Ask a Manager

AUGUST 5, 2020

A reader writes: I am a 30something newlywed woman and have been at my current job for just over a year and a half. Prior to accepting my job, my health took a devastating blow and I learned that I had a very rare genetic disorder and had two baseball size tumors in my digestive tract. I underwent two massive surgeries to remove those tumors (both having pre-cancerous cells present) and ended up losing a foot of my colon and my entire stomach.

Meeting 98

Meeting Course ATS Wellness 98

Ask a Manager

AUGUST 4, 2020

A reader writes: I have a question about gift-giving at work. I agree with the idea overall that gifts should flow downward. That said, I’m the type of person that sometimes shows appreciation by giving someone something small.

ATS 102

ATS Data Report Wellness 102

Ask a Manager

JULY 13, 2020

A reader writes: I am part of the HR department at my workplace, and we hired “Andre” a few months ago as a part of our student group. He’s only 18, but he’s been a hard worker and always takes initiative around the office.

Analysis 136

Analysis Compliance Sexual Harassment Groups 136

Ask a Manager

JULY 22, 2020

A reader writes: I could use some help trying to figure out how to best navigate the absolutely bonkers amount of meetings that my boss is holding. I work in public education and obviously we have been very impacted by Covid. I work on a small leadership team for a very large department.

Meeting 121

Meeting Screening Video Groups 121

Speaker: Trish Uhl, Founder of Owl's Ledge LLC and the Talent & Learning Analytics Leadership Forum

Digital is disrupting every part of an organization's value chain at a record pace, creating a critical need to transform operations and employees' ways of working. Formal training alone can't keep up; it's often too slow, too generic, inconvenient, inefficient, unduly expensive and lacks or lags methods for measuring business-related effectiveness. Trish Uhl show you how to start leveraging Learning Engineering, a multidisciplinary approach that combines modern technology, data analytics, decision science, learning sciences and change management with human-centered engineering design methodologies to ultimately deliver targeted learning outcomes and business results that keep pace with the business and merge learning into the flow of work and lead Digital Adoption.

Change Management

Ask a Manager

JULY 8, 2020

Since lots of people are job-searching right now, here’s a round-up of some of the most key job-searching advice on this site. Resumes and Cover Letters. The first thing to know is, if you’re not getting interviews, you probably need to fix your resume and cover letter.

Examples 132

Examples How To Wellness ATS 132

Ask a Manager

AUGUST 4, 2020

A reader writes: My question relates to interview attire and accessories. I am an attorney with just under 15 years of experience. Many of those years have been spent in self employment, which I fear already impedes/impacts my job search.

Course 90

Course Industry Productivity ATS 90

Ask a Manager

JUNE 25, 2020

A lot of workplaces have a lot of reasons to unionize right now , and organizing could be your only option if your employer is behaving badly and refusing to engage in reasonable dialogue with you and your coworkers.

Groups 134

Groups How To Company ATS 134

Ask a Manager

JULY 21, 2020

A reader writes: I work for a company that produces highly specialized products to very exacting standards. Our work is extremely high-stakes and errors could be extraordinarily costly for our clients in terms of money and even human lives.

Coaching 114

Coaching Company Productivity Report 114

Ask a Manager

JUNE 17, 2020

A reader writes: I’m hoping you can give me a script to help me deal with a frequent and frustrating situation I am in with my manager. Frequently, my manager will assign me a project and not give me very much instruction about how to do it.

Examples 137

Examples ATS How To 137

Speaker: Peter Taylor, Speaker & Author of The Lazy Project Manager

Social Collaborative Management aims at delivering, at the enterprise level, a common goal for the business while harnessing the performance advantages of a collaborative community. This is a vital paradigm shift that many organisations are trying to understand right now - balancing traditional work and centralised leadership against the value of decentralised teams and trust. But the principles of harnessing collective power, collaboration, and community build an underlying ‘constant change’ capability that is critical in today’s new work environment.

ATS

Ask a Manager

JULY 23, 2020

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I’m considering starting to use “they” pronouns at work.

