Ask a Manager

weekend open thread – February 14-15, 2026

by Alison Green on February 13, 2026

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: Green Dot, by Madeleine Gray. Bored out of her mind in a job as a comment moderator, a young woman trying to figure out life gets sucked into an affair with an older, married colleague. You will be infuriated with her choices, but it’s smart and funny and it will make you so, so glad to no longer be 24. (Amazon, Bookshop)

* I earn a commission if you use those links.

open thread – February 13, 2026

by Alison Green on February 13, 2026

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

my boss thinks our obnoxious coworker is funny, medical tech proselytized to me, and more

by Alison Green on February 13, 2026

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

1. A medical tech repeatedly proselytized to me

An experience I had recently with a medical provider has me wondering if what I felt to be inappropriate and unprofessional is a behavior worth raising with my doctor, who owns the practice.

I live in area of the south where most people assume that everyone is Christian and believes in God — the kind of place where wishing someone “Happy Holidays” is likely to result in a tonally aggressive reply of “Merry Christmas.” Usually I let religious speak in various businesses just roll off me.

I recently underwent TMS treatment for chronic, major depression. As part of that, I received 36 treatments that required me to go to my psychiatrist’s office every weekday for five-minute sessions with one of the techs. Early in the treatment, the tech would reference God and how he helped her, and I just let it ride and wouldn’t engage. But by the final two weeks, she escalated to asking me about my own beliefs. I eventually told her I’m not religious. She spent the next few sessions telling me that if I would just let God into my life, that would make all the difference. I expressed discomfort with the topic (clearly and directly), but she persisted.

So my question is whether this is worth mentioning to the psychiatrist on my next visit. This is most definitely not a religiously-affiliated practice. Part of me feels terrible about the idea of getting her in trouble. I do believe she meant well. Plus, I have to go to the office every few months and will likely encounter her as she is in the front office when not administering treatments. So that could be awkward. But I’m also highly annoyed that I was repeatedly proselytized to while essentially a captive audience. What do you think? Would you want this behavior reported to you if it were your employee?

Without any doubt whatsoever, I would strongly want to know about it! In fact, I would be horrified if I found out this had been going on and no one had told me. Hopefully your doctor feels the same way.

The tech is representing the medical practice and the doctor; she’s not there to proselytize, and you’re not there to be proselytized to. It would be wildly inappropriate under any circumstances, but the fact that she persisted after you asked her to stop makes it even worse.

Tell your doctor what happened. Say it was frequent and persistent, and she didn’t stop after you asked her to, and say that you don’t come there to be proselytized at.

2. My boss thinks our obnoxious, racist coworker is funny

My workplace has become increasingly toxic due to poor management and enabling of inappropriate behavior. Our manager is a bully who operates by singling out team members while cultivating favorites and gossiping about colleagues. Her current favorite is Ryan, a 25-year-old man in his first professional role who has been with the team for two years. While Ryan is fundamentally a nice person, he lacks professional maturity. The rest of the team consists of women at least twice his age, some of whom actively encourage his behavior because they want to be in his good graces.

Because Ryan is protected by our manager, he faces no consequences for increasingly disruptive behavior:
* Constant crude humor (fart jokes throughout the day)
* Physical pranks (lowering colleagues’ chairs while they’re working)
* Graphic discussions of his sex life
* Showing explicit images to female colleagues
* Making racist and anti-immigrant comments

When I’ve tried to address this, some colleagues tell me I’m being “uptight” and that he “improves the vibe.” Our manager witnesses much of this behavior and either laughs along or gives him minimal warnings. I’m concerned that making a formal complaint will result in workplace retaliation, both from the manager and from colleagues who see Ryan as popular.

How can I professionally address his behavior without isolating myself or becoming a target?

