My manager has a habit of assigning new tasks near EOD (literally like a few minutes before) and expecting them to be completed on the same day. These are not urgent business-critical issues or emergencies. In most cases, the work could realistically be completed by the end of the week without any impact. Unfortunately I can’t disclose too much because I know they lurk on reddit but I do know the timeline is unrealistic because other teams in our dept are given much more leeway for similar tasks by other managers. What makes this difficult is that there seems to be an expectation that employees will stay late to accommodate these last-minute requests. If I don’t stay back to ensure completion, I’m often lectured about it afterwards. I’ve also heard of other team members being threatened with PIP for not meeting these kinds of deadlines, even when the work was assigned with very little notice. This isn’t a one-off occurrence. It’s been a consistent pattern for a long time. Multiple team members have already raised feedback directly to the manager and even to their skip-level manager, but the behaviour hasn’t changed. What should I do? I like this job but working with this manager is driving me insane.

Is there a good resource for how to have those difficult conversations? is there any scientific consensus on how best to give someone negative/constructive criticism? I have an employee whose laziness is actively damaging other employees experiences at work. regularly not doing her job and therefore making others pick up her slack. She is incredibly sweet and most people do like her, but she is now getting more complaints from others on her performance. I'm just curious on how others find best to give feedback that isnt positive.

I’m a manager at a growing company and recently absorbed a significant amount of responsibility after a senior leader left. My role now includes more ownership over team performance, hiring, escalations, cross-functional coordination, and strategic work. I’m already known internally as someone who wants to grow into a higher-level role, so I’m trying to be thoughtful about how I raise this. The issue: I currently have a direct report whose base + bonus is higher than my total cash compensation, and another direct report will be in the same position soon. We’re also hiring a lead-level IC role with no people management responsibilities, and the proposed base may be higher than mine. I understand specialized ICs can sometimes out-earn managers, and I don’t want to come across as objecting to anyone else’s pay. But given the expanded scope of my role, this feels like a broader compensation calibration issue. For managers who have navigated this: how would you raise it with senior leadership?

Although I am new to management I’m not new to leadership/ high visibility roles. I pride myself on being articulate, direct and quick on my feet. But WHY Am I struggling to deliver difficult feedback and tell someone they aren’t meeting expectations (for reference the associate I’m referring to debates most of what I say) I find myself a bit timid and stumbling a bit on words. I think part of it is I’m trying to be firm- but not too firm. So I’m stuck my head. Does anyone have guidance? I’m trying to give myself grace- that this is a new skill that I need to practice. Today I had the difficult conversation so giving myself credit there. Hoping I can master these conversations going forward with more clarity and confidence. Any guidance/ tips are appreciated!

I have worked in Staffing for the past 10 years. I am currently a Selling Branch Manager in north GA. I have been in this role for 6 years. I recently found out my company is bringing in managers close to my base salary that have zero experience in sales or really management. They actually offered a salary to my staffing manager close to mine, I make $71k and they were going to offer her $65k-$70k. We are a midsize company. I have led 2 different branches and was the #1 sales rep last year and have consistently been in the top. I came from a small office in west GA when I started here in 2020 so I think I was taken advantage of with my starting salary. I am having a conversation with my boss tomorrow about my pay. What should I negotiate? I have considered changing roles and have interviewed a few places. I do make commission as well. I have a ridiculous noncompete that makes changing jobs difficult.

I start Monday. I’m listening to extreme ownership. I earned the position. So it’s up to me to lose it but I want to be the manager I’ve never had.

