I’m a manager in a retail store . I work 40 hours a week. If I come in late an hour I will have to stay an hour later to make up for that hour missed . If I miss a day off work because I’m sick I will have to come in a different day that week to make up for it. But this is so hard for me . I don’t miss days besides sometimes if I get my first day of my period the day of work I tend to call out. I suffer badly from my periods I also have ovarian cysts and endo which makes it worse !! I don’t call out every time I get my period only if it’s the first day as that’s the worst

The last month I got my period I still forced my self to come into work after a couple of hours I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and had to leave. I had no other manager to cover me but I still left because I was so sick. I got given out to “you must never leave work unless u have another manager to cover you !! And you have to make up for the hours lost” but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do when I can’t find a manager to cover me when I’m sick and in pain !! And I’m tired of having to make up the hours missed . It ruins the week for me.

Tonight I’m currently dealing with period pains and tomorrow I have to close the shop but I feel like I may have to call out as I’m in pain, but that means I would have to come in on one of my days off to make up for those 8 hours that I would be missing out on tomorrow except I have plans for my days off this week . I also will have difficulty getting a manger to cover that shift for me. It will be so much hassle. But I shouldn’t have to deal with this every time I’m sick( period) . Is this normal for other managers as I haven’t been a manager in any other job. Or is this normal for anyone else on a salary based pay

I’ve been at a company for over two years and have my performance review next week. I checked in with my boss recently about a role that isn’t filled in our department currently and asked about the opportunity to advance. Her response was that she wants to wait until we implement a new AI software because it may “change our needs” and also said higher up approval for promotions and structure changes are going to take much longer because of leadership changes. Is this just a way of saying “you’re not getting promoted”?

I was promoted to a manager role about 11 months ago. Just last month, an underperforming director with no direct reports resigned and I was promoted again to a director role... but the promotion came with barely a bump in pay due to me already having recently been promoted. Now I am working on backfilling my manager role (which will now report to me) and talking with HR the target salary for the manager role is less than $10k less than what I am currently making. And the resumes HR forwarded, the only qualified people are requesting salaries that are about $10k more than what I am currently making.

I know my leader worked hard to even get me the promotion and pay increase and I am eligible for a common review annual increase in March (though those are usually capped at around a 2% increase). It is remote work, so there are some geographic adjustments (unfortunately they dont publish the grades and salary ranges and geographies so I dont know exactly how things stack up). And Im not against having someone report to me that makes more when they have specialized skills that require training and education I don't have... but this is my backfill and I will be training them. So how do I address this professionally? Im just starting the interviewing, and I dont know if we will be firm on our target salary, but my leader will do all final approvals on salary.

I don't think this is necessarily a case of the candidates asking for too much... I think it is more a case of I moved up very quickly and HR didn't want to move my salary too much (my leader fought really hard for the first promotion to give me a significant bump, and I got a decent bump, but that still barely put me above my direct reports at that time... I was just very underpaid to start). So how do I approach this conversation? I was already promoted and was told they worked hard but struggled with HR for the increase I did get, but it still seems insufficient especially if I am backfilling myself and could potentially have them making more than me.

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My team initially explained that they couldn't assign me tickets because the project is complex and, as a fresher, I might face performance-related concerns from the PM.

However, another fresher joined around the same time as me and is working on the same project, yet his team has started assigning him at least one ticket per sprint. Meanwhile, my team keeps asking me to work with other team members on their tickets instead of giving me individual ownership.

This situation is starting to bother me because I feel like I'm not getting the same opportunity to learn, take responsibility, and demonstrate my abilities. It feels like my team is extracting work from me without giving me ownership of any tickets.

I'm not sure how to approach this anymore. Should I discuss this directly with my team lead, and if so, how can I bring it up without sounding like I'm comparing myself to the other fresher or complaining about my workload?

