“giving extra time off to people who get married, how to end networking conversations, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

giving extra time off to people who get married, how to end networking conversations, and more
I feel guilty that I’m out of the office so much — and I’ve heard grumbling from my staff
my coworkers follow me into the bathroom with work questions
my coworker wants the company to pay for a week-long sex romp with his fired girlfriend

giving extra time off to people who get married, how to end networking conversations, and more

Posted: 21 May 2019 09:03 PM PDT

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

1. Giving extra time off to people who get married

My friend got married this weekend, and she mentioned to me that her office gives her an extra week of PTO to use in the year which she got married. (The idea behind it being that she’ll use it on her honeymoon, although I doubt that that’s enforced.)

I was thinking today about the fairness of this policy. I’m not married and have no prospects (lol). If I worked at her office, I would get a week less of PTO — just because I’m single.

Ultimately, this doesn’t affect me because I don’t work at her office, but, what do you think?

Yeah, it’s lovely that they want to support their employees, but a policy of giving people a full extra week of paid vacation upon marriage is destined to cause resentment among people who aren't married, or who were married before they were hired and would really like an extra week off to spend with their ill parent, or so forth. It's prioritizing marriage above all other life events in a way that isn't fair or equitable (although it reflects our culture's tendency to do the same). I don’t think anyone would begrudge, like, a congratulatory fruit basket, but an extra week of vacation is a huge thing to only be giving to some.

An alternative would be to offer an extra week of PTO for anyone with a major life event, which they could define loosely (and they could cap it at one-time usage, or only every X years, or only after X years of employment) — or even remove the "major event" requirement and just let people have it after three years of employment or so forth.

2. How do I politely end conversations at networking events?

Your recent post about conversation starters at industry events got me thinking: once you've got talking to someone at a networking event, and both people have got what they needed out of the conversation, how do you politely move on?

I'm on the board of the association for a charity that pays for me to attend various networking events. I want to get the most out of the event both for myself and my charity, meeting people who may want to collaborate, engaging industry leaders, and chatting to a good cross-section of the community so that they feel heard. But sometimes I get stuck — it's not that I don't want to talk to the person, I just need to circulate!

I know a few people who are networking ninjas. They are so good at extracting themselves from conversations without fuss that I don't even notice them moving around. While I'm happy to say "I must circulate" to people I know well, it seems rude to just cut off the flow of conversation with someone you've only just met (especially if this is their rare chance to give input into our charity). In that situation, I usually say something awkward like, "I must pop to the toilet" which … isn't that elegant…

I don't want anyone to think I don't value their conversation. Do you have any scripts I could use to move on without causing offense (or having to use the bathroom as a hideaway)?

"Well, it was great meeting you!" is an easy way to signal the conversation is coming to a close. You can dress it up by adding things like "I'm going to pass on your advice on X to our board," "I hope we see each other at next month's event," and so forth. But the basic idea is to start saying those wrapping-up phrases.

Another way to do it is to offer your card and ask if they have one, and use that as your closing ceremony. Do the card exchange and then go straight to, "Wonderful! Hopefully we'll stay in touch. It was great meeting you."

If it still feels too abrupt to leave after those phrases, it's fine to add, "I'm going to grab a fresh drink" or "I'm going to go check out that buffet!" or any other phrase that politely announces your intentions.

3. My coworker jumps on me about emails the minute I walk in the door

My shift starts two hours later than a colleague’s shift. It’s always been like this; I didn’t set this schedule. I work 30 hours a week, coming in later and leaving earlier than my colleague. Our jobs are mostly independent from one another, but occasionally, we’ll get an email thrown to both of us as a team.

Whenever this happens, if my colleague has read all her email before I’ve arrived, she’ll jump all over me just as I’m unlocking my cubicle to ask me what I think of the email and how we should respond, imagining I’ve spent all morning at home reading work email to “cue myself up” for the day before I’m on the clock. I can understand someone grabbing me on first sight if something’s truly urgent, but this woman hops on my case about things that aren’t even all that important.

