It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, featuring updates from people who had their letters answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.
1. Employer wants to offer paid parental leave — but only for women
The update on this one isn’t great. Our “leader” got an opinion from his attorney that offering paid leave only to women was fine as long as it was specifically for recovery from childbirth, so that’s what he did. So that’s what we have. Women who give birth get six paid weeks off. No one else — fathers, adoptive parents, or same-sex parents of any gender — get any paid leave beyond whatever PTO they save up. Our “leader” is patting himself on the back and touting his “family friendly” workplace.
In reality, staff see it differently. We definitely see it as playing favorites and creating unnecessary divisions among staff. Our LGBTQ+ team members have been reminded what he really thinks of them, and sadly, not for the first time. What’s really been hard is the way older women (50+) have treated younger women in this process. The question of why younger women even “need” paid family leave at all has been asked more than once. “After all, we didn’t get any, and we turned out fine!”
Here’s hoping for better in the future.
2. What’s the best way to tell an organization that their volunteer is obnoxious?
I didn’t explicitly include my gender in the original question, but as the commenters guessed, I’m a woman and the volunteer is a man.
Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to implement your good advice. The paid staff I knew left the project shortly after I wrote in, so I didn’t get the chance to pass on the feedback about their obnoxious volunteer. I wish I had found someone to tell it to, but didn’t have a contact I trusted to do something useful with the information. The volunteer in question is, unfortunately, pretty much running that project now. I’m not sure if he’s now on the staff or still a volunteer — he has an official email now, so I think staff? So that’s not great.
He’s still trying to get my NGO to endorse his project. Recently he sent me an apology email that I don’t know what to do with. I’m not willing to work with this guy, and I’d like to protect my team from his shenanigans, so I don’t see myself replying.
Even though I don’t have a satisfying resolution here, I am glad I wrote in. At the very least, it helped me memorialize that it really was that bad an interaction. It’s so easy to second-guess a sexist experience after the fact and forget how bad it really was.
3. Can managers ever really get anonymous feedback?
I wrote to you a little over a year ago that my team leader wanted to institute a way for our team to give him feedback anonymously, but the team was concerned that it wouldn’t be truly anonymous due to the small size of our team.
Fast forward to now: the entire company (5,000+ employees) is currently submitting self-input for our upcoming performance reviews. The new head of HR has added a brand new section to the form called “Upward Feedback”:
“Use this section to share honest & constructive feedback with your manager and strengthen how you work together. Focus on things that support your success, as well as on what could be improved to help you drive even more positive impact. Please note: This section will be visible to your managers.”
The section we’re supposed to fill out goes into further detail:
- “What I appreciated in my manager’s support during this period was…”
- “What I feel can be further improved is…”
- “In the future, I would benefit from my manager…”
- “To summarize:”
Sigh. Yes, this part is mandatory. So much for any attempt at anonymity.
4. Should I follow up on my application again?
I did NOT follow your advice and followed up again with the principal who replied to my contact’s email. He told me his head of HR was out and I could send my resume directly to him. And I got an interview! But … it was a weird interview. I was asked to present a few projects. It was for an architecture position so I don’t think that’s totally unusual, but it’s the only time I’ve ever been asked that. So I put together a few slides with four or five projects that showed a breadth of experience but emphasized the market sector and construction type they specifically asked for. It wasn’t flashy or exciting by any means. Just simple pictures and notes. But hey, I’m a working parent and I have a life, so it was what they were going to get. It was a virtual interview and I presented for about 15 minutes. They asked me a question about the market I didn’t know the answer to (but I followed up with an email afterward). I asked a few questions about company culture and it was done. They were very stiff and didn’t really give me any feedback. I didn’t get the job.
Fast forward about six months. I applied to a few other places where I met the qualifications almost perfectly. I had two interviews with one company. The first one was just with HR and it sounded great. They were flexible, committed to growth, and seemed to really respect my experience. I made a mistake and mentioned an accommodation I might need too early in the process, and that might have tanked my chances. But honestly, after the second interview with the prospective team, we parted ways very mutually. I applied for a “middle manager” position and confirmed with HR that I understood that correctly. But the team told me that I would start back at entry level until they knew they could “trust” me. No thank you — I don’t think that’s how this is supposed to work.
But then, I landed a great job! It came with about a 20% raise (in a higher cost of living city, but not 20% higher), better benefits, more autonomy, and just an overall better culture. I had my first annual review last month and got another 10% raise! I’m really happy it all worked out and I didn’t stress too much about that first job. I found something so much better.