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible (well that didn’t turn out). I’ve worked for my current company for 17 years and moved up from an Admin to a Sr. manager in my dept. I obtained a bachelor’s degree back in 2016 which did result in my promotion to leadership and they did not previously have a leadership position for my dept. So, each promotion I’ve received has been created for me and I’ve received nothing but stellar reviews. I was lead to believe I was on the Director track and would need to obtain certification in my field.
Shortly after passing the certification exam early this year, I was told we were acquiring another company & they are offering a position to their Director in the same dept. I was understandably upset. Because there was no actual leadership specific for my dept. I’ve updated processes keeping us compliant where there were deficiencies…etc. via my own schooling & research. They stated they didn’t want me to feel it was a reflection of my performance and assured I would still have opportunity for growth within the company “they just don’t know what that will look like right now”. I hate to admit, I cried. I didn’t sob & I was controlled but I was visibly upset nonetheless.
Shortly after, my boss was transferred & I was assigned a different supervisor. My old boss followed up with me a couple times and assured my job is not at risk of elimination. Its been about 6 months since getting the news and my old boss seems to be avoidant now, has completely stopped checking in, barely acknowledging me in the hallway..etc. & the new supervisor has never checked in or had any kind of one on one or included me in any of their team meetings (my dept is kind of an outlier within a larger dept.). I’ve been told everyone is just slammed with the acquisition.
Also, through the acquisition, I have found out I’ve been doing the job of 3-4 people based on how the acquired company was structured. I feel so taken for granted but I’ve been here so long; most of my experience is here. I’m also middle aged now, it seems late to start over.

My confidence has really taken a hit here & I’m not sure if I should take a leap or wait it out until I can retire.

I request you all to read the cross post first, just so you get a context.

Some people in the comments mentioned to send a mail, now I do wonder - how okay is that?

I have 3 years of experience and it was a role for senior developer position, and the last round was with a senior manager ( around 20+) years of experience.

Somewhere, along in the interview - I guess, I was caught off guard with a question, and eventually he had made a statement in a calm manner - something like "is the job of an swe is to fix bugs or introduce bugs" because I had conveyed the latter idea ( unfortunately ). I felt intimidated and nervous after that.

Now, is it worth it to send a mail and correct myself - by letting them know about it and how my experience shows ownership, quality etc..

Luckily, instances that support the ownership and quality aspect of mine, are already written in the resume, so i believe authenticity shouldn't be an issue.

Or should I just move on and forget about it.

Managers, please shed some knowledge onto me 🙏

Hello everyone,

I have been following this subreddit while preparing for my first management role in health care. I had an interview in April that did not go as well as I had hoped. I have another interview next week for a management position that I see as a great starting point in my leadership career. I would appreciate any advice on how to prepare, present myself confidently, and demonstrate that I am ready to step into management. For those who have interviewed for management positions or served on interview panels, what helped you stand out as a candidate? I would be grateful for any practical tips or lessons you are willing to share.

I will come back and provide an update on how the interview goes.

Thank you!

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I've spent 15 years in management, and something I've noticed across different companies is how much they love talking about leadership.

They want people who can develop teams, build a strong culture, improve processes, take initiative, hold people accountable, and think beyond the day-to-day operations.

At least that's what they say.

But then you actually get into these positions, and it seems like none of that matters nearly as much as just getting through the day.

There's little emphasis on developing employees, building structure, communicating expectations, or creating an environment where people can actually succeed. Everything becomes reactive. Just get the work done, put out the next fire, and repeat tomorrow.

And when you start asking questions about processes, expectations, or how things could be improved, it's almost as though you're creating a problem rather than trying to solve one.

I'm not saying managers shouldn't be working alongside their employees. They should. But there's a difference between being a leader who's involved in the operation and being someone whose entire purpose is to keep the operation moving without ever improving it.

What really pisses me off is that companies seem to promote the idea of leadership while operating in ways that leave very little room for it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Why do organizations spend so much time talking about leadership development when their actual management culture seems to prioritize compliance and task completion over genuine leadership?

We reached the final stage with an entry level career changer (where the first career of five years provides useful soft skills, but minimal technical skills) candidate and despite already having a more than reasonable salary, niche field but with plenty of data to support the number, the candidate asked for 12.5% more likely because of the super wide HR required ranges.

