It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My dad says continuing to work at home makes me look less dedicated
My office has been working remotely since March, but a new plan was recently introduced to optionally allow people back in office on a careful schedule. I informed my manager I wasn’t planning on returning to office immediately because I usually take mass transit, which is still a pretty high-risk activity. I also live with other people and wouldn’t want to get any of them sick. My manager told me that was totally fine. I felt the situation was resolved until it came up in conversation with my parents.
My dad more or less said, “If you don’t feel safe, don’t go, but you may not get promotions or other opportunities in the future because you weren’t in office and didn’t seem dedicated.” This feels like some “show gumption” advice that’s probably not correct, but it’s been nagging at me. Is my dad right that this is a career limiting decision on my part?
Does your dad … think you should risk your health and other people’s health for a promotion?
Your manager said it’s totally fine. Believe it’s totally fine. As long as you’re in a decent company and have a decent manager, your dad is wrong. But even if you work somewhere that would penalize you for this, you should still ignore him because we’re talking about people’s lives.
That said, it’s true for anyone who works from home that there can be a risk of “out of sight, out of mind,” so make sure you do all the things that are smart to do no matter why you’re working remotely — find ways to chat with people like you would in the office (like on Slack or I.M.), build relationships, attend virtual meetings even when they’re optional (and consider using video even if you don’t like it), make sure you have regular one-on-one’s with your manager, make sure your projects and achievements are visible to people beyond your immediate circle, etc.
But that’s just about staying visible when you’re remote, not about “not seeming dedicated.”
2. My boss wants me to hire someone for a ridiculously low salary
I am the assistant for a very sweet older man, who works in a field that requires graduate degrees. He wants to hire a new partner and has asked me to recruit from local grad schools via social media. The problem is the salary: only $20,000 a year is guaranteed from the firm, and anything beyond that is a certain percentage of the profit. This is par for the course in entrepreneurship, but very unusual in our field.
I feel that my boss is being unrealistic about our business’s appeal to newly-qualified potential employees. Additionally, I don’t think my boss would be a good partner, as he tends to be very close-minded (“my way is the right way always”). I want to suggest spending our extra money on minor improvements to the aesthetics of our office: It is ugly, and many basic elements of decor look neglected.
Should I suggest putting the hiring on hold in lieu of other investments? My boss and I have a great working relationship, and I believe I could convince him. I just don’t know if I’m overthinking the issues with him hiring. If I should forge ahead with recruiting a new partner, how on earth do I address the salary (and other drawbacks to this particular workplace)?
If your boss feels he needs a new partner, it’s hard to argue the money would be better spent on new decor; staffing is likely to feel a lot more important, especially if he’s been just fine with the decor up until now. But you can certainly make the case that $20,000 is unlikely to attract the right candidates, especially ones who will stick around.
That said, if that salary won’t attract the right candidates, he’ll presumably see that for himself when they don’t materialize. I’d just make sure that you state the salary (and details of the profit-sharing plan) up-front in the ad, so you’re not wasting the time of candidates who would self-select out on that basis. As for the other drawbacks to working there, if you’ll be involved in the hiring process, here’s some advice on how to be transparent with candidates about what to expect on the job. But you’ve also got to be conscious of how much of that is and isn’t within your purview, and how much you really have standing to do.
3. Can I ask to be reimbursed for trips to the office while we’re working from home?
My state went on lockdown in late March and our partners locked up the office and tasked everyone with working from home. The lockdown was lifted and the partners developed a plan for how to work from the office, if anyone wants to. Nearly everyone continues to work from home, though some staff stop in to pick up items needed to for off-site meetings, make copies, etc. One partner does work there full-time. I am the office manager and I go to the office once or twice a week to collect mail, print checks, get packages/deliveries, etc. Most of the time I am only there for an hour or so, but a few times I have been there for 3-4 hours dealing with whatever needed to be done on site. I have been doing this since late March and will continue to work from home indefinitely. I am free to decide when to go to the office and I am very mindful of the health risk. I wear a mask when I am there and I only go in as needed to perform essential tasks.
I asked the president if the company would reimburse me for mileage and parking for these trips, but he said no. He considers this the cost of my commute. Pre-COVID, I commuted to the office by bus, which was not reimbursed by my company. The cost of my monthly bus pass was more than the few dollars I now pay for parking and the equivalent mileage.