I know the answer to this is painfully obvious, but I thought I would ask anyway. I’ve been at my job for nine months now. I initially took the job because I really liked the CFO, but sadly he left after only six months and we now have a new CFO. I was concerned at first, but me and him actually grew really close as well. He is the complete opposite to the old CFO; hands-off and very rigid in his thinking, but we both have a soft spot for each other and he’s given me a lot more senior work which has been great for my progression. Anyway, he recently appointed a head of finance who initially came in very over bearing but I fought hard to keep my autonomy and it seems things are calming down now. However, there has been a lot of disruption and drama due to this, to the point my new CFO has lost his trust in me. He wanted to give me more direct reports initially, but he’s since changed his mind after seeing how “difficult” I am with the new head of finance. Because of all this difficulty I started looking for a new job and in 1-2 weeks I’ve secured a job offer for £10k more money (over 10% pay jump) and better job title. So no brainer right? Take this job! But… I am heavily emotionally invested in this job. I brought in a direct report who I feel I will be abandoning if I left, and I love what I do. I’ve made a lot of connections here and have made a real impact (even if it’s only me who thinks it lol). I know my CFO doesn’t want me to leave and we do have a good relationship in a lot of ways. I also feel my head of finance isn’t that great, but that will come out in due course - for now I quite like her! Now the main concern I have is that I’ve only been at this job for 9 months and I was only at my previous job for 3 months so if I hate my new job, I would be stuck there because my CV will start to look awful. I really don’t want to quit, but when I told my CFO about the job offer he told me that I’m draining and that if my attitude doesn’t improve he will be taking formal action. He said no pay rise is allowed as pay reviews have just been, but we can talk about a promotion. He told me he’s never praised anyone more and tried to tell me how much he appreciates me but he said all the wrong things. Basically, he is simultaneously trying to keep me but also be an arsehole. Anyway, what do you think? Is there any chance I could choose to stay without looking like a fool?

I’m a relatively new. I see everywhere to document everything but this is a concept I do not understand. What do I document? Where and what do I do with this information? I tried documenting in an electronic file, can’t keep it up. Things are documented inconsistently. What are your best practices and how do you document small behaviors that do not require escalation but do show a trend.

I’m looking for advice on improving employee morale and engagement within the constraints of what I can realistically influence. For context, our company has about 60 employees and has been around for nearly 20 years. It started as a small startup with very little structure and has only really begun professionalizing over the last five years. We’ve added an HR department, hired a CEO, improved communication between leadership and staff, expanded benefits, and generally moved toward a more structured organization. The challenge is that roughly a quarter of our workforce has been here since the company’s founding. Many were promoted into leadership roles based on tenure rather than qualifications, creating ongoing tension with their teams. Ownership has been extremely reluctant to address poor performance or conduct among some of these long-tenured employees, even when concerns have appeared in employee surveys for years. As a result, we now have a culture split: newer employees are generally excited about growth, structure, and opportunities, while some long-term employees openly resist change and operate as though expectations don’t apply to them. To help improve morale, our CEO created a committee of employees and leaders to plan three paid, on-the-clock engagement events each month. We have a budget of $500/month ($6,000 annually). Based on participation and feedback, we’ve been rotating between craft activities, games/outdoor activities, and food-centered events. Recent examples include: Mosaic coaster making, Mini canvas painting, A bracket-style Uno tournament , and A bagel and parfait breakfast bar. Participation is typically around 50% for games and crafts, while food events attract nearly everyone. However, most employees grab food and return to their desks rather than staying to socialize or take a break. We’ve also noticed that the employees who love crafts often dislike games, and vice versa, so we try to provide a variety of options throughout the month rather than expecting every event to appeal to everyone. The bigger issue is that a small but vocal group—many of whom are long-tenured employees and some of whom are managers—consistently criticize every event. They call the concept pointless, complain about the activities, and dismiss the effort, despite rarely offering alternative ideas. Even when 40 out of 60 employees attend and genuinely enjoy themselves, the negativity from the nonparticipants tends to overshadow the success and dampen enthusiasm afterward. To be clear, I understand these events cannot solve the deeper cultural and leadership issues within the organization. Those issues are real, and many are outside my control. However, this is the initiative I’ve been given ownership of, and I want to maximize its positive impact. I genuinely believe that giving employees opportunities to decompress, connect across departments, and better understand one another’s work can improve collaboration and morale over time. My questions are: 1.Given a budget of $500 per month, how could we make these events more valuable, engaging, and worthwhile for employees? 2.Are there alternative morale-building initiatives we could implement within the same budget that might have a greater impact? 3.How do you keep a small group of highly negative employees from undermining engagement efforts and discouraging those who do participate? At this point, it’s becoming discouraging for our planning team to invest significant time and energy into these events only to have the same group of people dismiss them regardless of the outcome. I know that’s ultimately a larger culture issue, but I’m looking for ideas that are within my sphere of influence and budget. Sorry that’s a lot to read but any advice is SERIOUSLY appreciated. Edit: to clarify for others- the events are NOT mandatory to attend for staff. It’s only required that me and my team plan,attend, and host them. We are the ones being required to be there and are also the only ones that get reprimanded if engagement with them is low. It’s a KPI for my team. Leaders are dead set on these events happening. It’s not my choice. I’m just the staff member assigned to this, and I’m trying to make the most of it, and or trying to build a solid pitch for an alternative use of the funds. And nearly 30 of our employees specifically requested the crafting events… directly. So like I’m just including that because staff directly came to us, often, and asked for more activities like that. Same with the board games. 😭