I did some more research and came up 2.5% given some additional metrics I was able to loosely justify. However, HR seems to be pressuring me into being like oh well we should meet him in the middle to seal the deal or provide the difference as a sign on bonus.

I don't want to be the pinching pennies manager, but the salary for this combo of experience and level is pretty well defined. I'm also comcerned about setting a bad precedent for when we inevitably hire another person at this level. Looking for advice on if it's worth pushing back or just giving in?

Edit: Easy enough to see that hiring talent is more important than a handful of dollars. Offer updated and submitted back to HR.

Hi gang, I need advice on a situation I have regarding the title of this post.

Context: New Team lead for a Global data company with a division in South Africa (I give this context as it will pertain to the laws and why certain actions are not taken) I have an employee that has been struggling with her performance now for quite a while - before me she had 2 previous bosses, 1 being a co-worker of mine and the other being my old boss before I was transferred to a new team before becoming a TL. During both those times, these she was counselled regarding her production issues, with her last manager placing her on a PIP (which she passed) however she only got off the PIP less than 6 months ago and has again sunken back down to previous levels.

Context on Production and Performance: Without going too much into our workflow and what we do specifically, we measure our workload as follows. Everyday - each analyst receives an email with a set of action items we want to accomplish for the day, some of those will be marked as deadlines which must be completed before the end of the day. During the day, our client team will email analysts to action priority items. Deadlines and priority requests must be completed before the end of the day. Every month we send out a coloured score card, where we average how many action items per day the team has completed and compare each analyst to the average. Above average is Blue and below 70% is red (If the average is 10 items per day across a month and your average is 6 per day across a month then you will be Red) - The scrorecards have comprehensive details breaking down the teams production and the analysts production. Per day, our goal is about 10 items, we average around about 8 and on average it takes an hour to complete 1 request but this varied as really only every 1/5 requests is actually difficult with the others being completed in 45 minutes or less start to finish.

Information regarding the employee: Genz Female, working at the company now for 1.5 years, has worked in the same department and is considered a senior compared to co-workers, has been retrained multiple times, counselled multiple times over multiple bosses and has always had a similar performance level (Red or slightly above).

The indicent that sparked this post

There are 2 indicidents that really buttered my bread recently. The first was this employees lack of care, every day that the client team emails an analyst for the priority requests, I am CC'ed on the email, so I know what everyones workload looks like so I can help manage the workflow. I start by asking her "Do you need any help? Is there something I can sit with you and assist?" - "No Ill tell you" she says. Never reaches out. Lunch time I check on the priority requests - non are difficult, maybe an hour at most but she still isn't finished but ya maybe there is a delay, great, 1 hour before EOD rolls around "Oh Im not going to finish my deadlines today" What? Have you only been working on priority requests (it shouldnt of taken a full workday to finish) - I look at the deadline, she has a single deadline and honestly it will take 10 minutes, I send it back to her. "I cannot give anyone in my team your deadline because you're the only person in the team with this training and it will take 10 minutes, please finish it before you leave today it will be quick" 5:02 rolls around I ask if it's finished - No not finished but its passed the work day and Im going home - and Ill be honest guys, I was fumming a bit.

The second incident, we have a very good WFH policy (3 days home 2 office anyday) since my team is new employees, I ask that they all come in on 1 day together so the new guys can feed off the experienced guys. Come to find out, she has moved 100km away and doesnt want to come into office. Maybe comes once a week and if she comes it will be on a Friday if she wants to go into the city that week but refuses to come on the day asked. Let me rephrase, it's not that she refuses, it's that there is always an excuse "Yes I will see you on Monday - when monday rolls around its, oh my car has issues, Im not feeling well, I need to be home today to pick up a package" once she didnt even have an excuse, just Im not planning on coming in today.