I feel like I am at extra risk by leaving my home more frequently than I would if I didn’t have to perform these tasks at the office, and that the company could cover these costs as a good will gesture. The four partners are lovely people and are not stingy about other overhead costs. We always reimburse staff for their work-related travel – though not their commuting costs. Also, we have a healthy financial outlook and have gained a number of projects over the last few months. We did not have layoffs and we might actually need to hire in the near future. I wouldn’t ask this if I felt we were in dire financial straits.
Is this is worth pushing back on? Or do I look like I am trying to cheat my employer by asking them to pay the costs of my commute when they do not do so for others?
Don’t push further. When you travel to your office, assuming you live locally, that is indeed the cost of your commute and not something an employer typically pays for. That’s true even if you work at home most of the time and only go in occasionally.
I get that you’re now commuting by car and not by bus, but that doesn’t really change this … and as you noted, it’s still less than you were paying for a monthly bus pass. If you were paying significantly more to get to work now than you paid previously, and if that was due to pandemic restrictions, I could maaayyyybe see asking if there was anything they could do to help, but even then, it’s a bit of a stretch and typically would be seen as the cost of your commute and not something an employer would reimburse.
4. Do I have a shot at a job with a company that I had a weird interaction with in the past?
Two years ago, I sent my resume to a company that did not have an ad out at the time, but I wanted to inquire about any future openings. Well, the manager of that company forwarded my resume to all of the similar companies in the area without even asking me first. Her reply to my email was something like, “We don’t have any openings, but I’ve sent your resume to other places I know are hiring.”
Needless to say, I was really upset. My phone was blowing up and I had suddenly applied to multiple jobs I had no interest in. Not to mention, she sent my resume to a company that my current boss partially owned, which put me in a very uncomfortable position.
I emailed her back and told her not to send my resume out to anyone else. I also said I was sure she was just trying to help but it was unprofessional to send my information without checking with me first. She apologized, and that was the end of it.
Now this company is hiring, and I’m really interested in working there. Do you think I’ve burned a bridge from our exchange, or do I still have a shot?
Wow — she really didn’t think that through. Forwarding your email around without checking with you? She could have put your job at real risk. (It’s also weird that she did this without talking with you first to see if you were someone she would even want to recommend.)
As for whether you have a shot if you apply there now, it depends on the wording of the email you sent two years ago. If you sounded angry (which frankly would have been justified), she’s more likely not to want to re-open contact. Even if you didn’t sound angry, she might be embarrassed about the episode or associate you with feeling uncomfortable and find it easier not to reengage. But if she’s a reasonable person, she might be happy for the chance to engage on better terms. Or she might not even be there anymore, for all we know!
Either way, I don’t think you have anything to lose by trying. Give it a shot and see what happens.
5. Company interviewed me but wants to talked to other candidates
A company I’m interviewing with has had the job posted since February. They interviewed me five weeks ago but today they told me that while they want to keep communication with me, they want to find a few others to interview before making a decision. They really liked me during the panel interview but afterwards, according to the recruiter, they were insistent on seeing others. The recruiter told them she has nobody else to interview, as she doesn’t want to show them subpar candidates. She really likes me and has been very candid. She told me a few weeks ago that they are interviewing an internal candidate but she doesn’t think they are nearly as strong as me.
What do you think is their motivation here, and what should I do?
It’s not uncommon for employers to want to interview multiple candidates for a job, especially if they weren’t blown away by the person they did interview. That’s good practice — companies make better hires when they consider multiple candidates. It’s possible they have internal rules that require them to consider X number of candidates, or they might just be more comfortable doing that, or they might just not be ready to say yes to you without comparing you to others. Or who knows, they might be leaning toward no on you but aren’t ready to make that official until they’ve evaluated others.
That said, if the recruiter is right that they don’t have other plausible applicants, the most likely scenario is that they’re just not sufficiently sold on you. You can ask her if they have reservations about your candidacy that you could try to address or if it would make sense to offer to come in for another interview — but beyond that, there isn’t much for you to do here other than wait for them to work their way through the process.
does working from home look less dedicated, boss wants me to offer a ridiculously low salary, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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