EXPERT OPINION BY ALISON GREEN for INC.
Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues–everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.
Here’s a roundup of answers to four questions from readers.
1. How can I make our on-site perks fair for our remote employees?
I manage a team that’s a mix of on-site employees and remote workers. I’m intentional about keeping my remote workers included in both regular work-related and social/sidebar conversations.
However, we’ll sometimes order lunch for everyone in the office or have an occasional pizza party. What’s something related I can do for my remote workers if I’m going to feed the crew on-site? I don’t want to leave them out if I’m announcing in chat that there’s pizza and snacks in the central conference room. Do you have advice on something thoughtful I can do in these situations?
Green responds:
You don’t have to do something for your remote employees every time you provide food on-site; most people will realize it’s not practical to do that every time. Plus, remote workers get their own set of perks that their on-site colleagues don’t get — and to many of them, being able to work from home is a much bigger benefit than free lunch ever could be.
However, while you don’t need to do it every time, it’s a good idea to occasionally try to match your on-site perks with something for your remote workers as well. That could be anything from a restaurant delivery gift card and a note to get lunch on you to sending them all a special treat, timed to arrive on the same day as the department pizza party.
2. Employee says she got “yelled at” when I give her feedback
I have an employee who uses words like “I’m in big trouble,” “I got smacked,” and “I was yelled at” after I calmly give her feedback. When I hear her say those things, I cringe. I have never touched her, let alone smacked her! Please help!
Green responds:
Try this: “I understand you’re using hyperbole, but when you tell people you got ‘smacked’ or ‘yelled’ at or ‘in trouble,’ you’re conveying something very different than what actually happened — and you’re putting me at risk if anyone takes you literally. I need to be able to give you feedback about your work without having it characterized so hyperbolically.” You could add, “Adults don’t get in trouble. They get feedback on their work, and that’s how we should refer to it.”
3. How can I get candidates to submit good cover letters?
When I post a job, no matter whether it’s for a senior level or entry level role, the majority of cover letters I receive seem like stock cover letters not customized at all; candidates just seem to have pasted in the organization name but will often say “I believe my excellent skills will be a great match for your position” without mentioning what skills or how they match the position. The letter usually then goes on to summarize their resume, even though I also have their resume, without referring to how the items on the resume align with our needs.
The best candidates, and almost invariably the ones who actually get hired, instead send a cover letter which specifically talks about why they are a good match for our position.
I always put in the job posting that they should include a cover letter “explaining why this is a good position for you” in hopes this will get people to do a good cover letter. Is there any language that’s particularly effective at encouraging people to write good cover letters? Is there something I can say that will help them?
Or, is this a useful differentiator, where it’s a signal about whether they might be good? My hesitation about that is that there might be people who just never got good advice, especially people with less traditional educational backgrounds, maybe from lower-income families with parents who weren’t in the professional workforce, etc. and so I don’t want to penalize them if they can be good at the actual job.
Green responds:
Yep, this is just how it goes with cover letters. 99% of them are generic and just summarize the resume that follows. It’s one of the reasons why I push so strongly for people to write good ones, because it’s such an easy way to make yourself stand out.
You’re right that loads of people have never gotten good advice on this and aren’t submitting bad cover letters because they’re terrible candidates. So I look at great cover letters as a positive data point, but generic cover letters as a neutral (not bad) one. A great cover letter can lift a candidate up out of a sea of similarly qualified folks, but you don’t need to automatically reject the people with generic/unhelpful letters.
There’s no job posting language I’ve found that will make applicants submit the sort of customized cover letters that would help them. I suppose you could include something like, “We pay a lot of attention to cover letters and hope you’ll write about why you’d be a good match with this role specifically. (If it’s the same letter you’re using for other jobs, that’s probably not what we’re hoping for!)” But a lot of people just aren’t ever going to do it — partly because they don’t even know what that would look like, and partly because they figure there’s a good chance they’ll never hear back from you so they don’t want to invest the time in crafting something. So that language would probably just make it more likely that people won’t bother applying at all (and I wouldn’t use it for that reason).
4. Using an email auto-reply to tell people I’m not on email that day, even though I’m working
I am in communications, so I consider it part of my job to answer all emails quickly, and I’m so organized that it usually isn’t a problem. But some days I have four articles to write by the end of the day and I don’t have time to respond to any not-high-priority emails. And if I didn’t respond, it would be so unusual for me that people will wonder if everything is okay, or expect a quick response and be disappointed. Plus I like to set expectations. If I’m not paying close attention or I’ve closed my inbox so I can focus, I want people to know. Plus I don’t want to miss something that’s actually important.
Could I have an away message that says something like: “I am in the office today but away from email. If you need immediate attention, please call my extension at [number].” It really means “please don’t bother me today unless it’s important and time sensitive.” But sometimes at work, I think we need to put up boundaries like this.
I actually think it would be worse to not check email and just not say anything, because people would just be expecting responses and not getting them. What do you think?
Green responds:
Sure, that’s fine to do.
I think you are probably going a little overboard on how alarmed most people will be if they don’t hear back from you that day, but if you’ve trained people to expect you to respond immediately, it can make sense to manage their expectations. (But for what it’s worth, there’s something to be said for using this kind of situation to train them not to always expect that. That retraining might not be necessary or desirable in your job, but it’s something to consider.)
Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to alison@askamanager.org.
