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

1. Our exit interviews are emailed to all managers

I work for a small company with a one-person HR team. When a team member leaves the company by choice, the HR person conducts an exit interview. The transcription of the interview is then emailed to the entire management layer of the company — about a third of the company headcount — without any edits or redactions. Details of personal circumstances, raw feedback about supervisors or coworkers, all of it just out there in the open with names attached.

Many of us middle managers are horrified by this practice and object both on privacy grounds and because there is no clear indication that anything is being done to catalogue, analyze, or respond to the feedback provided in the exit interviews. What are the best practices around exit interviews, and how would you recommend middle management at my company press for something better?

Yeah, this is weird and a bad practice.

You don’t blast out raw exit interviews to a third of the company. I doubt the people who gave that feedback in their exit interviews would appreciate it being used that way — and if word gets out that that’s how they’re handled, exiting employees are going to start being way less candid.

Someone needs to be charged with assessing and synthesizing the info from exit interviews and identifying trends and areas for further evaluation or change; without that, there’s very little point to doing them at al.. Then, that should be shared with whoever has an actual need to know — generally HR and people in the management chain for whatever issues came up, not just “everyone gets to see all of it, all the time, regardless of relevance to them.” Often HR will share trends with the organization’s leadership quarterly, while addressing individual issues as they come up (such a manager needs more management training or a potential legal concern). But the best practice is to keep things as confidential as possible so that feedback can’t be connected with an individual person unless that’s unavoidable to get a problem addressed.

The way it’s being handled now is almost gossip-adjacent, rather than something being used constructively.

You and the other managers who are concerned should ask how the feedback is assessed and used beyond the email blasts you see, and then share the concerns above and propose more targeted use of the information. If you have some examples of sensitive issues that were shared far more widely than they needed to be, mention those and ask for the reasoning in doing that.

Here’s a decent article you could share on how employers can assess the data from exit interviews.

Related:
should I tell the truth in my exit interview?

2. How can I ask about AI use in a job interview?

I’ve started looking for another job for many reasons, but chief among them is my company’s increasing push for everyone to use AI (it’s gone from “this is a helpful tool to use as needed” to “we expect you to use this as much as possible” alarmingly fast). No judgment to those who use AI when needed but I personally try to limit my use as much as possible due to the environmental implications (and a small fear that I may one day be replaced with a robot).

What is the best way to ask a new company about how they’re using AI while you’re interviewing, both for the specific role and company- wide? In case it’s helpful context, I work in an admin/support role.

You can ask pretty directly: “I know AI is changing the way a lot of offices operate. Is it having an impact on the work of this role, and in the company more broadly?”

But the problem is exactly what you saw at the company you’re trying to leave: it can go from “this is a helpful tool to use as needed” to “we expect you to use this as much as possible” alarmingly fast. So the answer you get in an interview might not still be the case a couple of months from now.

You can still ask! You’d just want to be aware that that’s the case.

3. Do employers really distinguish between part-time and full-time work for years of experience?

Have you ever known employers to distinguish between part-time and full-time when checking experience requirements? I’ve never been asked this, but one of my part-time contracting gigs was disproportionately valuable in accruing apparent experience when life didn’t allow me to go full-time. So four years at 10 hours a month counts as four years of experience.

Rather than dropping out entirely to raise kids / go back to school / do a medical thing, why do more workers not just scale way back? (Or do they?)

Yes, some employers do distinguish between part-time and full-time work when they’re calculating how much experience you have, but it depends very much on the role, the type of experience, and how part-time you were — as well as whether they even know it was part-time because they might not.

I wouldn’t count 10 hours a month for four years as being the equivalent of four years of experience, but I’m also not deeply invested in calculating years of experience for most jobs; I’m more interested in your overall expertise. Years of experience can be a decent stand-in for that to some degree, but not the extent that I’d prioritize it over things like how deep your subject knowledge expertise is, the range of challenges you fielded / got exposed to during that time, and what you actually achieved in that time period. Someone could work 40 hours a week for 10 years and still not be better at the work than someone really talented who worked half-time for three years.

To the extent that employers are deeply focused on years of experience as an early-stage screening tool, you mainly see it with more junior-level jobs. A job that says they want two years of experience is communicating something about the general profile of candidate they’re seeking and that it’s not a new grad who interned for four hours a week for their last two years of college.

As to why more people don’t scale way back rather than dropping out of the workforce entirely when they have other things going on: one large reason is because there aren’t nearly as many part-time professional jobs available as people who would likely want them (particularly when you narrow it to their specific field).