What can I do without coming across like a snitty snoot myself to let her know that it’s not cool to jump all over me when I arrive with her ceaseless demands? It’s like she’s had two hours at work to “warm up” and reach cruising altitude while I’m just aiming myself at the runway for takeoff. She likes to throw around her seniority, too, along with another senior coworker, which is starting to rankle. I don’t want to be the ungrateful junior person, but geez, let a lady land her purse first before expecting her to take off to the work demands at full speed. Any tips?

Right now you're assuming she should figure this out on her own (and she should) and getting annoyed that she hasn't, but you haven't addressed it directly yet and that's the next step here.

The next few times it happens, say this: "I just walked in and haven't looked at my email yet. Give me some time to get settled and then I'll get back to you."

If she doesn't get the message from hearing that a few times, then move to this: "I've noticed you often have questions about emails from the morning when I'm walking in. My schedule starts at 11, and I'm generally not looking at emails before that. So give me some time when I first arrive to read over anything that's come in since the day before. I need to do that before I can discuss any of it, but then I'm always happy to talk with you."

And if it still happens after that, you can joke about it: "This is my 8 am! Give me a few minutes." Etc.

4. How can I get over being laid off?

I’m so sad. I’m being laid off from a temporary posting because I have a job to go back to while another person is being kept because they do not have another job. I’m so heartbroken as they found new work for this other person and I’m sure that when I leave, they will give my work (a higher position) to this new person since they have to keep finding work for them. I guess I should be happy that they don’t want to lay them off, but I feel I’m getting the short end of the stick just because I negotiated keeping my home position prior to taking this temporary position.

How can I keep my chin up and leave with good terms when I know that they’d rather lay me off than the new hire? I feel so demoralized and that it simply came down to sympathy for the other person. I am a rockstar employee while the other person is solid but is significantly junior to me. What does this tell me of this department? Normally I’d love to work here but I feel so down that they chose the junior employee over me. The only reason I’ve been given is that I have a job and otherwise she’d be laid off so I can’t even say it was for budget reasons.

It sucks to be laid off. And sometimes when something crappy happens, it's very easy to turn inward and focus on that crappy thing's impact on us. But in this case, I think you need to step back and look at this more broadly.

This is a company that, when they realized they needed to cut positions, seems to have taken responsibility for that and worked to minimize the damage as much as they could. That's a good thing.

And this isn't personal — they didn't pick you because they liked the other person better. They picked you because you were in a temporary role and had a permanent job to return to; that's a really big deal, and they acted with compassion in factoring that in. They were picking between (a) you returning to a jo`b that was already waiting for you and (b) your coworker having no employment and no income.

I'm not suggesting you should feel great about getting laid off, but as layoffs go, this one isn't a terrible set-up. They tried to do the right thing, and they saw that you had a softer landing spot.

In your shoes, I'd try to focus on being glad for that softer landing spot (and also remembering that they might have picked you even if you didn't have it — because they had to pick someone, and the more junior person was probably cheaper to keep — so it's good that you had that safety net).

5. My VP insists on leaving papers in my chair instead of my inbox

I'm the admin for a team of four in a large company. It's an okay job and I'm an okay admin. It's a step back for me but I need the money. We have a new VP who insists on leaving paperwork for me on my seat. This is a major pet peeve of mine. I have an inbox on my desk for a reason. I've told the new VP this several times but he refuses to use the box. He says he doesn't want his work to be missed. I put his papers in the box, on the bottom. However I'm tempted to start chucking them out. An I overreacting or is he being rude?

You are overreacting. Yes, ideally he'd comply with your request — but ultimately, as someone higher in the hierarchy than you, he can decide how he wants to do this. And who knows, maybe he works with other people who prefer urgent stuff go on their chair so they see it right away, and it's not reasonable to expect him to track the inbox vs. chair preferences of everyone he works with. Or maybe it's not that at all; maybe this is just his preference. It's just not a big deal either way.

And it's definitely not a big enough deal for you to expend energy or capital on it. Pick up the papers, put them in your inbox, done. (And frankly, rather than sticking them in the bottom of the box, you should look at them to see how they need to be prioritized. You've got to prioritize doing your job well over getting petty payback to him.)