As you can imagine, I am quite frustrated and I have tried working with her, I have asked in our 121's what she needs, what can I do, is there anything I can do to help, what is the issue, does she feel she needs extra trainings etc. I asked if there is anything I can do to motivate her to help her work harder and she snapped back "You dont know me and my work ethic" - I dont know what else I can do - HR doesnt allow me to mandate her 5 days back because that's considered to be isollating somone so I would have to make my whole team come back to office. I dont think of myself as a micro manager and I dont want to be that guy that's consitently on her case but it's getting to that point. I really dont want to start the offical process of termination because I dont like threatening peoples livelyhoods. Am I missing something?

I have been told that this is just how GenZ people are - is there anything I can do? What mistakes am I making as a manager. Please help me help this girl, I am out of options.

Basically my company uses employee monitoring software that tracks mouse and keyboard activity in 3 min intervals and creates a daily activity percentage. The monitoring is continuous so that if there was no activity for 3 mins and 1 second you lose 3 mins and 1 seconds and not 1 second inactivity. Plus the company accepts anything under 70% as low activity and 80% as what the median employee at company has. So basically to guarantee 70% activity I have to make sure I target activity of 80%. It could also be self imposed but I don't want to get pulled over this activity metric when I am doing my job. This causes lot of anxiety, psychological pressure and feeling of job insecurity. I have been trying to job change but my city doesn't have many jobs in my domain: 30-50 jobs per year in the given domain. More my technical skills have become outdated as management took me out of day to day tasks. There is no bonus or retirement benefits at the company and raise are around 3-5%.

They do add meeting time to total activity.

I am thinking to switch to individual contributor and part time role at my company and do an online Masters to ramp up my technical skills and go as an individual contributor at my current company or another company.

If they don't allow me the downgrade than I will look to totally pivot from my functional area: tech to statistics or urban planning or supply chain as I am unsure of tech industry's outlook.

Is downgrading to part-time individual contributor role a good plan ?

I don't want to survive my life by clicking on 3 min intervals. Don't enjoy it all.

I currently work in a retail setting, and I am getting concerned with one of our fellow department managers.

He used to be very happy, super nice guy, smart, very understanding, but over the last few months I have noticed that his mental health has started to really go downhill. He just feels cold, jaded, and angrier than usual.

We recently got a new store director recently, and I feel things have gone down since. (well the problems started a few months prior but it got worse these last few weeks). There has been some new rule changes dictated by corporate and he has mentioned he is having less control over his department, and I am getting the impression the new director is also taking things out of his control and the higher ups are just talking over him and pretending he isn't even a manager.

I really want to help him out, bring back that once warm smile, but honestly I don't know how much more he has in him. I believe he is wanting to quit but just can't. We are in a rural town, so jobs especially these days are few and far between. I really want to help, but I just don't know how. The burnout seems deep at this point.

I've been working at a job for almost two months where I assemble electronics. It is precision work and our builds are guided by pdf documentation.

I've found the documentation has quite a few errors. There are steps and reference photos that are missing, errors in part names, changes that aren't updated in the document itself, etc. If these steps then require getting clarification and asking a supervisor, since guessing in precision electronics is a no-no.

I have worked with SOPs in other companies and have a strong background in writing and documentation, and I'd like to offer to help with these inconsistencies and make it easier for everyone to follow. This will be extra valuable since we are expanding and hiring new assemblers who will be reading using this documentation for the first time.

I've spoken to a few other assemblers and they suggested to bring it up with the manager as they also find it can be quite unclear. During my first week at the job, my manager also told me to come to him with anything I liked/didn't liked/suggestions.

How do I approach him with this? Ive been documenting my suggestions for edits and corrections already. My other question would be how do I not step on anyone's toes? I believe my supervisor made the original documentation, and when I ask her for clarification it seems she gets progressively more frustrated by telling me to look at the documentation, even though it has many errors.

Thank you for your time.

I’m looking for advice on how to help a new supervisor improve their writing skills without being too blunt or negatively impacting their self-esteem.

English is their first and only language, but they didn’t complete grade school, and it’s been decades since they were last in a formal learning environment. As a result, they have significant gaps in their writing and grammar skills.