Related:
how to calculate how much work experience you have

4. Does the Equal Pay Act apply if you’re both women?

My coworker recently referred her friend to a job opening on our team, and she was hired. As friends do, they compared their compensation numbers and found that the new hire was going to be paid more. They will have the same title and the same responsibilities. My coworker then went to her manager to address this discrepancy and was told that her compensation would not be brought up to match the new hire’s. I know this would be a legal issue if a man was being paid more for the same job, but since the issue is between two women, does the Equal Pay Act still apply? Does my coworker have any recourse to this obvious unfairness?

The Equal Pay Act only prohibits paying men and women differently for the same work; it does not apply if the differently paid employees are the same sex. That’s because the law’s goal isn’t salary parity in general; it’s specifically about sex discrimination.

So your coworker doesn’t have legal recourse, but she can still make the case for a raise based on her own performance and the new info she has now about the value of the work to the company. That said, she should also look at whether there might be legitimate reasons for her friend to be bought in at a higher salary, like a different or more advanced skill set, more experience, different education, stronger track record of achievement previously, etc.

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

1. I don’t want employees to give me gifts

I’ve just switched employers and am now heading up a company’s legal division. I value your advice to gift down, not up, but do you have any scripts on how and when to communicate this expectation to subordinates? I don’t want to sound like, “Listen up, peons! Spare me your humble offerings.” Nor do I want to say it so early that it feels like I was expecting them to shower gifts at my feet if I didn’t say something. And if someone ignores me and gives me a gift anyway, how should I handle that? I’m working remotely for a region of the country that’s very different culturally from my own, and I don’t want to inadvertently insult people or harm relationships with my excellent team in a place where gifting seems to be a part of the culture. For what it’s worth, I’m coming from government, where no-gifting-up expectations are clearly set in policy.

Are you mostly worried about this happening with year-end holiday gifts? If so, speak up in late November or early December and say something like, “This is the time of year when people think about holiday gifts, so I want to say up-front that just doing your jobs well is enough of a gift for me. Please spend your money on your family or yourself, and know that I’m grateful to have each of you on our team.” (It’s less weird if you can say this in the context of some other holiday-related announcement, so that it’s not its own stand-alone declaration.)

If you’re seeing a culture around things like birthday gifts, talk to whoever seems to organize them and explain that you don’t want them to organize something for you — and it’s okay to explicitly say, “I feel strongly that no one should feel even minor pressure to buy a gift for anyone in their chain of command.”

But if you do receive a gift from an employee despite this, it’s okay to accept it graciously as long as it’s not extravagantly expensive. You don’t want to make anyone feel bad (which will happen if you refuse to accept a gift); you just want to ensure no one feels obligated to buy you presents. If it is extravagant, you can say, “This was very kind of you! I feel really strongly that managers shouldn’t accept gifts because it can lead to people feeling pressured to provide them — I know you didn’t, but I worry about creating that culture. So I’m going to give this back to you so you can give it a loved one or use it yourself. The only gift I need from you is your good work, and I already have that!”

Also, aside from gifts to you, be alert for signs that anyone might feel pressured to contribute to gifts for others. If gifting is a big part of this office’s culture, I can almost guarantee that there are people who would prefer to keep their money — and that they’d be grateful if you worked to shift that piece of the culture once you’re more settled in.

2. My employee doesn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom

I am the head of a small organization. I have two in-office employees. We do work in-office most days, and our office space has a bathroom. All of us can hear when the toilet flushes, sink is running, etc. One of my employees clearly does not wash his hands after using the restroom — he’s in there only briefly, and the toilet flushes mere seconds before he emerges from the bathroom. This is gross.

If I put up a “wash your hands” sign, it will be awkward, given there are only three of us here and we work closely together and a new sign would be very pointed and unusual. I’m not sure a sign would change the behavior anyway. Do I need to have a personal conversation with the employee about this (also awkward)? Do I need to resign myself to vigorous hand sanitizing and Lysol spraying? How do I get over the thought of touching the copier, the stapler, the doorknobs, after my employee has, while knowing what he previously touched?

I am sorry to deliver this news because it is gross, but a significant portion of the people walking in around in the world don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, and you are touching things they have touched all the time when you’re out in public. Signs won’t stop it. You just need to know that’s how people are, and adjust your own behavior accordingly.

(It would be different if you were in food service; then you’d have an obligation to talk to him.)

3. Resumes that include info about gender identity or sexual orientation

This is admittedly, less of a question, and more of something I get concerned about as a manager reviewing resumes. I was advised by a peer to submit this to you in hopes that some hopeful applicants might see it and be more cautious.

