“employee doesn’t want to work when it snows, interview expense shenanigans, and more” plus 3 more Ask a Manager

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employee doesn’t want to work when it snows, interview expense shenanigans, and more

Posted: 18 Jan 2018 09:03 PM PST

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

1. My employee doesn't want to work when it snows

I'm a manager in a medium-size nonprofit where I oversee a staff of twelve. Last year one of my employees had attendance problems related to various stressors involving family members, a personal loss, illness, car trouble, winter weather, etc. Some of these stressors were quite significant; others were the sort of thing most of us would power through and handle after our workday was over. Because the employee was stressed overall though, I was supportive and allowed the time off. However, as the year went on it became a real problem. His frequent, last-minute absences or sudden departures halfway through the workday began to have a negative impact on the clientele we help. And since I usually ended up covering for this employee with little or no notice, his absences would keep me from my own work. Using AAM tips, I had a meeting where I advised that we valued him as an employee, but his ongoing pattern of being absent/unavailable to work was affecting the functioning of the organization. I told him going forward he would have to be at work consistently or we would initiate progressive discipline. His attendance improved immediately and hasn't been a problem — until now.

Today, my employee emailed me that he might not make it to work tomorrow because of a possible snowfall in the forecast. A number of this employee's absences last year were snow-related, for reasons such as "can't get out of the driveway" and "the snow is too bad to drive in.” Other employees who live in the same town came to work on those days though, which makes me wonder if my employee is unusually hesitant to drive in snowy weather.

We all know snow is part of life here and we all plan for it. We get up early, shovel ourselves out, brush off our vehicles, leave plenty of extra time to drive in at a safe speed and then … WE GO TO WORK. I don't expect anyone to drive in crazy-dangerous whiteout conditions by any means, but in routine snowy weather everyone else managed to get here last year except this employee. My question is: can I tell my employee that he should be making some sort of contingency plan for himself so he can get to work in the winter, whether it means getting up early to shovel out, hiring a plow service, putting on snow tires, or whatever makes getting to work possible? I know his finances are tight and some of those solutions might be hard to afford, but it seems to me that getting to work in routine winter weather is a reasonable expectation. Do you have any suggestions about how to handle this problem?

Yes, all of that is reasonable. And it sounds like his own judgment is not well calibrated for figuring out what's absence-worthy, so you've got to be explicit that you don't consider routine snow a reason to stay home.

It’s very reasonable to say, "I need you to make plans to be able to get to work during routine snowy weather. Certainly in a very rare case of unusually bad weather, driving might not be safe, but in general, most of the time when it snows here, my expectation is that you'll still come in, like the rest of us do. Is there something going on that is getting in the way of that?" And depending on his answer, you can indeed talk to him about what other people do in order to get to work in the snow — plow services, snow tires, etc.

2. Employer wants a letter from my current job before they'll reimburse my interview travel expenses

I went on a job interview in December out of town, and the prospective employer will not reimburse my travel expenses without a letter from my current employer stating I was not on company time. Is this a common request? If I ask this from my current HR, they are going to know I went on an interview and this is not something they would take well at all.

No, that is not normal at all. And it's very weird — are they trying to ensure that you weren't on a company-paid business trip when you came to their town to interview with them? The chances of that happening are fairly low, and it's a particularly odd thing for them to be hung up on.

You should be able to say to them, "My current employer doesn't know I'm interviewing and telling them that before I'm ready to leave could jeopardize my job, which obviously isn't a risk I can take. When I flew out to interview with you, it was with the understanding that you'd be covering my travel expenses and I certainly hope you'll follow through on that agreement."

3. Recruiter contacts me over and over again for the same job, then ignores me

A few years ago, I worked a temporary clerical position that paid better than any other in my area. I did well there and received good feedback from my managers.

The company contracts clerks for the same position at least twice a year through the same staffing agency. The first time I was hired, a family friend recommended me to the recruiter and I did a 10-minute phone interview that only asked about my availability before I was told when to show up for training. The recruiter had the final say in who was hired.

Since my contract with the company ended, the same recruiter has contacted me at least six times via text message to ask if I wanted to work that job again. Each time I’ve responded within an hour that I would and emailed the her my resume. Each time she has gone completely silent and never responded to my follow-up emails or texts, only to contact me and begin the cycle again the next time the company is hiring for the position.

I’m hesitant to ask her to stop this in case I do get the job at some point, but this behavior seems very strange to me. Is there a polite way to ask why she keeps contacting me if she has no intention of hiring me? I’d like to know if I’m doing something wrong.

I suspect that when she has a position to fill, she's emailing a bunch of people to see if they're interested. She then does her 10-minute phone interview with the first couple of people she hears from, hires one of them, and ignores everyone else who responded. This is a rude way to operate, but it's not uncommon. People who do it are doing it because it's more efficient for them to put out a whole bunch of feelers all at once rather than contacting people one at a time … but she should be getting back to you to let you know the role is no longer available and it's rude that she's not. But it's also really, really common for some recruiters.

4. Rejecting good early-stage candidates when we’ve just filled the position

I’m hiring for a marketing role that has taken 3+ months to fill. We’re very close to closing on Jane, a promising candidate, but I’ve continued to review applications and phone screen in the meantime. You never know what’s going to happen!

There are several recent applicants who have passed the phone screen. If we close on Jane, I’ll need to tell these other candidates that we’re not moving forward with them. They’re good candidates and if the timing were different (or I had more roles open right now), I’d move them forward. How exactly do I word that email?

You don't have to explain all of that, but if you want to, you could say it this way: "Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me about our llama groomer position. I thought you were a strong candidate and was excited to continue talking with you, but the timing ended up not being ideal — we just offered the position to someone who's accepted it. But I'd love to keep you in mind if we have similar openings in the future, and I'll plan to contact you if that happens." If you're unlikely to have similar openings any time soon, you could replace that last sentence with, "I really appreciate your interest in our work, and I hope our paths might cross again in the future."

5. Can our pay be docked if we don't turn in our time sheets?

I’m an exempt employee working for a midsize company in Dallas, TX, and within the department I work for, we’re required to submit a weekly time sheet. I’m pretty good about doing this, but some of my coworkers are not. That recently prompted our boss to send out an email threatening to deny PTO to anyone who was behind on their time sheets, and in some cases, to dock their pay. He indicated in his email that he had spoken to HR about this, but docking people’s pay sounds fishy to me — especially since his boss was not included on the email he sent us. Everyone on our team is exempt, and I was under the impression that exempt employees could not have their pay docked except for very specific reasons.

Is my boss threatening us with something illegal, and if so, is there something I should do about it?

Yep. He can't dock anyone's pay — whether they're exempt or non-exempt — for not submitting time sheets. Exempt employees can't have their pay docked except in a small number of very specific circumstances (and this isn't one of them), and non-exempt employees must be paid for all hours worked, time sheet or no time sheet.

You could respond to him by saying, "We're actually not allowed to dock exempt employees’ pay except in the circumstances described here and could get into a lot of trouble if we do — we could lose our exemption for anyone whose pay is docked and end up owing them overtime, as well as fines." You could also just go straight to HR about this, framing it as "I'm concerned there's been a misunderstanding here and that we'd be running afoul of the law."

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