I think you’re choosing to see this as some kind of power play. It’s not; it’s just a thing some people do. Let it go.

I am the director of a small, established nonprofit where I worked my way up the ranks. Since the organization is so small, I have day-to-day tasks along with more senior responsibilities such as board meetings, weekend and evening events, media relations, and external meetings with other nonprofits, civic associations, and partner organizations. As I grow, I am finding more demands on my time and skills. I have also earned more time off and take work-life balance seriously, since I’ve suffered from burn-out and stress-related health issues before.

The upshot here is that I am often on the run, headed out to meetings and events outside the office. Since I frequently work nights and weekends (usually I at least put in an appearance six days a week), I sometimes take an afternoon off or leave early to keep myself under the 40-50 hour limit established by my board of directors.

My difficulty is that I often feel guilty and worried when I leave the office, even though it’s part of my job. I supervise some people who used to be senior to me, and I also have a group of very young staffers who are working their first jobs. I don’t want them to feel like it’s okay for them to come and go whenever they want, or that it's okay for the boss to be a hypocrite. I also don’t want the senior staff to feel like I’m not around when I’m supposed to be. I have heard the occasional grumble from some of the senior staff that I’m “never there,” even though I’m always working, just not always in the office or always available immediately when people want me. (I think that's because the older staff see a lot more value in being physically at the office.) I know it’s important to come and go on time, but I’m simply not able to work the same shifts as the staff.

Should I try to explain what is going on, or would that just stir up drama? As long as my managers understand my irregular schedule, do I just accept that sometimes people are going to grumble about management? Or do I need to do something else?

For what it's worth, the organization is in really good shape, we’ve pulled in some new donors and grants and I’ve done what I can to promote people and get their pay raised. We do important work that can be emotionally difficult and I want people to be satisfied in their jobs.

Have you named this explicitly for people?

If not, that's where I'd start, saying something like this to the whole staff: "I want to share some information about my schedule. I'm juggling a lot of demands on my time, much of them outside the office and some of them in the evenings and on weekends — things like board meetings, external meetings, and fundraising events. That means I'm often on the run, heading to meetings and events outside the office. And because I frequently end up working nights and weekends, when I have a chance to leave early occasionally, I may do that too. What this means for you is that you won’t see me in the office as often as most other people here. But that doesn't mean I'm inaccessible — you should call if something is urgent, and of course we have weekly check-ins if you report to me directly. If you ever find that you're not able to reach me when you need me, I'd want you to raise that so we can find a solution to it going forward."

You could also say, “The board has asked me to limit myself to 40-50 hours a week to avoid burnout, which I think is wise counsel for all of us. For me, that's where grabbing the occasional afternoon comes in, if I can do it. For those of you with more traditional schedules, that means making sure that you're using all your vacation time and speaking up if you're ever having trouble staying on top of your work in a 40-50-hour week. The expectation here is not that you'll work yourself to the bone — there's a lot of work, but if it's unmanageable in a healthy number of hours, I want you to flag it so we can find solutions."

Of course, all this has to be true. You have to truly support people in sticking to 40-50 hours and genuinely tackle workload problems, or this won't ring true and will rightly cause more grumbling. And you have to make sure that people who need you can reach you in a reasonable amount of time or know what to do if they can't — and are empowered to make decisions and keep things moving in your absence. If any of those things aren't true, that would explain the grumbling.

But if the grumbling is more rooted in old-school ideas that you should just be physically present all the time — and a lack of understanding of what your job entails — the conversation above may help.

If it doesn't, you'd need to have one-on-one conversations with the grumblers to ask point-blank about their concerns. Who knows, maybe there's something legitimate there that you don't know about. And if there's not — if it's just grumbling — then addressing it directly will help.

As for the junior folks who you don't want to draw the wrong lessons from watching you, being clear will help there too. They should hear the same explanation as above, so they have context for why you're in and out. Beyond that, I'd wait to see if you see any actual evidence that it’s a problem. If you're not seeing that, assume they get it and it’s fine. But if you do see problems, then you (or their manager, if that's not you) should talk with them, explicitly name the expectations for their hours and presence in the office, and explain that different roles have different requirements around those things (and explain why theirs are whatever they are). Good employees will get that — even if it wasn't clear to them originally.