I often have resumes from younger individuals that specifically advertise their gender identity or sexuality. While we are a progressive workplace, with many in-house accommodations and built-in support structures that allow team members to present as the gender and be open about the sexuality they are most comfortable with as they are comfortable expressing. That being said, we are located in a less progressive state, where it’s becoming increasingly fraught (while still illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ+ folk in the workplace).

It’s not my place to coach applicants who aren’t my staff, but I wish sometimes I could advise them to be a little more cautious about openly sharing this information — especially at a stage of the hiring process where a less scrupulous person could still choose to discard their resume under the guise of a more “acceptable” reason.

Most often, candidates who do this are doing it intentionally because they want to screen out employers and hiring managers where it’s more likely to be an issue. It’s a way to screen for inclusive workplaces. It’s not infallible, of course, but it’s better than doing no screening and hoping for the best.

4. How much notice should I give before retiring?

How much notice should I give before retiring? Is a standard two weeks enough?

For context, I just got a big promotion in December and I have been leading a newly formed team since January. I am only 54 so I think this move is going to be a surprise, and I feel bad about leaving the team at a formative time. I also have a great relationship with my boss and I hate to put her in a difficult position. But for a variety of reasons, I’ve determined that retiring in September is the right thing for me to do.

Given the circumstances, is it better to give my boss a heads-up well in advance, or should I just stick with the standard two weeks?

It comes down entirely to this: do you trust your boss and your employer not to push you out earlier than you want to leave? And if they did, how much of a problem would it be for you?

If you think that they’ll be grateful for early notice and won’t push you out earlier than September (or if you wouldn’t mind much if they did), go ahead and give them a couple of months of notice if you feel comfortable doing that. But if you don’t trust them on that, or if it would be disastrous if they did, stick with two weeks. You’d be giving two weeks for other types of departures, so it’s not a terrible crime to do that here too.

Keep in mind, too, that “push you out earlier than September” doesn’t have to mean something dramatic like they blow up and tell you to leave immediately. It can look more like initial gratitude for the heads-up, followed a few weeks later by, “We found the perfect replacement but she would need to start immediately so let’s set your end date for sooner” or, “Since we’re about to launch a bunch of new projects, it doesn’t make sense to have you start them and then leave soon after, so it makes more sense to move your ending date up.” I would be particularly concerned about those since you’re still pretty new in the position and, in their eyes, may still be getting acclimated to it.

Related:
how much notice should you give when you resign?

5. Interviewing in the third trimester of pregnancy

I’m currently job searching for a fall start date. Job searching in the spring for a fall start is normal in my industry, although some companies will make offers in March and others might not make offers until June. I find myself in a sticky situation with timelines, because I am in my third trimester of pregnancy, and due in six to eight weeks. I look pregnant, but most people who see me think I am five or maybe six months pregnant — so I seem earlier in the pregnancy than I am.

My current job is a one-year position ending in September, but I will be able to take my full maternity leave at this job. My plan is to return to it for one month before moving to a new job, should I land one. I have had some great first round virtual interviews, with two different kinds of responses — some companies want me to come in ASAP for in-person interviews, and some want to wait until late May or early June for in-person interviews (when I will likely be giving birth/freshly postpartum).

For companies that want to interview me ASAP, I am considering volunteering information during the interview about completing my leave at the current job and not needing a delayed start or maternity leave from the new job, because people may not realize that is my timeline based on my appearance. Is this a good idea? I know there is no way to avoid implicit bias now that I’m visibly pregnant, so I’m hoping to get ahead of the timeline concerns that may pop up. And for companies that seem inclined to take things slow, is there anything I can say without disclosing my pregnancy that would help them realize I cannot wait that long to interview? I did not say anything in the interviews when I was told this because I did not know how to respond, so I’m afraid I will now look panicked or unprofessional.

I’m fairly junior in my field and many women in the field choose to delay pregnancy for 5+ years beyond where I am to avoid being thought of as unserious. But I do love my career, I am incredibly serious about it, and it is my passion. I am afraid that my otherwise strong candidacy will be overlooked due to my pregnancy.

Yes, for the companies interviewing you in-person, it’s smart to share your plans and timeline because they’re going to be reluctant to ask (since they can’t legally factor your pregnancy into the hiring decision).

For the companies moving more slowly, since you know you won’t be able to interview in late May/early June, you might as well put it on the table now: share that you’re pregnant and when you’re due and that you’re planning to finish your leave before you’d be starting with them. They might not be willing or able to interview you any earlier, but they might.

