men coaching women to apologize less, HR sent me confidential salary info, and more

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

1. Coaching a female employee to apologize less, as a man

I’ve been thinking about your response to “my employee apologizes all the time,” specifically: “I think from the name on your email that you’re a woman, so one way to address it is to point out that women in particular tend to overapologize and that it can make them seem less confident and less authoritative than men”

I’m a male manager in a field that’s pretty welcoming to women, thankfully, so throughout my career, my teams have always had significantly more women than men. I’ve wrestled with how to address the above (which I’ve seen firsthand), and also the other issues that women face in the workplace such as tending to negotiate less then men (also firsthand!), with those on my team. Basically, how can I be a supportive manager while avoiding the appearance of performative allyship/mansplaining/sexism.

So back to your answer, so in this case in specifically mentioning about the writer likely being a woman, would the answer be different if the email was from a man, and if so, how would the script differ?

(By the way, I have been wrestling with sending this since I couldn’t figure out how to ask the question without possibly seeming that I was trolling you, in light of the current climate we find ourselves in. But having been a not-very-good manager earlier in my career, and hoping to keep improving — which includes reading your writing every week — I thought I’d try.)

You can just leave out “women tend to do this” and use the rest of the framing from that response, which was that apologizing a lot when it’s not warranted can make people seem less confident and less authoritative, and tell her you’d like her to work on not apologizing for questions or routine hiccups. It’s not that as a man you can’t point out that it’s a trap many women fall into, but that can land more patronizingly from a man than it would from a fellow woman. From another woman, the subtext is “I get this, I’ve been there, and I know the pressures that lead to it.” As a man, you lack that (although if you can honestly say that you’ve struggled with over-apologizing too, feel free to mention that as a way to build connection). But you can still say, “Here’s what I’m seeing, here’s how it risks holding you back, let’s work on changing it.” And that’s still a great and supportive thing for you to do as a manager; you’re just bringing different rapport-builders to the table.

On salary negotiation, you could take a similar approach and could make a point of coaching any employee who seems like they’d benefit from it on how to assess their own value and negotiate accordingly. This can be a little tricky to do as a manager, depending on the politics of your organization, but it’s often very doable. It also wouldn’t necessarily need to be detailed coaching; sometimes it’s eye-opening just to hear someone with credibility say “I’d expect a role like X to pay $Y” or “most people in your shoes ask for $Y” or “”you’re under-valuing yourself; why don’t we aim for $Y?”

2. HR sent me confidential salary info, then recalled it, then told the whole company not to discuss salary, then backtracked, then doubled-down

A few days ago, our HR manager accidentally sent me confidential payroll information that I do not get paid enough to see, tried to do damage control by sending an (extremely illegal) email to the whole company reminding us of the (extremely illegal) policy in the employee handbook about discussing salary, and then sent a follow-up email that was meant to backtrack the illegal part but ended up doubling down on it.

I had been planning to discuss the initial email with my manager, but HR was able to recall it so I no longer had hard proof, and the company-wide email seemed a good place to end the story. [Sidebar, I have immensely enjoyed my coworkers sarcastically asking each other if there’s a policy in the handbook about (insert innocent activity here).] Now I’m wondering, if it comes out that I didn’t tell my manager that I got the first email, am I going to get in trouble? FWIW, HR playing fast and loose with confidential info is a fairly regular occurrence.

I don’t see why you’d get in trouble for not telling your manager that HR sent you an email they later recalled, unless your job is in some way to monitor/manage this kind of thing.

That said, your HR really sucks.

For anyone who’s unaware: in the U.S. it’s illegal for your company to try to prevent non-supervisory employees from discussing wages (and working conditions!) among themselves. It’s still really, really common for them to try to, though. More here:

my company wants to stop me from discussing my salary with coworkers

3. Does my boss suddenly have a different understanding of my job than I do?

I have a first-line management position at a large public educational institution and have been in this role since 2011. We’ve had some structural shakeups over the last few years, which has resulted in me being assigned to a new team and senior manager.

Lately, there have been a few instances where I have been blatantly bypassed, ignored, or put on the spot with clients. My manager has also started stepping in on coordination of tasks that I would normally be responsible for, without discussing this with me beforehand. These actions have left me humiliated and waste my time when I have to clean up the inevitable messes that result. I know my senior manager knows a great deal about my role, so these instances are not due their ignorance about my position’s responsibilities. To make things worse, my other teammate now thinks it’s acceptable to bypass me too.

I am quickly gathering the impression that the understanding I have of my role is no longer aligning with my supervisor’s. I’d like to begin tackling this by requesting a meeting with my supervisor where I would like them to outline, in detail, my position’s primary role, responsibilities, and duties. I’d also like these points formalized in my position description so that I may remind my supervisor when required. Are you able to give me some wording I can use when requesting a meeting?

I think that’s the wrong approach. Just asking them to outline your job is too passive and risks your point being missed entirely. Instead, address it more head-on — meaning, have a conversation with your manager where you name what you’ve been seeing, explain why it concerns you, and ask for clarification about your role. If they say your understanding of your role is indeed still correct, then ask what’s causing them and others to bypass you, and ask for help ensuring that you’re looped in when you should be.

4. My manager picks on me every day

My employer is finding something everyday to reprimand me about, but they are not doing the same for everyone else. I believe that my manager is picking on me by finding anything to write me up about. It’s like they’re trying to make me quit. I feel like it’s creating a hostile environment for me. Can they legally do this?

They can legally do it as long as it’s not (a) based on your race, sex, religion, disability, age (if over 40), national origin, or other protected class, or (b) in retaliation for you exercising a legally protected right, like for making a good-faith report of harassment or discrimination. If your manager is just targeting you because she doesn’t like you, but it’s not for any of the reasons above, the law doesn’t prohibit that. (“Hostile environment” is a very non-intuitive legal term in that regard.)

That said, do you have decent HR? They can’t necessarily protect you from a boss who’s determined to push you out, but they might be able to help if you can show you’re being treated differently than everyone else.

Related:
hostile workplace: it’s not what you think

5. Company rewrote job description to make in-office work a job requirement

My partner works from home because they suffer from auditory issues that keep them from being able to focus in the office. Shortly after they got their accommodation, their employer changed the job requirements: Being able to work in a crowded office is now mandatory. (They didn’t change the work at all, just edited the job description.)

Now my partner is in a situation where they might have to reapply for, and be turned down for, a job they’ve done for years. Can their employer even do that? It feels like blatant discrimination, especially given the timing. Do we have any recourse?

What’s included in a job description is one factor that plays into whether something is considered an essential function of a position, as well as whether a requested accommodation can be considered “reasonable” or an “undue hardship” for the employer, but it’s not the sole determinant. Employers are also supposed to look at — and courts do look at — the actual work performed by the employee and the consequences of not enforcing the job requirement.

Of course, employers try all the time to insist jobs must be in-office even when the Americans with Disabilities Act would actually require them to allow remote work in certain sets of circumstances. But it’s very, very fact-specific, so your partner’s best move is to talk with an employment lawyer for help.

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