It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My team is meeting in-person despite mandatory telework requirement
I’m lucky in that I work for an organization that recognized the importance of telework early on in the pandemic. Nationally, almost everyone has been moved to mandatory telework, except for rare instances of “critical” work. My team is not critical. Our jobs can be done entirely remotely. We have the tools and technology that we need. My problem is that my team has started meeting in person. They are not going into the office, because that would violate the mandatory telework order. However, they are meeting at restaurants or at team members’ houses, which still violates the spirit of the policy. Each time, my manager has indicated that participation is voluntary, though I have been the only team member to decline.
Not surprisingly, they’ve said “masks are encouraged but not required,” and I’ve seen pictures where people did not have six feet of separation, nor were they wearing masks. We work in a safety-oriented group, which means that if our employees get sick after meeting in person, our professional credibility will be harmed. It also makes me question how safe my office will be whenever we do return to work.
My manager has shown questionable judgement in other areas as well, but is well-liked by her bosses. Her immediate manager is not only aware of the meetings that are occurring, but has attended them. He has expressed frustration at not being in the office, and hopes that we get to return quickly. My coworkers seem to enjoy attending these events, so I don’t have “safety in numbers” to be able to address the concern with my management.
What should I do? I am concerned for my own health, as I am high-risk (I have a disability recognized by the ADA), so I do not intend to participate in any of these events. But I’m being excluded from team activities and face-time with management, and I’m worried about my team’s professional reputation. And, quite frankly, I’m angry at how cavalierly they are treating a global pandemic and that they are so flagrantly violating our organization’s policies. There are avenues to go around my boss and my boss’ boss, but it will be obvious who reported them. I generally like my job and the flexibility it affords, but seeing this behavior from my management and coworkers has made me lose a lot of respect for them.
If I’m understanding correctly that your organization as a whole is handling the virus responsibly, even though your team (up through your boss’s boss) is not … yes, you should mention it to someone higher up. They’re operating in a way that’s out of sync with the values and guidelines laid out by your company, they’re putting people at risk, and they’re putting you in a situation where you’re worried about suffering professionally if you don’t risk your health in ways your company has said they don’t want you to.
About it being obvious that it was you who reported it: You can try to address that when you escalate the issue by saying something like, “I’m concerned about retaliation for going over their heads to flag this. Can you help me figure out how to prevent that?” (For example, they might be willing to find a way to stumble upon the info themselves.) That’s not foolproof and it still might get connected to you, but I’d argue it’s important enough to do anyway.
Another, possibly counterintuitive, method is to be transparent about it with your manager: “I wanted to let you know that I’m asking X about how to navigate these in-person meetings. My sense was that the company wanted people to avoid in-person contact, so I want to get some clarification about whether I understood that correctly.” Whether to do that depends on your boss, though.
2. Can school count toward years of work experience?
I’m finishing up my BS in accounting next month (yay!) but I’m terrified of the job market. Mainly I’m worried about my lack of experience. I’ve been working as a bookkeeper since February and before that I had an internship (about three months) at a car dealership, so I have a little experience but a lot of jobs ask for 2-5 years.
I saw an article that said that you can combine your school and experience to say that you were “immersed” in your field for that amount of years. So because I have an associates degree in accounting (2 years) plus a year and a half at my bachelors and work experience (1 year) I could say that I’ve been “immersed in the accounting world for 3 year.” It seems a little sketchy though, so I’d love to get your advice on it.
It’s bad advice. Jobs that ask for X years of work experience are talking about work experience, not school, so combining them is going to come across as if you either don’t understand how different work and school are or are being actively deceptive. And of course, as soon as they look at your resume they’ll see how much actual work experience you have, and then they’re going to be either confused or annoyed — and neither of those is a good reaction for your resume to produce.
3. My employee tells us way more than we need about his schedule
Our small office of six has a lot of fluidity and flexibility to our comings and goings. Our jobs sometimes require evening and weekend hours to attend industry events, many of us have to produce content outside of 9-5, and our main office is three time zones earlier, which means that many of us start our jobs before we brush our teeth in the morning.
As such, our company culture means that showing up 20 minutes late, leaving early, taking extended lunches and meetings are all par for the course. We know we can count on each other to get our work done, no matter when that might be. Overall, I think we do an excellent job of being accountable to each other with all this fluidity.
