to come in for a full-day interview with multiple people, but I don’t want to waste anyone’s time if I would not accept any eventual offer. I also don’t want the recruiter to feel like she is the victim of a bait and switch because we had discussed the range before. Can you help me formulate a way to tell this company that although I am interested in the role (and would be a great fit) I can no longer accept the salary I previously indicated I might (which I understand means I may need to withdraw my candidacy) now that I know more about the role?

"I'd love to come in and talk further about the role! Before we set it up, though, I wanted to touch base on salary. Since we originally spoke about salary, I've learned more about the job and it sounds like this person will need to hire and manage a small team and, until that happens, will be solely responsible for X. Given that, I'd be looking for a range of $X-$Y. Since we'd earlier talked about a different range, before I learned the position's full scope of responsibility, I didn't want to take up your time with the next set of interviews if that's prohibitive on your end."

3. Division of labor with my former intern / new coworker

On the same day that I accepted my current job, I found out I was pregnant. A few months after, I hired my intern whom I trained to be able to do my job while I was on maternity leave. I also recommended my boss to hire her as my temporary replacement, which she did.

Fast forward to yesterday, it was announced that the organization is keeping her full-time (in addition to me) and is giving her the same title even though I have many more years of experience and was her supervisor for five months.

I find this to be awkward because there would be no hierarchy and people within the organization wouldn't know who is responsible for what and who to reach out to for what issues. Furthermore, my boss sends out assignments with both of us CCed in the email without specifying who should be doing it and my replacement responds that she will do it before I get a chance. Also, I would like to attend events and training with my boss because I have seniority and more experience and I'm wondering how that will work if we both have the same title.

I think this is much more than an ego thing. I have worked hard to get to where I am today and completely restructured/improved many of the processes in place today. I am also in charge of higher-level type work like designing materials, writing and reviewing while she does more assistant-type work (the types of things I hated doing when I was alone).

I'm really glad she's here because we do need an extra staff person, but I'm trying to figure out how the logistics would work and what I should/can ask for without stepping on anyone's toes. I feel like this should be something my boss thought of but it seems like she's just happy to have the help and hasn't thought about how it will affect us. I would love any recommendations on how to make this a smooth and easy transition for everyone involved.

It's not unreasonable to want some recognition that you're working at a much more senior level than your new coworker. People care about titles because they matter. It’s possible that your title should be adjusted to reflect the difference in your roles (which could even be as simple as adding “senior” in front of your current title).

But the bigger issue is working out what the division of labor will be between the two of you. Why not sit down with your coworker and propose a division of labor and systems for allocating work? Or, depending on how involved you sense your boss wants to be with this, it might make sense to run a proposal by your boss first. Either way, you've got experience and seniority and it makes sense for you to take the initiative and say "here are my thoughts on how this can work.”

4. Should I mention to interviewers that I had a baby during school?

I recently graduated with a master's degree and certificate from a good university. I earned a 4.0, and during my studies I completed an AmeriCorps internship and worked as a graduate teaching assistant.

I'm currently job searching, and wondered if it would be a bad idea to mention that I had my first baby in the middle of my last semester. Maybe this sounds silly, but I think it really shows that I am hard-working, organized, and motivated. I wouldn't put it in my resume or cover letter, but should I hide that fact during interviews?

You don't need to hide it, but don't make a point of bringing it up. If there's any hint that you're mentioning it because you think it will demonstrate work ethic, organization, or motivation, it's as likely to annoy people as it is to positively impress them — because it's generally not considered appropriate evidence of those things in an interview context, and some people will worry you don't realize that. There's also still plenty of discrimination against women with young children, from interviewers who annoyingly will become convinced (consciously or otherwise) that you'll want lots of time off, be less inclined to work late when needed, etc. etc. It's better not to intentionally inject something that risks triggering that bias, at least without sufficient likelihood of payoff in the other direction.