How’s your HR? Ideally you’d report what’s happening to HR (meaning both Ryan and your manager) and specifically say that you’re concerned about retaliation from your manager and coworkers for reporting it, and ask them to take clear steps to ensure that doesn’t happen. Legally, they’re obligated to do that; permitting a manager to retaliate against an employee for making a good-faith report of harassment or discrimination is illegal — and employment lawyers will tell you that retaliation can be a lot easier to prove than harassment or discrimination is. But companies break the law in this area all the time, so you’d want to have some idea of how your company’s HR handles things.

If HR isn’t an option, the other option is to call it out in the moment and not be deterred by coworkers saying you’re too uptight. Sample language:
* “I don’t want to hear about your sex life. Please stop talking about it.”
* “Don’t use language like that around me.”
* “That’s an awful thing to say.”
* “You could hurt someone doing that, and you’re putting the company at legal risk.”
* “If you show me photos like that again, I’ll ask HR to tell you to stop.”
* “This is getting really boring.”

But there’s no way to push back on Ryan that guarantees you won’t become a target yourself, particularly with the sort of manager you described. Can you work on getting out of there?

For what it’s worth, I’m pretty skeptical that Ryan is a nice person.

3. When the reference-checker is an employee I fired

At a former job, two employees on my team were Philip and Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s work was okay, but she was a toxic personality and I ended up terminating her employment. (There is of course more to this story but it isn’t relevant to my question.) Philip and Elizabeth were peers and I believe got on fine. Philip was a great employee. He and I have since also both left for other companies.

Philip reached out asking me to be a reference for a new job, and I am very happy to do so. However I just heard from the recruiter with his potential new employer and the person they want to set me up to talk about Philip with is Elizabeth, who now works there. I fired her not quite two years ago, and I absolutely do not want to talk to her. Nor can I imagine she’d want to talk to me. And I don’t want to harm Philip’s chances. He knows I fired Elizabeth but not any specifics.

What do I do? I’m leaning toward telling the recruiter I’m happy to recommend Philip but Elizabeth and I have a negative history. But obviously this employer must like Elizabeth so I’m concerned anything I say will reflect badly on Philip. Tell Philip he should find another reference? Help!

I agree with your instincts! Tell the recruiter that you enthusiastically recommend Philip but that you have a complicated history with Elizabeth, having worked together in the past, and so you wonder if there’s someone else there who you could offer the reference to instead.

If the recruiter says Elizabeth is the only option — well, ideally you’d suck it up and do it … but if you think that’s likely to harm Philip’s chances, then at that point you should lay it out for him and ask how he’d like to handle it. Sample language for that: “I’m happy to give anyone who asks a glowing reference for you but, between the two of us, there’s some tension between Elizabeth and me, and I don’t want that to hurt your chances at this job. Would you like me to go ahead and talk to her, or would you rather give them someone else to speak to?”

4. Does “don’t take a counteroffer” apply when both offers are internal?

I really appreciated the post that gathered all of your advice on counter offers together in one place! I’ve been curious whether your advice changes when the second offer is an internal one?

How do you approach things when you’ve been holding out for and/or been promised a promotion or a new role
that’s taking forever to materialize — but accepting an interview (or getting an offer, keep your fingers crossed for me!) in another department gets your current leader to make the dangled promised position materialize? Do the same principles apply as when it’s two companies vying for you?

A lot of the same principles apply: you still want to ask yourself why it took you being ready to leave for your manager to get it together for you, and whether it’ll be a similar battle to get other things you’ve earned in the future. And the same caveats apply about making sure they’re really going to follow through on their promises, not resume dragging their feet once the immediate crisis of you leaving is averted. The piece that can be different is that your company is less likely to see you as “disloyal” (a ridiculous concept regardless) — but you should weight the other factors pretty heavily.

my job offer fell through after I’d already resigned (and when I was about to move)

by Alison Green on February 12, 2026

A reader writes:

I was offered a job last week, which was going to require a 2.5-hour move. I accepted as it’s a field I love and a company ownership I had worked for previously, just not at this location.