Except for one employee. He he never takes lunches or meetings, and he will send emails to let us know if he has to leave five minutes early (and is exceedingly sorry if he does). I’ve both brought it up seriously and jokingly, letting him know that it’s not necessary, and we trust him with how he spends his time. The feedback I’m getting from other employees is that this makes them feel uncomfortable and like they are being judged since he’s operating with a different set of rules. They’d rather he just convert to their system of independence. It doesn’t help that he’s the awkward guy in the office.
Is the majority of the office being overly sensitive? Or is there a way to tell this employee that we don’t need to account for every moment of every employee’s work day?
In theory everyone could just ignore this and write it off as this guy’s quirk, but there’s no reason not to just tell him directly to stop doing it (especially since otherwise whenever you hire someone new, it’s going to give them mixed messages about your culture … and it’s annoying to get a bunch of unnecessary emails about someone’s comings and goings anyway).
I know you’ve tried to address it already, but telling him it’s not necessary is different than telling him to stop doing it. It’s time to tell him directly to stop. Hinting or taking a softer approach is often fine as a first attempt when you don’t want to hit someone over the head with a message that doesn’t require that, but once it becomes clear the message didn’t take, you’ve got to get clearer. So: “Cecil, please do not send any further emails about your schedule unless you’re going to be out for a half day or longer. It’s causing confusion on the team about what I do and don’t want people to report.”
4. Announcing a partner’s gender transition at work
You’ve covered the question of gender transitions at work. Any advice for bringing up a partner’s transition? I work on a small team (four staff and my boss). Spouse works in a different industry.
I don’t talk much about my personal life at work, and I make it a point not to friend current coworkers on social media. We’re not a particularly social group, which suits me just fine. But I do mention my spouse every now and then, and I give everyone a card with family photos during the holidays. I don’t want to hide who my spouse is and who she’s becoming, but it feels odd to bring up out of the blue.
For what it’s worth, I’m not expecting to get a negative reaction on this, but I am bracing myself for intrusive questions, particularly from my boss.
One approach is to just be matter-of-fact about it the next time your partner comes up: “Oh, David goes by Jane now and uses she/her pronouns, so I’ll be referring to her that way from now on.”Or the slightly more specific: “David is transitioning and uses Jane and female pronouns now.” If you want, you can then just continue on with what whatever the conversation had been, which should signal to most people that you’re not opening up a discussion about it, just delivering an FYI.
Readers with personal experience with a partner’s transition, I’d welcome additional thoughts in the comments.
5. Should I mention it if I get laid off in the middle of a hiring process?
I’m currently a long-term contractor in higher ed, and my contract is being cut short by several months due to COVID budget-tightening issues. It has nothing to do with my performance; there’s just no money in the budget. I’ve known this for a few weeks, but in recent interviews with outside companies, when asked why I’m looking, I mention that COVID is having a very negative effect on higher ed, I’m assuming layoffs are coming, and that’s why I’m considering new opportunities, which is all true!
I’ve been interviewing with an outside organization for what looks to be a great job, and hopefully a request for references and an offer will be coming soon. But it’s looking like my contract will end before they speak with my references or extend an offer. Should I tell the hiring company that I’m no longer employed? Should I ask my references to not mention the fact that my contract ended? I feel like I should be honest here, but I could really use your guidance in figuring out when to mention it, and what kind of wording to use.
You don’t need to hide this! Layoffs are very normal right now (always, in fact, but especially right now); it’s not something that interviewers will be alarmed to hear. A large portion of people job hunting right now are looking because they’re in your same situation or a similar one.
But you also don’t need to go out of your way to announce it when it happens. You shouldn’t hide it; don’t speak of your job in the present tense once it ends, and don’t talk about future plans there in a deceptive way, etc. But if it comes up or if you find yourself needing to contort your language to avoid mentioning it, you should straightforwardly say, “So that you have the most up-to-date information, my contract did end up wrapping up earlier this month because of budget shortfalls during the pandemic.”
Don’t ask your references not to mention it; that’s putting them in an odd position where they’d potentially need to lie for you. If you think it might come up on reference calls, just give your interviewer a heads-up before reference checks begin.
team is meeting in-person despite company rules, counting school as work experience, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
from Ask a Manager https://ift.tt/3iPZ3H7
0 Comments