But all of this assumes that you're managing well! If people feel like they can't get responses or follow-through from you, or that work is being bottlenecked, or that they're nickeled and dimed over their time or made to feel guilty for taking time off, all of this will fall flat. So take a good look at that stuff at the same time.

My office is in a tense space right now. Several of our staff were fired last month due to a very big, very embarrassing, very avoidable HIPAA breach and one of the people fired was our assistant director’s girlfriend (yeah, he was openly dating a subordinate.). People took sides, management was split. HR is doing a lot of mediation. Just send in the clowns and it’s a circus.

Where do I even start documenting and covering my butt with this nuclear bomb I found on my desk this morning?

I don’t report to the assistant director, but he is well-liked, hence why nobody really looked twice at him dating a subordinate. While processing his receipts from a training in a big flashy fun city last week, there are multiple charges to his room for food for meals for two, liquor bills which aren’t allowed on company cards, and he upgraded the hotel to include a couple’s package and the hotel called and advised me of a cleaning charge because of some romantic “paraphernalia and stains” were left behind (oh barf).

All told, the bill came out to three grand, which is $1,800 more than the allowed budget for the trip. He also submitted a very wonky looking reimbursement request for a second plane ticket that he had to pay for out of pocket, his reasoning being I booked the flight wrong (it’s his girlfriend’s ticket). There are pictures of them all over social media on the plane and in the hotel room and doing touristy things all week. He definitely took his girlfriend, who happens to have been fired from our company, on an expensive and kinky-sounding vacation he thinks we’re going to pay for.

I have to report any staff misuse of the company cards to my boss immediately. My boss is very good friends with the associate director and can’t look past his shortcomings and managerial misconduct because of it. He’s going to blow it off and accounts receivable is going to want a full account for what was spent and why. I know I can’t be held accountable for him being disgusting but I’m just sick of the way this department is being run after the last few months of debauchery. This used to be a great place to work.

Good lord.

Here’s yet another reason why managers really shouldn't be friends with their employees, because when one of them has a paraphernalia-fueled sex romp on the company dime, people get nervous about reporting it.

Of course, this is a company that apparently let a manager openly date a subordinate, so I suppose a manager’s too-close-to-be-objective friendship isn’t surprising.

Anyway. If you weren't required to report this to your boss/the associate director's friend, I'd suggest just reporting it all to whoever manages your finances and letting them sort it out. But since you're required to talk to the boss/friend, just be very, very factual. For example: "Bob submitted receipts for $1,800 over the maximum limit approved for the trip. Here are his receipts. It looks like some are for things we’re not permitted to approve, like liquor, meals for two, a couple's package at the hotel, and a special cleaning charge because of damage to the room. He's also submitting for a second plane ticket and said it was because the first was wrong — but the first ticket was used and the second was for the same flight (or whatever is true here), so we can't reimburse the second. Based on these expenses and the photos he's posted on social media, it looks like he had his girlfriend join him, which I assume we're fine with as long as we’re not paying her expenses. I'm passing all this along to Finance to sort out and realized I'm supposed to give you a heads-up as well."

In fact, you might fill in Finance before you talk with your boss, so that the information is out there and he can't order you not to send it to them. (And send it to the highest-up person on that team; you want someone with real authority seeing it.) If your boss is upset that you've already sent it to them, you can express confusion — "They're the ones who handle reimbursements so I thought I'd need to send it all over to them like I normally would?"

If you get the sense that your boss is going to blow this off, you have the option of escalating it to someone with more authority than him (or possibly to HR, if they're decent and have either power of their own or power to get the ear of someone else). Whether or not to do that depends on how vindictive your boss is or isn't, as well as how fed up you are. But you can get some cover by just being matter-of-fact about your actions, meaning that you act as if of course you’re flagging it for others — you’re not acting out of malice or with an agenda, you’re just dutifully fulfilling your obligations as of course the company would expect you to.

Rapitful Shqip

Search This Blog