I joined this project about 2 weeks ago and I'm drowning a bit. There's a soft launch in ~4 weeks and a big one in 9 weeks. I want a gut check on whether I'm handling the team side right. The situation: **Infra isn't ours yet.** We're mid-migration to a new cloud provider and waiting on a nonprofit grant to approve the account, so we can't have any deployments. Worst part is they had 4 weeks before me joining to sort this out but didn't. Same story with our project management tooling — waiting on another nonprofit grant before I can setup a proper task board and backlog, so now I'm stuck working with an inferior platform that reduces clarity. **The backlog is a mess.** ~70 tickets, maybe 40 of them unclear or unscoped. I'm still learning how the product actually works while grooming with two non-technical client stakeholders who can't really make informed calls, so I end up handing them my not that well informed decisions to rubber-stamp. **The dev team has no visible initiative.** I have 3 devs. The tech lead pours all his time into infra and obscure tech-debt refactors that don't even have proper tickets — he's speedrunning toward burnout and seems to be a total control freak. The second full-time dev quietly ships fixes with almost no communication. The third dev is part-time and seems to be doing basically nothing, just a task or two for visibility while he focuses on his fulltime position somewhere else. During my second week I told them to start posting daily updates in the chat, and this week we started daily standup meetings. My goal is to agree on priorities, do a workshop, get some estimates, communicate the proposed actuon plan to the client, and start delivering. But when we discuss features, devs argue for ideal refactors and perfect solutions instead of what gets us to launch. I see perfectionism but no initiative, no ownership, no technical investigations or proper scoping — just devs pushing back without regard for the client's deadlines. **No estimates, no roadmap.** Two weeks in, it's effectively me plus the team, and we still don't have estimates or a roadmap. Another senior tech lead was assigned to this project from day one (around 5 weeks ago) and was supposed to provide the technical evaluation and set the roadmap and action plan - but so far all he's done is set up some intro meetings and send a few emails, and frankly enabled curent lead dev's bad decisions (which is why we still have no infra and no proper tooling) around 4-5 weeks total into the project. Sure, we'll save the nonprofit client some money this way, but we're working at 40% capacity at best due to these constraints, so we've already burned through more money than we'll ever save them long-term, and continue to do so with such inefficiency. My biggest fear is that we won't deliver in time and the project won't be extended with us after 3 months. How do I stop engineering from over-engineering and gold-plating, while also not letting delivery drag? How do I create urgency and accountability when I'm new, don't fully know the product yet, and don't have the usual tooling to make work visible? How do you get a team to start scoping to "what does this milestone or a refactor actually need"? Shoud I pause all coding tasks? How do you handle a tech lead who disappears into infra/refactors with no tickets to show for it and lets his principles cause major delays? What's the right move with a developer who isn't producing - process fix or direct conversation? Is it reasonable this early to draw a hard line like "if it's not a ticket, it's not in the sprint"?