Yesterday the job fell through because the expected job salary budget didn’t come through. At all. I had been waiting on paperwork to 100% make my hiring official. I even had a start date, which had been reiterated last week when they were waiting for the national leadership to send over the papers.

I am lucky that I was able to reverse my resignation at my current job. I’m also lucky that I figure I’m only out about $100. I had applied for and been accepted for an apartment but hadn’t signed a lease or even set up a moving truck.

Since I am not out much, I am naturally going to move on and merely grouse about the experience (they only let me know with a single text that the position was canceled!). But could I have had any recourse had I been out more money?

Oh no.

As a general rule, it’s best never to give notice at your existing job until the new job is 100% official, meaning that any paperwork has been signed and all contingencies are removed. Even then, something like this can still happen, but waiting lowers the risk of it.

As for legal recourse if you had been out more money or if you had actually moved: in most states you wouldn’t have legal recourse unless you could show the employer had operated with deliberately fraudulent intent.

There is a legal concept called “detrimental reliance,” where you would argue that you had relied on their offer to your detriment. Generally, though, courts mostly haven’t sided with those claims (largely because since employment is at-will, you also could have been fired on your first day without legal recourse). That said, if you ever were in a situation where you were out a significant sum of money — or if you had already moved — it could be useful to talk with an employment lawyer to get their take.

An additional option you’d have in that situation would be to tell the employer that you’d relied on their offer and start date in good faith and lost $X as a result, and ask them to make it right. Their offer might have used language that would protect them from any legal obligation to make you whole (especially if it was clear things were not yet finalized), but it would be reasonable to try.

animals at work

by Alison Green on February 12, 2026

Over the years, we’ve had many letters about animals at work. Here are some of them.

my employee doesn’t think we’re doing enough about bears at work (and the update)

people only ask me about the ducks I work with (with a video in the update!)

the pumpkin-eating cat

my office got us turtles to take care of and bring home on weekends

my office is infested with wasps

our building is full of bats, sewer smells, moths, and more

an unexpected office bird

how much can I pet my cat on video calls? (and the update)

my colleague is allergic to me because of my cats

actual llamas

head of HR is waging a pressure campaign to make me adopt a puppy

my VP of HR says my service dog is too small (and the update)

I bring my dog to work — but an anonymous note asked me not to

my company wants to sponsor me for a service dog, but I’m not sure I should accept (and the update)

my boss’s dog rampages through our work gatherings

the secret goat, the geese vs the CEO, and other stories of animals at work

here are animals taking over home offices

here are your animal coworkers (and part 2)

the cats of AAM

And we’ve had so many letters involving dogs at work (not all included above) that I created a whole new tag just for them.

let’s discuss workplace romance gone wrong … and right

by Alison Green on February 12, 2026

It’s Valentine’s Day on Saturday so let’s talk about workplace romance. Did you spot coworkers having a secret affair without realizing how obvious they were being? Did your boss date your dad and try to get you to go to couples therapy with them? Did you spend a ton of time mediating between two employees who hated each other and then they ended up dating? Was your coworker always making out with his girlfriend at work? Did your colleague leave a rambling, drunken message for his secret office girlfriend — but accidentally leave it on the boss’s voicemail instead?

Let’s discuss workplace romance gone both wrong and right.

boss surveyed the entire staff on my work after 90 days, new desks will be in an unsecured area, and more

by Alison Green on February 12, 2026

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

1. Our new work stations will be outside our building’s security screening

I work in a government office, in a building that does full security screening of every person who comes in, with metal detectors and an x-ray machine for their bags. My department does some cashiering.

As part of renovations to the building, they are adding cashier stations to our office that will be pre-security, meaning people can come directly to us off the street with no screening. We’re assured these stations will operate as check-only, no cash, but I’m still nervous about doing this. I’ve expressed my concerns but have been told our department doesn’t have a choice, and we’ll just have to try it.

