my employee tears down other people, why can’t I work remotely if everyone else does, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager .
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. My employee tears down other people’s work to make themselves look better
I’ve been having difficulty coaching one of my employees. This is their first office job and they are having difficulty understanding appropriate conduct in this environment. Lately, they’ve been criticizing others’ work to make themselves look better.
They recently asked for a raise, which they deserve! In doing so, they compared their work to a coworker in another department who is making slightly more, and made the case that they work harder and have made more progress than him. It really rubbed me the wrong way that they would call someone else’s work into question to make themselves look better! I did tell them that was not appropriate in the moment, but it’s not clear that they understood the issue. In other instances, they’ve made comments about others’ work along the lines of “well, if I were doing that I would do X, which is much more efficient” or “when I did Y, it never took me that long.”
Each time I try to discourage this, it seems like they listen, but get defensive. It then shows up again in similar ways a couple weeks later. I’m concerned that this tendency to tear down others for personal gain is seriously going to hurt their career. How do I get through to someone who isn’t taking the invitation to reflect on their behavior?
If it were just the first example — comparing their work to a higher-paid coworker when asking for a raise — that’s not necessarily inappropriate. Pay parity is an important issue, and people need to be able to point out inequities in your salary structure (especially if there are race or gender differences, at which point “I’m contributing at a higher level than Brian but earning less” is particularly relevant).
But the broader picture you’ve painted with their other comments does sound concerning. How clear and direct have you been when you’ve told them they need to stop tearing down others? If you’ve softened the message in an attempt to be kind (which managers frequently do), it’s time to have a more serious conversation where you name the problem (with examples) and clearly say it can’t continue. If it still continues after that, I’d be skeptical you can solve it through coaching (at least not in the amount of time you could reasonably devote).
I’m also curious about their work outside of this. Is this the only area where they’re getting defensive and not taking feedback? This kind of thing often goes hand-in-hand with other problems, so I’m curious what else you’re seeing in their work habits and their relationships with colleagues.
2. Why can’t I work remotely if everyone else on my team does?
I work on a team that is almost all fully remote. I happen to live near our company’s office so I go in on a hybrid schedule, but many of the rest of us are scattered all across the country. The company makes a big deal in its job postings and promotion about how it is remote-friendly.
My coworkers and I all have the same title and do the same job. All of the job’s tasks can be done fully remotely with one exception: Every so often (like once every 1-2 months) we all have to physically assess a prototype — this can’t be done remotely. When my remote coworkers need to do this, our company will fly them to the office and put them up in a hotel nearby. If the employee can’t make that work with their schedule, the company will (very occasionally) ship the prototype and necessary equipment out to them.
Some of my family members live across the country, and I’d really like to move near them at some point in the near future. I would maintain a permanent address in my current state so that taxes and such wouldn’t be a problem. I floated this idea to my manager a few weeks ago, not as a formal request, but in a “I’ve always dreamed of doing X — do you see it being feasible?” sort of way, and she didn’t seem thrilled about it. She mentioned that it was so nice to have me so close to the office for prototype assessments, and said she’d have to check with X and Y person to see whether our budget could cover my travel.
I do understand that my making this move would increase our team’s expenses. However, I can’t help but feel like not allowing me to move or asking me to cover my own travel to the office would be unfair. Almost all of my teammates have the privilege of living wherever they want and having their travel to the office covered. It seems to me unjust that this option wouldn’t be open to me solely because I wasn’t remote when I was hired. Do you think I’m missing something?
It’s possible that they have legitimate work reasons for wanting at least one local team member, and that having you be that person has allowed them to offer fully remote work to everyone else. When you go in on your hybrid schedule, do you ever do anything in the office that would be tough to do if you were remote, aside from the prototypes that everyone flies in for? If so, that’s likely what’s driving your boss’s reaction.
Otherwise, though, you might ask if they plan to keep your slot on the team local regardless of who is in it — like if you leave at some point, would they only hire a local replacement who could work your hybrid schedule? Or would they consider remote candidates too, as they’ve apparently done for the rest of the team? If it’s the latter, then they’d be being really short-sighted by refusing to let you move.
All that said, your boss didn’t say no; she just said she’d need to look into getting your travel expenses covered. It’s not unreasonable for her to need to find that out before giving you a real answer, since it’s presumably not budgeted for currently. So I wouldn’t assume this is a no, especially since she thinks it’s still a hypothetical “I’ve always dreamed about this” question.
One other thing to be aware of: I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “I would maintain a permanent address in my current state” but taxes are based on where you’re actually living and working. Using an address for taxes in a different state than the one you’re spending most of your time in would be illegal for both you and your company.
3. Can I pass on a volunteer who’s only interested if they eventually get paid?
I work for a nonprofit and we rely heavily on volunteers. It’s actually part of our mission — to build a movement by involving volunteers in our work. These volunteers do a wide range of things, some of which require significant professional skills and qualifications and others which can be done by anyone interested. Sometimes we have something that we absolutely need and we hire a freelancer or consultant; sometimes we manage to find a volunteer for that same kind of project. We have a small communications team and some limited capacity for in-house creative work, but we do often look for outside help. We had a volunteer develop branding guidelines for us, and another redesign the homepage of our website.
I am looking for a volunteer to do some video editing, and today I interviewed someone who had said they were interested. In the interview, after it became clear that our project lined up with their skills, they said they would be interested in volunteering, but only if they could get a commitment that if we liked their work, we would hire them on a freelance basis moving forward. It got me thinking — I hear so much on the internet from people, particularly creative workers, about being asked to do things for free, for “exposure,” and I absolutely understand why that would be frustrating, so I sympathize with this volunteer. But on the other hand, I don’t think it would be hard to find someone who truly wants to do this on a volunteer basis (I already had another interview lined up next week for the project). We do often have people excited to do things as a volunteer, from a wide variety of professional backgrounds, and it feels weird to say that someone with a creative background could spend their times stuffing envelopes for us, but not making a more beautiful card to put in those envelopes. How do I balance wanting to respect the time and expertise of designers and artists with our volunteer-heavy model? Can I just pass on this volunteer with a clear conscience because this arrangement wouldn’t work for us?
Yes, you can pass on this volunteer simply because the arrangement wouldn’t work for you. Nonprofits often use volunteers for things they could hire freelancers for, generally because they have limited budgets; that’s pretty much built into much of the sector. And in your case, since part of your mission is to build a volunteer movement, it makes even more sense that you’d prioritize using volunteers when you can.
That doesn’t mean that you don’t respect the time and expertise of designers and artists. That would be true if you were pressuring people to do free work for your organization, guilting people who want to be paid for their work, or being shocked if you couldn’t find volunteers for the things you need. As long as you are up-front from the very beginning (including in ads or first contact with potential volunteers) that the work you are advertising/recruiting for is unpaid and respect it when someone declines, you’re fine.
4. Disclosing medical status when applying to medical-cause organizations
Is it appropriate to disclose that you have a certain medical condition when applying to an organization that focuses on that condition? Say you suffer from chronic llamapox, and you’re applying to work at the National Llamapox Foundation. Should you bring up that you have llamapox in your application? I’ve always thought that lived experience can be a legitimate qualification for a job like that (especially if you’re in a role like patient outreach, as opposed to something like bookkeeping) … but are organizations even legally allowed to consider that information?
Yes — this is an exception because you’re showing a personal connection to their mission. Employers are allowed to consider that you have personal experience with the issue they work on, and often that can be a real bonus when they’re hiring.
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