Hi there, I am an IC, and currently looking to grow in my career. My current workplace doesn't offer these steps and everything seems to be pretty stagnant here. Our roles shifted significantly in the org to the point where we had to learn our new roles from scratch. Not just pick up new skills, but our entire function changed. It's the equivalent of asking a food chemist that specializes in shelf stable products to become a line chef is basically what happened to us. I believe my manager is understanding of why what we are doing now isn't aligning with my career or the original job at all. I think she would understand why I'm looking. That being said, I have questions for those who are managers and I was hoping I could get insight. 1) is it ever okay for an employee to ask their direct manager to use them as a reference? Or should I keep my job hunt completely under wraps to the best of my ability? 2) I've actually started job hunting in April, received and politely declined a job offer, then actually made it to the third round at another place but lost out to another candidate. 3) My question for hiring managers is: what is a make or break decision if it's a close call between two candidates? What's something in common candidates have that makes you go "that's the one!"? And also, what is something you never knew before you became a manager that you now think about differently? It could be how you interviewed changed, how you go about work changed, or what you value you a coworker.

Hi all, I am 6 months into my first people management role, which is maternity cover, so around 6 months to go. I was promoted from IC to manager. ​ I have been dealing with an extremely difficult report, who joined the company just a few months before I started managing the team. He has health and mental health issues, and has run out of full pay sick leave (this is UK, so he still receives statutory sick pay) and it's looking increasingly likely that we will need to let him go because he's just not the right fit for the job. He's on an informal PIP at the moment, en route to a formal PIP with HR involvement. ​ Dealing with this situation is consuming me. I used to think I was someone who thrives under pressure, but this situation is starting to break me. I'm thinking about this pretty much everyday, whether at work or not, I'm having trouble sleeping, I've had to take some time off work due to stress and just being unable to focus, I'm often on the verge of tears for literally no reason, and almost broke down crying in the middle of my local supermarket recently. My manager and skip manager are both supportive, but that doesn't ease the stress. I hate having to monitor and nitpick everything this person does and then have to provide negative feedback on his performance, all while navigating his health issues as well. I'm starting therapy to get help with managing the stress, and at this point my goal is to just survive this situation - any grand goals around my or my team's performance are secondary to me at this point. ​ Has anyone had a similar experience, or seen someone crumble under the pressure of management like this? I'm starting to think this kind of role just isn't for me, maybe. I'm enjoying and think I'm good at other aspects of the job, including managing my less demanding reports, but I do NOT want to deal with a situation like this again. Everyone, including my company's HR, keeps saying "this is the most difficult situation you'll likely ever deal with as a manager", so should I stick it out? As this is maternity cover, there's a very real possibility I'll just go back to my IC job in 6 months and be done with this, but there's also a real possibility that they'll ask me to take on a permanent management role, which at this point I'm not sure I want!

This is long but please stay with me. I get to the point at the end I promise. I have been the manager in my current role for almost 1 year. When I was hired here, I was told that the former manager, and even her supervisor, were horrendous to the team. The two departments in our clinic were siloed, team members afraid to talk to or connect with one another, they were tricked into thinking the "other side" was out to get them, it was really bad. I made it my mission to help improve the culture and make this a safe, collaborative and positive work environment for everyone. I was successful in this in my former jobs as a manager and was confident I could do it again. I also didn't always have that environment for myself before I became a manager, and I felt that I, and everyone else, deserve to come into work feeling appreciated, welcomed, safe, etc. So over the past year we have made a lot of changes and and its been so rewarding to see the outcomes so far. Through this process, we terminated one poor performer with poor attitude and poor work ethic, and another team member essentially broke the law and went against organizational policy, tried to lie about it, got caught, and quit once found out because she didn't want to be fired. She was the one who "took care of everyone and was the office mom" during former leadership's time here. She became the safe space for everyone. However, she was manipulative and was able to get away with controlling a lot of different things because she flew under the radar during all of the former leadership chaos. Acted as if she knew better than everyone and influenced the front desk team and poisoned the front desk team against anyone who didn't agree with her. The front desk team of course believed her because she was the "safe space office mom" and they were like ducklings without a mother at that time because the former manager was so bad. Fast forward to now: Former toxic leadership gone. Bad apples gone. However, what now remains within our front desk team is this residual negative energy. While the rest of the team (about 25 people) have all come together, built relationships, healed past narratives, the front desk team is still hanging on to the past. They seem bitter, annoyed, unwilling to collaborate, roll eyes during meetings, complain a lot, and they fixate on individuals and make formal complaints when they don't agree with something. They sometime bypass me as the manager and don't even give me an opportunity to help them or connect with them. I've tried everything I can think of. 1:1s, team meetings, rotating seats and tasks, asking for their feedback on different things, trying to understand their perspectives, and nothing seems to work. I try to show them I appreciate them and they are safe and appreciated every day. I don't think they are bad people, I think they were lost under poor management and were led astray. I really care about them and I want to fix this. Their poor attitudes are making other team members uncomfortable because of how unapproachable they are and I don't know what else to do. It's like even after a whole year they don't trust me or anyone else. I wonder if the employee who got fired was poisoning my team against me as well even though she was nice to my face. I have not actually sat down with each of them individually yet to address this, but I want to, I just don't know what the best way is. How can I professionally say "your attitude sucks, knock it off" and get to the root of what is going on? It makes me feel like a weak manager. The other team members have given me great feedback which I appreciate so much. I guess I am hoping to hear some advice from any other managers or leaders out there. Is it possible to turn bad attitudes around? I don't know how else to get through to this front desk team. Thank you!!