Guidelines 108

Guidelines ATS Wellness How To 108

Ask a Manager

AUGUST 3, 2020

A reader writes: I’ve been away from office life for a while, so I’m not sure if this is a problem of me not understanding the hierarchy or what.

Exercises 89

Exercises Strategy ATS How To 89

Ask a Manager

JUNE 11, 2020

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…. Can I wear a collar now that we’re on video? In my personal life, I sometimes wear a collar as part of my fun relationship with my partner. It is a narrow leather band with a small metal ring on it, kind of like this.

Video 136

Video Certification Recruitment Course 136

Ask a Manager

JULY 21, 2020

A reader writes: One of my employees has been vocal about the coronavirus being a hoax. I had to have a talk with him during our last few days in the office at the end of March because he was openly criticizing and mocking coworkers for “being afraid of the flu” and practicing social distancing. While the rest of us isolated and worked at home, he went on two different vacations out of the state and did not isolate upon returning as required.

Policies 109

Policies Guidelines Report Company 109

Advertisement

In Paycor’s newest report, our Chief Executive and Group Leaders consider how your clients will recruit, manage their workforce, optimize benefits, and foster employee experience in the new normal of 2020 and beyond. For actionable insights and tips download and share our guide with your clients!

Groups

Ask a Manager

AUGUST 2, 2020

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…. Are laws encouraging people to come to work with COVID symptoms? My sister works in a nursing home that had been COVID free for months.

Time and Attendance 91

Time and Attendance Guidelines Video Report 91

Ask a Manager

AUGUST 4, 2020

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…. How to explain my late professional start. I’m what I think of as a professional late bloomer.

Staffing 83

Staffing Meeting Compliance Coaching 83

Ask a Manager

AUGUST 3, 2020

A reader writes: I work at a dysfunctional workplace. I will call us a media development company. It’s a high-stakes time in our work and tempers are very short. My boss, Ron, hired his girlfriend, Zelda. By “hired,” I mean that she works for free in exchange for him supporting her with food, rent, and illegal occupancy in our country of residence. Ron does not speak English with confidence and uses Zelda as his translator.

Productivity 85

Productivity ATS Wellness Company 85

Ask a Manager

JUNE 30, 2020

A reader writes: My dad works in a unionized position in a public care facility where he and his colleagues work directly with the residents. His workplace is straight-up toxic and delivers non-stop drama.

Video 119

Video Staffing Examples How To 119

Speaker: Donald Fan, Senior Director of the Global Office of Culture, Diversity & Inclusion at Walmart Inc.

In the digital era, rife with uncertainty and ambiguity, innovation plays an essential role in sustaining organic growth and outperforming the global competition. Research proves time and again, there exists a robust bond between innovation and diversity & inclusion (D&I); our challenge is to help our leaders understand how to plant the seeds of innovation in the fertile D&I garden in order to drive a strategic and competitive advantage from the office and in the digital landscape.

How To

Ask a Manager

JULY 29, 2020

A reader writes: My new boss is an elder in his church which has very old-fashioned beliefs about women. They believe that the role of women is to obey their husbands unquestioningly and more or less only speak when spoken to, at least when there is a man present.

Discrimination 93

Discrimination Meeting Competencies Report 93

Ask a Manager

JUNE 21, 2020

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…. As HR, should I stay out of private Slack channels? I’m the head of HR for my small(ish) international company. I’m a mixed-race woman and a mom.

Retirement 123

Retirement Recruitment Company Meeting 123

Ask a Manager

APRIL 29, 2020

A reader writes: I’m a small business owner who had about 45 employees before the COVID-19 shutdown hit us hard. We laid off or furloughed the entire staff, and we’ve now been approved for and received a PPP loan.

Payroll 142

Payroll Course Training Meeting 142

Ask a Manager

JULY 22, 2020

A reader writes: Recently, my boss started attending personal therapy (she shared this information with me unprovoked) and shortly after starting her sessions she discovered Brene Brown.

Survey 100

Survey Discrimination Groups Exercises 100

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Every sales forecasting model has a different strength and predictability method. It’s recommended to test out which one is best for your team. This way, you’ll be able to further enhance – and optimize – your newly-developed pipeline. Your future sales forecast? Sunny skies (and success) are just ahead!