The interview lasted about an hour. My nerves got the better of me, so I’d say it went okay, but definitely not my best performance. At the end of the interview, Jane thanked me for coming in and let me know that the next round of interviews would take place a week from that day with her grand-boss (Sylvia), and that the final candidate would be asked to interview the following Monday with the CEO. She also said that the company was committed to letting candidates know the outcome either way and wanted to have a “transparent process where no one was left hanging,” so I’d be hearing back tomorrow — or at the very latest, the day after — to know where my candidacy stood.

Well, an entire week went by and I didn’t hear anything. The day she’d identified for interviews with Sylvia came and went with no word, as did the day of the interview with the CEO. So, I emailed Jane to check with the status of my application. She wrote back and said, “So great to hear from you! I’m so sorry we haven’t been in touch; Sylvia is taking longer than expected to review the candidate pool. I promise to keep you in the loop!” I assumed that the interview dates had been rescheduled, so I just waited to hear.

An entire month passed. Then, I heard from a friend who knew I had interviewed that a colleague of hers had gotten the job. Fine, but I was a little bothered that Jane had never gotten back to me. Then I got a call, which I couldn’t take since I was in a meeting. The voicemail: “Hi, this is Jane Smith! I just wanted to let you know that the position has been filled. The reason it took so long to get back to you is because we were keeping you on the back burner in case things didn’t work out with our other candidate. But, we really enjoyed meeting you and hope that you’ll apply again in the future!”

I was somewhat shocked, since as far as I know, this is not typical in the professional world. Certainly, I’ve gotten jobs and not gotten them, and have hired people and not hired them, but never has anyone actually told me I was the second-choice candidate, and I have never said that to a candidate I didn’t hire. A few hours later, I got an email: “Hi, it’s Jane here. I hope you got my voicemail. I just wanted to let you know that we have filled the position. Thank you again for applying– we loved meeting you and hoped that you will apply again with us in the future. I’ve copied Anne, our HR director, on this email. If you have any feedback about the process, please contact her.”

What do you think? Is it now normal to tell someone they’re the back-up candidate? Was this supposed to somehow make me feel better, or did it only serve to try and excuse the month of no communication? And what do you think about the HR director being copied on the email? Should I offer any feedback? On one hand, I think they could benefit from it, but on the other, I might want to work there again one day, and don’t want to hurt my future chances.

I don't find this terribly outrageous!

It's not insulting to be told that you were the second choice candidate. Second choice candidates are often excellent, and employers often happily hire them if the first choice doesn't work out. Being the second choice means they though you were good enough to hire — someone else just happened to be a stronger fit.

It's true that "we were keeping you on the back burner" isn't the most thoughtful language to use, even though that's an accurate description of what was going on. It sounds a little … inconsiderate of your time (and that you were waiting for an answer). It would have been better to say something like, "It came down to you and another candidate, and if she had turned down our offer, we would have been excited to offer the position to you. It took a little longer than I'd anticipated to work out those details, but we're really grateful for your interest, blah blah."

But really, that's just quibbling over the language, not the substance of the message. Substance-wise, I think it's fine for them to have told you what had been happening. And in some ways, it's even good — employers so often don't give candidates any transparency into their process, and it's generally a good thing when they do. The alternative would have been to send you a bland rejection with no information in it, and you'd have less insight into their process and decision than you do now.

You're right, of course, that they should have given some sort of update sooner, given what a big deal they made about not leaving you hanging. But hiring so frequently takes so much longer than people think it will, and employers' timelines so regularly fall apart completely, that I'd just take that part of it as par for the course, unfortunately.

Because of that, I wouldn't offer feedback on either of these things. The second-choice thing really is okay for them to share, and the month without updates is so typical that you risk alienating them. (Jane's choice to copy the HR director on the email and to suggest sending her feedback is a little unusual — and I almost wonder if she's annoyed with the process herself and hoping someone else will relay their own annoyances to HR — but there's no real benefit to you in taking that bait if so.)

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