I'm being offered my boss's position, as a manager over <10 employees. I'm very trepidatious about accepting, it's not something I ever saw myself doing. Looking to learn what text books couldn't teach me.

I'm very curious to hear about this from my fellow managers. I know different managers appreciate different qualities in their team. For me, I love people who are honest, communicate clearly, and genuinely care about and work on their performance. Honesty and clear communication may sound cliche, but they're actually not so commonly found in people. I have worked with dozens of folks over almost a decade to observe that. People lie, they point fingers even if the culture is safe to accept your mistakes and learn from them. They'll practice vague communication like anything and won't improve no matter how much helpful feedback they receive. If you're in comms or a good communicator in general, you definitely know and understand the pain of poor communication at work. Your turn now haha 😄

I have a challenging employee, who continually tries to bend the rules to her will. Three specific rules she has flouted time and again. Recently, after completing a large body of work, she managed to snap all of these rules in half on the way out the door for some leave. She subsequently suffered a loss in her family and has been away longer than initially anticipated. The policy case is strong, but I need to address all of the things without burning the world down. She is due back on Monday, and I’m trying to find the right approach to managing the situation. She does not take verbal feedback well unless it is praise, and a discussion with my manager has confirmed that they agree that the discipline discussion must be had. I’ve been trying to get them on board for an eternity, but it has taken two complaints from other team members and an observation by someone acting in my manager’s role for her to realise that had we dealt with it as requested two years ago, we wouldn’t be here. Given her limited capacity for listening and the need for clarity, a leading email/emails is probably needed before any conversation. I have drafted it, but am not quite sure about it yet. So I am not all that sure how to proceed, and happy to hear from the room here on this one. I need to acknowledge the loss, that is important and will be expected, as well as being simply the right thing to do. But I also need to get across, in clear terms, that while her work is appreciated, some of her behaviour is not. The way she performs under workload is unprofessional, despite her refusing to hand anything over, and it’s resulted in complaints from other staff on two occasions now. Secondly, she’s taking liberties with the use of time off in lieu, not following the process, and expecting to be able to take it anyway. She pulled a total ‘mic drop’ the day before she was due to go on leave, announcing she was taking TIL very late at night, without prior approval. Which brings us to the third item - despite clear instructions not to, and plenty of practical suggestions on how to prevent cognitive loss or overload while respecting the work-life balance of others, she continues to message and email at all hours - directly contravening policy. Happy to consider any advice on how you’d separate these and deliver them. I have a track record of being consistently empathetic but also of ensuring consistent adherence to policy, so neither will feel off kilter, just a bit uncomfortably close together.