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

1. My boss punished me for an HR investigation on her way out the door

A little over a year ago, I started in a new workplace. Things seemed great at first — much less stress and a more regular schedule than my previous job, great coworkers, and when I had a significant health scare requiring multiple surgeries (I’m fine now) shortly after starting, my manager was really supportive. As the honeymoon period waned, however, it became clear that there were a lot of serious boundary issues with our manager — lots of “we’re a family” style issues. Inappropriate, boundary-crossing things were being said, things that made a lot of jaws hit the floor when recounted. Long story short is that I ended up reaching out to HR, with the support and knowledge of most of my peer-level coworkers. The hope from me had been she would get coaching around professionalism (like not asking invasive personal/medical/sexual questions of employees during staff meetings).

There was an investigation, and my manager sort of spiraled. She revoked several privileges (like flexible work) suddenly (for most people, but notably not for everyone). And she would lash out emotionally about perceived slights, and made at least one person cry. Based on the way she channeled her aggression, it seemed like she was working through the people she suspected of reporting her.

Fast forward a few months, and she announced that she was leaving. I was already scheduled to take an approved vacation during her last week in the office. When I returned, she was gone and she had submitted my annual review in my absence, which included rating me as “approaching expectations” (as opposed to meeting) across multiple categories, saying that my “interpersonal conflicts are a distraction to [me] and the team” and that I don’t take constructive criticism well. This was about a week ago.

I think she received some kind of confirmation that I reported her, and I am pissed. I feel like I have no recourse because she is gone. If she was still here I would ask, in good faith, for examples, because I try to be open to the possibility that there is room for improvement. But I have never had an “interpersonal conflict” with anyone at work except for my decision to report to HR, and I cannot think of a single instance of criticism she provided, constructive or otherwise!

Do you think there’s anywhere to go with this? I feel like this was retaliatory, but she doesn’t work here anymore. And I worry that bringing it up with upper management will just be held against me. Do I just need to breathe deeply, move on, and try to start fresh with a new manager when/if they ever hire someone?

Go back to HR and say this: “I’m concerned that Linda’s annual review of me was intentionally retaliatory because of my report about her to you. She had seemed very upset ever since the investigation, began revoking various privileges for people, and lashed out at multiple team members. The review is so out of sync with the feedback she’s given me previously that — with some of it objectively incorrect — that I’m concerned it was retaliation for my report and the subsequent investigation. I’m not sure how to handle this since she’s now gone, but I’m concerned about having this in my personnel file when it’s false.”

Related:
my boss retaliated against me in my performance evaluation after I talked to H.R.

2. My manager keeps firing people without any warning

My job employs a lot of part-timers, mostly younger people with little to no previous work experience. I’m one of several supervisors. Our main job is to support the part-timers, but our manager regularly asks for our input on things like hiring, policy changes, training, etc.

My manager is normally very good, and I’ve described her as the best boss I’ve ever had many times. She’s great at keeping multiple plates spinning, training new people effectively, project management, and giving good feedback. Unfortunately, the late-2024 federal funding cuts have hit us hard and compounded with other problems to result in my department running on a skeleton crew for months now. My manager has gotten noticeably more snappish, impatient, and overworked as a result. I’m full-time and grateful to be employed at all, especially since I’ve been looking for new jobs with no interviews for about a year, so I’ve been grinning, bearing it, and repeating, “That’s what the money’s for” to myself when she occasionally treats me somewhat unfairly out of stress.

However, she’s fired multiple part-timers over email with no warning since January. I think it’s unfair, arbitrary, and unnecessary. All of the people who were fired had attendance issues that are fireable offenses, but there are other workers with worse attendance who haven’t been fired because they’ve been here longer and/or my manager feels bad for them. I do too, but my manager has had months of in-person and email conversations with one employee warning her that she needs to hit a minimum amount of shifts with no improvement. The people who were fired got, at most, a vague hint over email that we needed them to shore up their attendance. There was never a face-to-face conversation with our manager making it clear that their jobs were on the line if they kept skipping shifts.

Do you have any ideas for ways I could pump the brakes on this fire-by-email trend, keeping in mind I have no hard power here? And should I start trying to warn employees with shaky attendance that our manager might fire them with little to no warning? On one hand, I want to keep out of the line of fire and just get my work done without making my boss think I’m trying to undermine her. On the other hand, I think our casual office culture has lulled some part-timers into a false sense of security, and these are undergrads without much work experience who might not realize that skipping shifts or even entire weeks of work is a lot more serious than skipping class. On a third hand, I’m busy enough as it is and about to get busier, so I don’t really want to throw yet another responsibility into the mix.