Do you think it’s reasonable to refuse to man these stations? And if I do so, what is the most professional language I can use?

Can you band together with coworkers and push back as a group? One person refusing to staff those stations is more likely to hear, “Well, it’s a requirement of the job so you’ve got to decide if you want to stay in it or not,” whereas a group of you all pushing back will have more power.

In doing so, you might point out that the fact that the building has that level of security indicates there’s reason to think there’s a need for it, and you and other cashiers shouldn’t be randomly excluded from those safety measures.

2. My boss surveyed the entire staff on my work after 90 days

After 10 years with my organization, I was thrilled to accept a big job as a division director. Among the department’s directors, I was relatively junior; however, leadership insisted that all they wanted was for me to be successful. I was new to the department and had not worked with anyone in it previously.

About 90 days in, my boss informed me that he’d circulated a survey to the entire staff (including the 20 employees who reported to me and 20 others who were not in my chain of command) to gain insights on “areas warranting additional focus” on my part. I thought that kind of feedback would be useful and said so.

The results of the survey were all over the place. More concerning, a couple respondents consistently left really vicious and in some cases wholly untrue comments about my conduct, professionalism, and qualifications for the work, to the majority of questions.

Before presenting me with the results, division leadership fed all the comments through ChatGPT to create a summary. When I requested the original responses, I could tell by their writing styles that three who reported to me made negative comments or false statements about me or my performance. A few others used the survey as an opportunity to air grievances about the division in general, including problems that had long pre-dated me and couldn’t possibly be resolved in under 90 days. So, the summary skewed heavily negative. Unfortunately, this was all leadership was able to focus on.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but ultimately, given the lack of support offered to me both before and after the survey, I chose to resign, and haven’t looked back.

How typical is it for team members to be asked to do a formal evaluation of their new director within 90 days of their start? I’ve worked professionally for over 15 years and was never asked to offer feedback about any of my supervisors. Is this an unusual practice?

It’s very normal to ask around about how things are going with a new manager; the new manager’s manager should be doing that, so that they hear about how things are playing out on the ground that they otherwise might not see. It’s much less usual to do it via an anonymous survey that apparently made it easy for people with an axe to grind against the organization to grind it against you simply because it was a chance to air broader grievances.

But what’s more problematic is that your leadership then just accepted that feedback unquestioningly and passed it on to you without getting more info or applying their own judgment to it. Part of the reason for managers to have actual conversations when gathering feedback about this kind of thing is so they can bring their own judgment to bear on what they’re hearing, as well as being able to probe when something seems surprising or off.

3. Two of us left and only one person is getting a leaving gift

Last week I left my job for one in another department within the same organization, and left on really good terms with my current team: leaving tea, cake, card, and promises to stay in touch.

As I’ve not yet been taken off the department mailing list, today I got copied into a message laying out details for another colleague’s (Tessa’s) departure: saying that there would again be a leaving tea, there was a card in the office to sign … and a link to an optional collection pot for a gift for the entire department to contribute to.

Logically I know I shouldn’t expect a leaving gift. I didn’t expect a gift! I was perfectly happy without a gift! And now I’ve seen my colleague is getting a leaving gift when I didn’t and, if I’m completely honest, I’m pretty stung by it. Adding insult to injury, I was in the department a lot longer than her, have been described as having turned around the area I was working in, and had periods where I felt very under-appreciated by my boss. It genuinely feels like a snub after I put in a hell of a lot of work into my role.

I suspect the main reason why this might have unfolded in such a way is because Tessa is part of a sub-team that has worked together for a long time, with a manager who is very on it with this sort of thing. I, on the other hand, recently got reorganized into a team that hasn’t worked together all that long, with a boss is pretty useless with “pastoral” stuff, so in some ways it doesn’t surprise me that this happened. Nonetheless, I still do feel decidedly under-appreciated by how this unfolded. (It doesn’t help that I’ve had a look on the collection pot website and seen that people throughout the department – including people within my chain of command who could have organized any hypothetical gift for me — have donated. If this was just amongst Tessa’s sub-team, I wouldn’t care quite as much.)