Ask a Manager

JULY 28, 2020

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…. Is it OK to ask a coworker to swap pants with me? During college I enrolled in a program that we call Junior Enterprise, where the students have to, on their own, maintain a company.

Retirement 93

Retirement Course ATS Company 93

Ask a Manager

JULY 20, 2020

A reader writes: I oversee a close-knit team, and most people follow each other on social media.

How To 101

How To ATS Company 101

Ask a Manager

JUNE 1, 2020

It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, when I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Remember the letter-writer whose new employee kept tagging the company and coworkers in negative social media posts even after they told her to stop ?

Screening 128

Screening Video Company Wellness 128

Ask a Manager

JULY 1, 2020

A reader writes: I’ve worked for four years in a research laboratory and my supervisor is an associate professor. Her husband is a professor and a director of the research group (and that’s how she easily got her position).

Meeting 114

Meeting Examples System Report 114

Speaker: David Secunda, CEO, WorkBright

Companies are looking to adjust their new hire onboarding to accommodate unique ‘social distancing’ challenges like securely collecting personally identifiable information and understanding new compliance regulations like Form I-9 verification. Join Workbright on Thursday, August 27th, to get a first-hand look at how a 100% remote onboarding process works using their system. They'll cover a few of the new COVID-19 related legislation changes and how they can be easily facilitated with their platform.

Onboarding

Ask a Manager

JUNE 29, 2020

A reader writes: I recently interviewed at an organization that I would consider working for, but I had some big concerns about their Covid precautions. When I arrived for my interview, no one in the office was wearing a mask except me.

Guidelines 114

Guidelines Course Training Report 114

Ask a Manager

JULY 23, 2020

A reader writes: I work for a mid-sized organization that serves children of all ages, most of whom have special needs.

Report 97

Report Course Examples Resources 97

Ask a Manager

JULY 9, 2020

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes: I work from home full time (including pre-coronavirus) and am typically very busy and focused all day while I’m working.

Workday 108

Workday Course Meeting ATS 108

Ask a Manager

JULY 27, 2020

A reader writes: Growing up as a child, I constantly struggled to focus. In school I understood the work, but because I lacked focus and could not hold my attention in the classroom.

Industry 92

Industry Course Recruitment Meeting 92

Advertisement

COVID-19 has created a new set of risks that require a new way of working. Download Gallagher’s latest COVID-19 report for insights into encouraging resiliency in your people, building confidence in your organization, and preparing for the future of work.

Report

Ask a Manager

JULY 6, 2020

A reader writes: I work for a very large company and am working from home. When I spoke to my manager on the phone recently, she hinted about whether I was watching TV while working.

ATS 109

ATS Course Productivity Company 109

Ask a Manager

JULY 31, 2020

It’s your Friday good news, with more accounts of success even in this weird time. I just wanted to share a little good news and thank you for your blog. I’ve been reading Ask A Manager religiously since I was in college and I’m now almost 10 years into my career.

Comparison 86

Comparison Screening Compensation Recruitment 86

Ask a Manager

JULY 7, 2020

A reader writes: I am in HR and one of my employees, “Brenda,” is a sweet, kind, sensitive, empathetic soul – she wears her heart on her sleeve. To know Brenda is to love her, and she is adored by everyone in the organization. A self-described empath, she cries easily and is a feeler’s feeler.

ATS 108

ATS Wellness Meeting How To 108

Ask a Manager

APRIL 6, 2020

A reader writes: What are reasonable expectations for managers whose employees are now working from home? For myself, I can adhere to my normal schedule while homebound, but I have a great employee who, having gone above and beyond in normal times, pleads child care issues now that she is home.

Workday 143

Workday Productivity Course Meeting 143

Advertisement

Adopting an Employee Voice model empowers managers and teams to keep driving engagement and action. As teams continue this collaborative dialogue, they build both the muscle memory and the motivation to continue forward together. This exponentially hones their collective intelligence and expertise

How To