Talk to your manager! It shouldn’t take a huge amount of capital if you approach it as wanting what’s best for the organization, rather than taking issue with her judgment. Frame it as, “I know we’ve had to fire a bunch of people for attendance issues lately, and I think part of the problem is that we have so many people without much work experience who don’t yet understand what a big deal it is. Could we more explicitly warn people when their attendance is an issue? It might let us solve the issues without ultimately having to fire them, which would help lower the strain from the turnover.”

But also, yes — as a supervisor you should definitely be talking to employees about attendance expectations, even if your manager isn’t. You know she has specific attendance expectations (as most jobs would!), whether or not she’s going to talk to them about it — so if you see people running afoul of those, you should name it and let them know it’s a problem. You don’t need to say, “Jane might fire you with little to no warning”; you can say, “Reliably showing up when you’re scheduled is a requirement for keeping your job, and it’s something we do fire people over.” As a supervisor, you have the standing — and, I’d argue, the obligation — to have those conversations.

Related:
should you warn an employee before firing her?

3. I’m continually passed over for the higher-level responsibilities we discussed when I was hired

I have been in my role as office manager and EA to the CEO for six years. Prior to taking this role, I was second-in-charge at my workplace, and functionally in a COO role. I took a step down when accepting my current role as it’s a more interesting industry and allowed better flexibility.

When taking the role, the CEO and COO talked about training me into the COO role, particularly as she was planning on taking long service leave. However, every time I have asked to learn parts of her role, it’s been pushed back or ignored (e.g., “oh yes, maybe,” then nothing).

This week I asked if I would be covering her role while she is on long service leave and was told that another team member would be doing it. The CEO seemed suprised that I was interested in doing it. I have definitely made it clear in all my reviews that I’m interested in getting back into a more executive role.

I consistently receive positive feedback on my work from the CEO and COO. I regularly ask if there is anything I need to improve, and am always told they are very happy. I’m not sure what to do now. I like where I work, but it seems like I will not be given the chance to improve my career.

You need to ask her about it directly: “When I was hired, you and Jane talked about training me into the COO role since I was doing that role in my previous job. Is that still something you’re open to and, if so, what kind of timeline do you envision for that happening?”

Since it’s been six years with no movement on it, it’s possible that she doesn’t even remember those conversations. If that’s the case, just saying in your review that you’re interested in moving back in that direction won’t necessarily solve it; it will be more effective to very clearly lay out what the original discussion was and ask if it’s still on the table.

It’s possible that it’s not, for all sorts of reasons (anything from they’ve pigeonholed you into the job you’re now in to their thinking on who they’d want in that role having changed in the years since the original discussion). But if that’s the case, you need to find out so you can decide if you want to stay under those circumstances or if you’d be better off looking outside the organization.

4. Glassdoor is making you link your account with Indeed

Remember how we were so annoyed a while back when Glassdoor started making you add your real contact information to keep your account? Apparently now they have been bought by Indeed, and they are forcing you to connect your accounts. I didn’t even have an Indeed account, and it wouldn’t allow me to log into Glassdoor until I made one. You then have to search through settings to opt out of letting company “job posters” on Indeed have access to your Glassdoor account information! It’s opt OUT!

Clearly some boneheaded exec either has it in for Glassdoor as a concept or really does not understand the point of it. I’m going to have to delete my account and make a new one under a fake name now. Why do they have to make everything terrible??

What the actual F. Anonymity is essential for Glassdoor to work so what a terrible and nonsensical policy that drains Glassdoor of most of its utility.

5. Can I ask for a start date two months away?

I work in an industry where giving a month’s notice is expected from managers. After years of working in a very intense job, I’m considering a move to greener pastures. But wondering how to negotiate the latest date possible. If possible, I’d love to have a month off between jobs to truly rest, recharge, and see my extended family. Doing so would give employers two months wait for my start date. Is that possible and how do I ask without sounding as burnt out as I feel?

In a lot of jobs, you can ask for a start date two months out. Some will have the flexility to agree to that and some won’t, but it’s a thing people ask for, particular with more senior-level jobs. You’d simply say, “I’m expected to give my employer a month’s notice, and I’m hoping to take some time off to recharge before starting with you. I can be flexible if needed, but would a start date of X work on your end?”

Related:
how do I negotiate my start date at a new job?