I’ll be going to Tessa’s leaving tea next week and am feeling uncomfortable about what a sour taste this has left in my mouth (and I obviously don’t feel that way about Tessa or most of my teammates!). I want to stay on good terms with my department, and my former boss has already expressed a hope that I’ll provide useful insight for him into the team I’ve relocated to, so I know I’ll be hearing from him again. I feel embarrassed about how much this has struck me, but I feel so tempted to say something to my former boss. Is there any way I address how bad this looked from my perspective – short of going, “Oh, I didn’t know this department did leaving gifts’ rather pointedly when Tessa gets her present, which I rather suspect would be slightly inappropriate(!)?

It’s absolutely because you’re on different sub-teams, and Tessa’s team has a manager who’s on top of this kind of thing and your team doesn’t. That’s all it is!

I hear you about people throughout the department having donated to Tessa’s gift, and so why didn’t they realize no one was organizing one for you … but most people don’t think that much about this stuff. Someone tells them a gift is being organized, they donate, and they don’t put much more thought into it. Yes, ideally someone would have thought, “Wait, Jane just left too and I didn’t see a gift for her” — but it’s not personal that they didn’t! It’s just people being consumed with their own stuff.

I do think there’s room to say to your old boss, “I don’t know if you realized this, but it didn’t feel great that Tessa is having such a fuss made over her departure when that didn’t happen for me, and I just wanted to flag it in case it’s something you can watch for when other people leave.” In other words, frame it as feedback for the future, not as “give me a gift now.” But it’ll be way more helpful for your peace of mind to just see that as reflective of things you already knew about your boss and not read more into it than that.

4. Should I tell my interviewer I like that the city is LGBTQ-friendly?

I have an interview coming up with a university in a famously queer-friendly area, and part of the reason I’m interested in this job and others like it is because I live in a less friendly area. Normally, I wouldn’t bring up anything identity-focused in an interview, but being a visible trans woman interviewing in one of the trans capitals of the world, I wonder if it makes sense to say something when they inevitably ask, “Why are you interested in this role?”

More generally, I’m just curious about how you’d advise any marginalized person to handle this, especially in the current moment where a lot of folks are considering these types of moves. One friend recommended saying something like, “This area is a really good fit for me culturally” and leaving the rest to them to figure out. What do you think?

They want to know why you’re interested in the job — meaning the specific role and its work, and so a strong answer will speak directly to that. You can definitely mention that the area is a good fit culturally (and that can be helpful when they know you’d need to move to take the job), but it should be more of an aside, not the focus of your answer.

5. How should my resume list many projects under one company?

I’ve worked at the same company for the past 10 years, but due to *gestures broadly*, I’m looking for a new position. The company I work for is basically a contractor, and I have worked on probably over 20 projects at this company, some for 3 months and some for 3+ years, and I’m usually simultaneously working on at least 2 projects.

The problem is, I don’t know the most useful way to put this experience on a resume! For any job posting I’m looking at, I probably have at least 2 projects that are the most relevant that I assume I should put first, but I still have room on my resume, so then what? Should I list the current projects I’m working on, or the longest running projects I was on? The most impactful? And what is the clearest way to show these aren’t the only projects that I’ve worked on, just like a relevant/recent subset?

Secondly, I’ve been promoted multiple times at this company and was also an intern before starting full-time. Putting just my current role makes it look like I’ve been that role the entire 10 years, so I assume I should put all of the roles I’ve been, but do I need to also put the dates? Can I just list them?

Yes, list the most relevant projects first. After that, choose the projects to list that (a) most closely demonstrate the skills that will be relevant to the job posting or (b) speak to a track record of achievement in general (so if you did something really impressive — built something, saved a failing project, overcame a challenge that had stumped others, etc. — include those things because they demonstrate that you are a competent person who gets things done).