For context, I’ve been a supervisor for 6.5 years and have a small team of 3. (I work in a union environment in government, not US) Two and half years ago my direct manager and I hired an external candidate for a vacancy (she was recommended by her friend who works in a different department in the organization). This employee was fine during probation but then as time went on, her personal issues began bleeding into her work performance. (She has mental health issues from what I have observed) Long story short, she has had a Letter of Expectation and two disciplinary letters put into her file. (For disrespectful communication and insubordination respectively) HR agrees that this isn’t a one off and a pattern that is already there. Needless to say, she wants to leave the team and is in the running for another role in the organization (1 year term); I had to give an internal referral check to HR - I was honest but still professional and did mention behavioural issues and advised HR to look into her personnel file. Whether or not that will affect her getting this internal job remains to be seen. Another supervisor who is more experienced has told me candidly, “don’t take it personally and be glad when she leaves so she’s no longer your problem”. I’ve had other employees move on because they were not happy (the workload and a few other factors, including staff turnover) They seem to be happier in their current posts. Admittedly I was not the best supervisor when I first got promoted and I struggled, especially when my direct manager at the time did not provide support (he does not like managing people) Yet this current situation seems to be getting to me more than it should. My manager is seasoned and has done lots of disciplinary action in a previous job and is very pragmatic. How do you not take things personally when you know you’re doing your job by calling out employees and holding them accountable, etc.? It makes me question my abilities at times. My current manager and Executive Director have my back and neither one of them likes this problematic employee. My ED has told me that I’m reasonable and she thinks this employee has sociopathic behaviour. (My ED is very astute) TLDR: How not to take things personally when an unhappy employee (whom you’ve had to discipline) wants to leave?

Hi. The manager sent an email directing junior employees (like the lowest on the chart) not to have "hallway conversations" with more senior staff. That feels odd; most interactions are short work-related questions, with the rest being normal human conversations (the usual "How are you?" "Did you see this or that news clip?"). In what situations would such a rule be reasonable, and when would it be unreasonable? This is an academic-adjacent organization\*

About 18 months ago, I was promoted to manage a service region. About 6 months after that, we did an internal realignment where I took over managing all of North America, and picked up 9 new people under me (5 people who were under me went to a new team, netting a 4 employee gain). &#x200B; (Long story short, we used to be grouped by geographic region, we changed to being grouped by equipment we support, so my new team is guys who I worked with before, since we are on the same equipment, but they were previously under different regions) &#x200B; We are all remote, including myself, so I've been flying out to meet every one of my team for a week, spending a week in the field with them, just getting to know them, and taking them out for a dinner. Before I was promoted, we all worked together on a loose basis, and now, with the realignment, we are all on a single team. My goal is to answer any questions they have, address any concerns, and thank them. Most of us have been remote since we were hired so we never go to the company holidays/parties/events, so this is my way to give them a little perk. &#x200B; One of my strongest employees is also one of my worst. To explain, he is extremely knowledgeable. One of the best technical people I have. He knows his stuff and helps others. &#x200B; On the flip side, he knows that and has a bit of an ego with it. He, in a mostly joking matter but also semi-serious, calls himself "The Doctor." He refuses to submit any paperwork or turn in his hours without being hounded (they are all salaried non exempt. So they get their salary, plus overtime. In addition, we need to invoice hours to our customers, so we need him to submit his hours to do that). Eventually, after several calls and emails, he'll get his paperwork in, but it's usually weeks past due. (We usually ask for everything to be submitted within 10 days of being "done") &#x200B; I talked to his former manager and his manager before that, and this has been an issue for 15 years now. He's also happy doing his thing. He has zero interest in moving up. He's happy just doing his job and going home. He travels and enjoys that, so it's not a guy who got passed over and is resentful. He's been asked to interview for higher level positions and always declines to even apply. &#x200B; This has obviously been addressed with him by other managers in the past, and nothing has taken. He's never been put on a PIP, and I don't want it to come to that, as again, his knowledge and skill are invaluable, but he also knows that and think he kinda has an untouchable attitude. &#x200B; What is the best course to get him on track?

How did the manager handle it? Was the manager your report? What input did you give them? What happened to the high performer? &#x200B; I'm trying to understand the dynamic between manager and their tech leads and or high performers. What does a good relationship between these two look like. What can the manager do to improve this dynamic?