It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. The employee I just promoted to manager wants to step down
I promoted one of my employees to manage her department after I moved up to a divisional role about 10 weeks ago. (I’m still her direct supervisor.) This is her first management job and she has done an amazing job in her new role — implementing much-needed changes and efficiencies while gaining the respect of her entire team. This was verified in a recent anonymous 360 review where her direct reports had glowing things to say about her and generally made it clear that she was much more effective in that role than I had been. (And they’re right — she’s fantastic! She’s accomplished more for the department in 10 weeks than I did in the 10 months prior.)
She’s now come to me saying she thinks she’s not doing well in the position, that she believes the team doesn’t think she’s doing well, and that she wants to step down from her management position. I’ve asked her to give me a few days to collect my thoughts and look at options before we decide how to proceed, but I’m at a loss on how to help her. I’ve given her regular feedback since she was promoted and passed on the kudos from other departments, from my boss, and from her employees. We’ve worked together to address any tricky situations that have come up and on employee issues so she had an experienced manager backing her up for tough conversations.
My impression from talking with her is that she’s letting “imposter syndrome” get to her and is about to step down from a role that she is really, truly phenomenal at. I’m at a loss about how to help her through this, gain self confidence, and believe that everyone around her isn’t lying about how well she’s doing. I firmly believe she has a bright future ahead of her if she can get past this, but how can I help her do that?
Try to find out why she thinks she’s not doing well, and why she thinks her team thinks that. I’m assuming you’ve shared your own feedback and the 360 feedback with her, so what else is giving her that impression? Is she clear on what measures you and she will use to assess her performance? (It sounds like she might not be! She needs to be.) Is she getting enough coaching and support from you or another experienced manager? (Ask her both those questions directly.)
Being a new manager is really hard if you’re at all conscientious, so this may just be a difficult adjustment period — she’s going from (probably) doing well and feeling comfortable as an individual contributor to suddenly having to learn an entirely new skill set (and managing is a different skill set than almost anything else, and it’s not something she’s going to get good at in a matter of weeks or even months). It’s hard and it’s stressful, and you have people watching and judging you while you’re learning and messing up. It kind of sucks in the beginning, if you’re really trying to do it well.
It’s also possible she’s finding that she just doesn’t like the work. A lot of people don’t understand what managing will really be like until they’re doing it, and it’s not for everyone (although it’s also pretty early for her to know that).
If nothing else, you could tell her this is a huge adjustment for every new manager, that it’s normal to have doubts, and ask her to give it six months (or, better, a year) before she makes any decisions.
2. My coworker washes communal mugs with plain water, no soap
I recently walked into the break room in my office and saw a coworker hand washing his coffee mug (one of the communal ones the whole office shares). And by washing, I mean emptying it in the sink and rinsing it with water. No dish soap, no scrubbing. He then placed it in the dish rack to dry. I asked him if he hand washed all his dishes and he said he did because dishwashers waste water and he didn’t want to contribute to that.
When he left, I put the mug into the dishwasher (which washes and sanitizes all the dishes). However, I am still feeling icked out over this. I generally use my own mug and water bottle but his improper washing could totally spread germs around! I don’t want to think how many times someone drank out of a improperly washed cup that was previously touched by some sick person’s mouth. Should I address this with him (or the office as a whole) or am I being nitpicky?
Eeeww. You’re not being nitpicky. If he wants to be gross with his own personal mug that no one else uses, he can have it at, but when he’s using communal mugs that other people share, he needs to put either wash it properly or put it in the damn dishwasher.
You could go back to him and say, “I should have spoken up at the time but I was so taken aback that I didn’t. But with the communal mugs that other people share, you really need to put them in the dishwasher when you’re done — or at least scrub them with soap and hot water. Just rinsing with plain water won’t get them clean, and will spread germs around the office. Can you do one or the other from now on?”
It’s a service to your office to say this, but who knows if he’ll listen. Now that you’ve seen this, I’d stop using any communal mugs that you don’t see come straight out of the just-run dishwasher. Ick.
3. My employee faked an email
My employee said she cc’d the payroll department on an email about another employee, but payroll didn’t see it in their inbox. My employee forwarded the email in question to payroll again, but apparently typed in payroll@mycompany.com when forwarding the email in the cc section of the original email before forwarding, so it looked like the original email was sent to payroll.
