I was told to do less work, two of my employees hold private “accountability” meetings, and more

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

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

1. My team was told to do less work

I’ve had an interesting three months at work. During this period, my team of three was pulled aside while one service desk team member was out. We were asked in that meeting to work LESS diligently so that the third person had a chance to grab tickets. My sentiment was essentially too damn bad … he needs to catch up and stop watching YouTube all day. When I brought this up to management and HR, they said that I’m not privy to everything going on in the background, plus my current manager has only been in her position for the past three months and she hasn’t had adequate time to address all the problems.

Am I going crazy or is this favoritism from management, allowing this coworker to be on YouTube all day while the rest of us pick up the slack? What recourse do I have in a situation like this?

In some situations, asking you to take fewer tickets could be reasonable — like if someone is being trained and needs those tickets to learn from, or if your manager is trying to give your coworker enough rope to hang himself with (by ensuring there are clearly tickets available that he could be taking but isn’t). It’s also possible that he’s claiming his numbers are low because there’s no work available and they truly believe that … but based on the “you don’t know everything going on in the background” comment, I’m guessing it’s not that.

As for recourse … you don’t really have any. If they’re asking you to take fewer tickets, you’re not being asked to pick up your coworker’s slack; you’re being asked to leave his slack right there where everyone can see it. If that causes other problems (like if he doesn’t do the tickets you leave for him and you end up having to stay late or rush to get them done at the last minute), you can and should raise those issues. But otherwise, take fewer tickets like they’ve asked and see what happens.

2. Two of my employees hold their own “accountability” meetings

I manage a team of five executive assistants at a fairly big company. Two of them meet weekly for almost 1-1/2 hours for an “accountability” call. One of them has this call marked as private on her calendar and the other does not. Here are the questions they have on the meeting invite for discussion:

• What was your biggest priority this week?
• Did you accomplish it, and if not, why not?
• What did you learn this week?
• What was your biggest business highlight this week?
• What is/was your biggest obstacle?
• What do you need to solve it, or how did you solve it?
• What was your biggest personal highlight last week?
• Rate last week on a scale of 1-10 (10 being amazing).
• What needs to happen to make next week a success?
• What do you need help with (and who do you need to contact)?

Another on the team (who is no longer with the company) suggested that these two teammates are manipulating behind the team’s back. I also get the feeling these two may talk about the other team members and also plan on their own to push items forward. I haven’t heard from the other current teammates yet, but I think knowing these two have a regular meeting could make some of them feel like these two are conniving together and, frankly, it makes me feel that way as their manager as well.

I do think it is important to have mentoring discussions and our company fully supports personal development but this just bothers me a bit and I don’t want it to become a bigger issue. Am I just being paranoid?

It sounds great to me! They’re supporting each other and holding each other accountable; those are good things!

If you see signs that they’re plotting together to push agendas you don’t want them pushing, or if work isn’t getting done because they’re prioritizing these meetings when they should be prioritizing other things, you’d address those issues specifically — but that would be about those specific problems, not the meetings themselves. Assuming you’re not seeing anything like that, it sounds like your discomfort is all coming from the former employee (who doesn’t seem to have offered any real reason to be concerned) and maybe your own uneasiness at feeling cut out of the loop. The meetings themselves, as presented here, seem great. And if other team members ever indicate that they feel excluded by not being part of it, you could suggest other people form their own small groups to do the same. (Hell, if there’s interest, you could even suggest that these two share their process with the team as a whole in case other people want to learn how to do something similar.)

3. Will my job chances go up if I color my gray hair?

Recently, I had a conversation with my father, who is a sales manager, about my job search situation, and he said that I would be more likely to get promoted or hired if I dyed my hair. I am 42 and I have salt and pepper hair (mostly dark brown/black and a good amount of gray in front). I like this color contrast and I get a lot of compliments from peers and young people, but I do care about my career. Do you think I should get my hair dyed so that I am more likely to be promoted at my current company or hired at another company, or is this not usually a factor for hiring managers?

I’d love to tell you it doesn’t matter at all because it certainly shouldn’t, but in reality some hiring managers are biased, unconsciously or otherwise, against candidates who they perceive as older. That’s obviously BS, but it happens. Does it mean you’ll never get promoted or hired anyone if they see, gasp, gray hair? It definitely does not. Might it narrow your options in ways we can’t anticipate? It’s possible. Is that more the exception than the rule? Probably. Might you decide you’d rather screen those managers out anyway? Yes!

Personally I think you should do whatever you want with your hair, and if you’re moving along in your career in a way you’re happy with, you should feel free to ignore your father. If at some point you’re struggling for the sort of advancement you want, it could be one thing to consider, but it’s hardly a definitive one.

(You might also consider whether your father works in contexts similar to your own or not, and whether he might be sort of telling on himself with this particular opinion.)

4. My friend asks me to help them professionally but won’t return the favor

Am I being petty because my friend won’t engage with my work or share their connections?

I have a friend who works in social media at a renowned company, and every now and then they send me company Instagram and Tiktoks to engage with such as with likes and comments. This helps them gain traction for their videos and posts, which shows the company that people are engaging with their content.

My issue is, before they got this role, I was doing a similar role at a different company and I would send them videos to like and comment on. However they would never engage on any of the videos I was putting out there. Recently, I worked at another company and sent them videos to do with my work. But again they ignored me when I asked them to engage with my content.

I find it unfair that I engage with their work but they never do the same. I have also noticed that when it comes to networking and connections, they also don’t share their connections (which is fine).

Is it petty of me to stop engaging with their videos? I am also hesitant to now and in the future to mix my networking connections with them because they never do the same. I understand people have to start from somewhere and that they struggled at one point, but sometimes it feels unfair. I sometimes see them engaging with old friends when it comes to the creative field working on projects, but I am excluded despite having a creative background.

You’re under no obligation to do them a favor that they repeatedly declined to do for you. (In fact, it would be better if you all stopped doing and requesting these favors because it’s skewing the data on how the content is really doing.) You could see that as petty, or you could see it as “they showed me that’s not a friendship action they put value on.”

You also don’t need to keep helping them with connections if they don’t share their own. Networking is supposed to be mutually beneficial.

If you otherwise like this friend, I’d just engage with them on completely non-work-related levels. For whatever reason, the work stuff only goes one way with them.

5. Should companies check references for internal transfers?

You’ve spoken often about how important it is to check references, but I’m wondering about in the case of internal hires. For the last two roles I’ve been offered, no one asked to check my references because I was an internal transfer and the bosses had worked with me previously. In one case it made sense to me, but in the other I hadn’t worked with that person in over five years. Theoretically I could have changed and become a less useful employee. I’m curious about what’s normal and what you think they should do in these types of situations.

It’s super normal not to check references for internal transfers, because you’re already a known quantity. The manager hiring for the new position might talk informally with your current manager (they definitely should), but it’s pretty uncommon for formal reference checks to happen in those situations.

Reference checks are for when you don’t know the candidate and their work, and can’t simply take their word for what they say about themselves. When you’re already working there, they know you and your work, and their firsthand experience with you will be more recent, more unfiltered, and more nuanced than anything they’d get from a reference call.