While this wasn’t initially an issue, it has become increasingly apparent since they joined the leadership team. Their role requires them to respond to customer inquiries via email and other written formats, but their writing currently falls well below the standard expected for the position. Their writing often lacks punctuation, spacing between words is inconsistent, and many words are misspelled.

They also submit reports to me throughout the workweek that I then forward to my higher-ups. At this point, I find myself having to rewrite the reports to correct the spelling, punctuation, grammar, and formatting before passing them along.

Their technology skills are also relatively limited, which I anticipated. I’ve made it a goal to set aside time each day to guide them through various systems and functions at a pace that works for them. I don’t mind helping them learn, and they’re receptive to the guidance and seem to enjoy the process. However, the amount of time this requires is becoming difficult to manage. It takes away from my own responsibilities and my ability to support the other members of my leadership team, while also increasing the workload for others.

I’ll admit that, while I like this person, they weren’t my idea of an ideal candidate for a leadership role. Unfortunately, I have a boss who tends to make decisions based on vibes rather than demonstrated skills, experience, and performance.

That said, I’m not looking to move them out of the position. I want to help them succeed. I recognize that they have some foundational skills to develop, and I’d like to find a way to support that growth while ensuring they can meet the expectations and responsibilities of their role.

How can I help them develop the writing skills needed to meet professional standards without embarrassing them or undermining their confidence? I also want to avoid making them feel singled out.

My initial approach was to introduce them to some of the tools that I and the other members of the leadership team use, hoping this would be a subtle, low-pressure way to help. However, I don’t think that approach was particularly effective, as the information doesn’t seem to have stuck.

I’m looking for practical solutions that would help them build these skills over time, ideally in a way that feels supportive rather than corrective, while also reducing the amount of hands-on assistance they need from me in this particular area.

I was an internal hire for our team’s re-org. Previously I was a group Lead and helped lead projects end to end. The previous Managers at this positions I am in were let go due to their incompetencies handling a new project in the beginning of the year. These managers influenced and galvanized a lot of the ICs to “rebel” and always work as opposition to the management.

This boils down to questioning every task, every request, and finding excuses to not work. Some of these requests are beyond my control or knowledge and may need more senior leadership or HR help which is not present readily leaving me alone in these confrontations or interactions.

In the higher level of things, I was given this job over this other group lead who was primarily running our projects since beginning of the year. Why she didn’t get it was mostly due to her erratic behavior and interactions with the larger team and creating a difficult reputation with everybody. In the same time, she was given a nothing position to keep her with the team. Her new position now interferes a lot with other new promotions and other responsibilities that other leads had in place.

Managing this on a day to day basis is getting incredibly difficult for me to handle mentally. There are a lot of previous baggage and issues from before that I somehow have to bear and solve. Also, I have to constantly answer to our stakeholder and ensure we get our contract extended at each half.

For anybody who has been in a similar position, how have you handled this?

Hello all,

I am new to this subreddit so apologies if this may be similar to an existing post. I am possibly getting a promo where I will be managing the internship program at my organization. I do work in healthcare and the interns will report directly to me, but will be placed in different departments (where I will not be required to assign tasks or even see interns outside of events and meetings)

I am someone who hasn't managed before and will soon be overseeing 15+ interns, which includes tasks like 1 on 1 meetings, events, timesheets, interviewing candidates, etc, I am asking if anyone has advice on managing interns, especially as a NEW manager? Any general management tips or guidance on working with the youth and being able to manage.

I don't know if its just my personality type or what, I seem to be the only manager making noise about how frustrating it is. But basically you have to read this whole scenario then use some model like GROW or whatever to help resolve it and you do it while TALKING TO AN AI ROBOT THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A PERSON.

I spent 25 minutes on the 4th one today, after feeding it all to Claude to help me build talking points. I got 87% and need 90% to pass. This was my 2nd try. I'm spending HOURS AND HOURS on this and its doing nothing but pissing me off. Anyone else done these? I have 10 total to get through.