When we couldn’t figure out how this happened, my employee even sent the emails to our IT dept, asking them, “how could this happen?” We know it was typed in afterward because instead of appearing as “Payroll ‘payroll@mycompany.com’” it just appeared as “payroll@mycompany.com.”
That doesn’t sound conclusive to me, but your IT department should be able to look at the original email (not the forwarded message) and tell you for sure if your payroll department was cc’d on it. If they weren’t and your employee falsified the forwarded message to make it look that way, that’s a really serious issue — that goes to her integrity and her willingness to lie and create fake documents to cover her own ass, and it means you won’t be able to take her word for anything in the future. People make mistakes, after all, and because she’s human she’s going to make more of them. You need to know that she’s not going to lie and try to cover it up when that happens.
If she’s been a stellar and trustworthy employee up until now and you think this was a single out-of-character moment of bad judgment … well, it’s still not good. But you could have a very serious conversation with her where you say, “This is an incredibly serious thing, you have violated my trust, and it’s forced me to consider whether I can keep you on or not. I need to know that you’re committed to operating with full transparency and integrity from this point forward.” And you’d need to watch her closely after that because these things often aren’t one-offs.
But if you’d already had concerns about her or if there have been have been any other issues around her trustworthiness or reliability, this is serious enough that I’d part ways over it. You can’t have someone on your team who’s shown you can’t trust them.
4. Relocating as a remote employee
I am currently a remote employee. I became one because my husband was promoted and with that came a cross-country move. I’ve been remote since early this year and have not had any complaints from management about my communication or performance.
My husband has since taken a new position with a new company, which will move us cross country yet again. We will be moving back to the same state my employer is in, but we will be about two and half hours away. I don’t anticipate my move changing anything in terms of my work (aside from the fact that it will be easier for me to go into the office from time to time).
I am not sure exactly how to address this move with my employer. When I asked for remote privileges, I sat down with my boss and the company president (my boss’s boss) at the same time. Do I bring this move up first with my boss, and let him decide if it needs to move up the chain? Should I send both of them an email and let them know what’s going on? Is this more of a phone call thing (we rarely communicate by phone — it’s either Skype or email)? Or should I, the next time I’m in the new city, plan on going into the office and speaking with them face to face?
This shouldn’t be a big deal since it won’t change anything about your work for them. It’s more of an FYI. You should be able to just send your boss an email saying, “I wanted to let you know that Bob took a job in Dallas and so we’re moving back to Texas next month. I’ll be about two and a half hours away so I’ll need to remain remote, but it’ll at least be a bit easier for me to come into the office from time to time if we need that. I don’t anticipate it changing anything else for me work-wise, but let me know if there’s anything we should discuss.”
5. I missed an application deadline by one minute
Okay, I recognize how irresponsible this is! But I was trying to turn in a summer internship application at 11:58 pm (due at 11:59) and my computer glitched and I didn’t make it on time. They weren’t accepting applications (it said “the registration for this job has closed”).
I have a contact at the company who I wrote a day before this to say hi and let him know I was applying. Should I let him know I didn’t send in my application? Should I find someone else to send my materials to? Should I send him my resume and cover letter? Is there any recourse, considering that this is a very competitive position?
Email your contact right away. Explain that you were in the process of applying, it was close to the deadline, your computer glitched, and by the time you got it back up, the deadline has passed and you couldn’t submit it. Attach your application materials and say, “I’m attaching my materials here in case it’s possible to still be considered, but I of course understand if that’s not possible.”
If your contact knows you and thinks you’re a strong candidate, she may be able to get your application included in the ones they’re considering. But even if it not, it’s useful for her to know what happened since the last she heard, you were going to apply.
And yeah, as a general rule, don’t leave this kind of thing until the last minute because things can go wrong — you can lose internet access, be trapped in the bathroom with projectile vomiting, discover their site is down, or have other types of emergencies/obstacles crop up if you don’t leave yourself any buffer. (In fact, it’s generally smart to apply as soon as you can because sometimes jobs end up closing even sooner than the deadlines they list.)
new manager wants to step down, coworker washes dishes without soap, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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