employee isn’t as productive on her WFH days, politics on LinkedIn, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. My employee isn’t as productive on her WFH days

I work in a university on a small team of just me and one other, Claire. Claire is in her mid-30s and has been in her role for over 10 years, initially full-time and now three days a week since having her two children, who are both under five. Claire works Monday and Wednesday in the office and Tuesday at home.

My issue is that Claire’s Tuesdays at home are … seemingly not as productive as her days in the office. Whilst I’m confident that she does not have her children at home with her on Tuesdays (they are both in well-established childcare), I think that the issue may be that she is trying to use her Tuesdays at home to get caught up on housework, personal admin, etc.

Claire is a good worker — she gets her work done, meets deadlines, and is knowledgeable and personable. But she has mentioned to me on a couple of occasions about difficult times at home, citing behavior from her husband that I would say is unreasonable / bordering on being emotionally abusive — criticizing her, suggesting that she should be able to do more on the days she cares for the children, being unkind, etc.

I’d like to see more from Claire on a Tuesday, but I also don’t want to put her in a scenario where I’m micromanaging her on her days working from home or making things difficult for her at home if the cause of her lower productivity on a Tuesday is what I suspect it is and she is doing her best to manage both work and home life, as I have a responsibility to her as an individual (and also remember how difficult it is to work and keep a home with very young children). What do I do? Do I do anything?

Assuming you’re her manager, you should just name what you’re seeing, without speculating on the causes. For example: “I’m noticing that your Tuesdays at home don’t seem as productive as your days in the office. For example, (fill in with some specifics that illustrate the problem). I know there might be more to it than I’m seeing, so I wanted to ask you about your sense of that.”

It’s possible you’ll hear something you didn’t realize, like that Claire purposely saves all her deep-focus work for Tuesdays, and that stuff takes longer to produce tangible results that you can easily see, or it’s her day for catching up on phone calls with clients, or who knows what. But if there’s no explanation like that and Claire is in fact working less on those days (for whatever reason), this is a reasonable first step in addressing it.

This wouldn’t be about micromanaging her; it would be about flagging something you’re seeing and letting her figure out how to fix it, if needed.

2. Politics on LinkedIn

I am fairly active on LinkedIn – the type of work I do has a big community/social component and I love it. Of course, this means that sometimes, just because of how the feed works, I can see that someone “liked” something someone else posted. I am very conscious of this and really try to avoid interacting with anything controversial, political, etc because I treat LinkedIn as if I were in an office. But sometimes, someone I know/work with will “like: something that is either offensive, flat-out false, or both.

Recently a colleague of mine did this on a pretty political and, I felt, offensive post, which a quick google search also told me was completely unfounded. Unfortunately, I can’t unsee this, and I am so tempted to drop him a note and say, “Hey, FYI, people can see when you ‘like’ stuff like this and, by the way, it’s offensive and incorrect.”

Having read a lot of your columns, I feel fairly confident that you’re going to tell me to leave it alone (and I know, deep down, that that’s correct), but UGH. Everyone knows politics should be kept out of the workplace, but don’t they realize this should extend to LinkedIn?

They do not realize it! People use LinkedIn for some really weird shit these days, and they definitely don’t treat it like an office (or they’re the same people who are inappropriate in their office too).

But your instinct to leave it alone is correct. It’s not really your business and you don’t have the standing to school him on this (unless you’re his mentor or something similar to that). File it away as useful info about him, but otherwise leave it alone.

3. Client’s new employee is trying to take over my job

I work in a freelance capacity and have a client who I’ve worked with for quite a few years. She recently took on a new person, Sally, who works in a completely different field than me.

The company is small, I am part-time, and Sally is almost full-time. I am remote, mostly, and Sally is in the office. My issue is that Sally is acting as though she is my boss, correcting my work and in some instances making changes to it, suggesting things I’ve already researched and dismissed as though they are new exciting ideas, and digging through things I work on to find things that she thinks are wrong, then pointing them out in group emails. This is despite the fact she has no experience in my field. I wouldn’t dream of telling her how to do her job, so I’m not sure why she is trying to tell me how to do mine. It feels as though she is trying to take over my role.

I need to find a resolution to this or I won’t be able to continue working for my client. Do I approach Sally first and try to work things out between us? Or do I let my client know what’s happening? She has already had to explain to Sally who I am and my background and expertise, so it wouldn’t be coming out of nowhere. My client is lovely, and I know she wouldn’t want me to leave. However, I have a big project with another client coming up later this year, as well as a project of my own starting to take off, and I don’t need to feel this annoyed.

Talk to your client and ask if she’s made this part of Sally’s role. Keep it matter-of-fact and unemotional. For example: “I hoped you could clarify for me whether you’ve asked Sally to do XYZ with my work as part of her role. There have been some situations recently where (fill in specifics) and since it’s so different from how I’ve worked with you in the past — and to be transparent, is making some of my work harder — I wanted to check whether that’s happening with your blessing or whether there’s a misunderstanding with Sally.”

Ideally your client will be surprised and say it shouldn’t be happening and she’ll take care of it. But if she says this is part of Sally’s role now, then you should explain how it’s interfering with your work … and then potentially decide based on that discussion whether the client relationship is still one that works for you. But start by finding out if your client even knows it’s happening.

4. I don’t want to record a training for new hires

I was told to train two new hires using Teams. I am not comfortable doing this. I am also a new hire, just not quite as new. I am horrified to be recorded on a platform I’m not familiar with, or any platform frankly. I am very, very shy and the thought of doing this training is causing me a lot of distress. I would prefer to do the training in person, but they insist that it be recorded. Can I be fired for refusing? I do not think they will care that I am in terror about doing this task. They gave me very little warning about this and zero time to prepare.

They can insist on it and theoretically could fire you for refusing. They’re not likely to fire you for refusing, but you’d be risking it having a pretty big impact on how you’re perceived and what kind of opportunities you’re given there in the future. There’s a decent chance that your reputation would take a lasting hit, just because this has become a pretty normal expectation in such a wide variety of jobs. (I’m assuming they want it recorded so the trainees can refer back to it in the future, which isn’t unreasonable.)

You could try saying, “I freeze up when I’m recorded and think I could train them a lot more effectively in person.” (Obviously if your job involves needing to do training and/or presenting or being recorded, you shouldn’t say this, but I’m guessing from the rest of your letter that it doesn’t.) Your boss might be sympathetic to that, or might not be. If she’s not, at that point you really should try to get through it.