You should list all your titles, and while you don’t have to include the dates for each role as long as you have the overall dates for your employment at that company, it’s often info that hiring managers want and that will strengthen your resume. So for example, it might look like this:

Oatmeal Association, June 2016 – present
Tasting Director, August 2025-present
Tasting Manager, December 2024 – August 2025
Oatmeal Taster, May 2020 – November 2024
Oatmeal Stirrer, January 2017 – May 2020
Groats Intern, June 2016 – December 2016
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment
* accomplishment

Or you can list the accomplishments for each role under the title they go with, depending on the specifics of what you’re listing.

my job sent police to my home when I was 2 hours late

by Alison Green on February 11, 2026

A reader writes:

In 30 years, I have been late to work twice.

The first time, management used my emergency contact number to track me down when I was one hour late. I believe this was a misuse of my personal information, and I removed this contact information from the company systems.

Now, years later, it has happened again. My manager sent police to my home for a “wellness check” because I was two hours late. In this day and age, when federal agencies are claiming that they can come into your home without a warrant, it’s more than a bit alarming to see police at one’s door.

Is this even remotely acceptable? I do realize that some employers will simply terminate on a no call/no show, but these actions have me not wanting to share any personal information at all, and have me questioning whether it’s even worth waiting the 10 months I have till retirement.

Both these incidents were due to scheduling confusion, and I am not completely blameless. But I work third shift, and it was freaky being awakened at 1 am by police at my door.

Both of these were bizarre overreactions. Calling your emergency contact after one hour? And sending police to your home for a wellness check after two hours?

The point of a wellness check or calling emergency contacts is supposed to be, “We’re genuinely concerned about this person’s safety because we haven’t heard from them for an extended period of time.” Two hours — let alone one hour — doesn’t meet that standard.

If you’re an hour or two late, they should call you. If they don’t reach you, they should leave a message. In most cases, I wouldn’t think about calling emergency contacts unless you’re still not reachable the next day. And escalating to a police wellness check should take longer than that and should only come after they’ve attempted to reach your emergency contact (and in the current moment comes with a particularly high need to be cautious about your safety). In both cases, we’re not talking about acting after only a few hours.

That said, this is fact-specific and there are situations where the circumstances could warrant acting more quickly — like if you’re someone known to have a potentially life-threatening health condition and you normally show up like clockwork — but we’re still not talking about taking those steps when you’re only an hour late.

Acting within one to two hours reads like they were using your emergency contact and the police as ways to get you to work, not because they were genuinely concerned for your welfare.

the team I manage prefers remote work — but I prefer working in-person

by Alison Green on February 11, 2026

A reader writes:

My office is returning to a physical space in the fall and they are giving managers a lot of leeway to decide on remote/hybrid work.

I manage eight people on my team and I know a number of them would be happy to never come into the office again. They have all proven themselves more than capable to work from home. However, I personally work best when I can see/talk with people in person, at least periodically. What balance can I strike between giving my team what they want and what I need in my own work style? I would love to ask each team member to come in at least once every 1-2 weeks, but unless there’s a true need is that out of line? I guess my question is, as a manager, when does my own work style matter and when do I need to get over it?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

My company ghosted a candidate I recommended
How do I gracefully reject a former employee who keeps applying for a new job with me?

interview with someone who works in the corporate gifts industry

by Alison Green on February 11, 2026

In the comment section on a recent letter from someone whose coworkers were upset about her work anniversary gift, there was a lot of discussion about corporate gift programs. I heard from a reader who works for one of the larger companies that organizes these programs, and they generously offered to answer questions about it. Here’s our interview.

To start, what are these programs all about, and how do rewards and recognition companies like yours fit in?

Rewards and recognition (when done well!) helps companies build better cultures, decrease attrition, and improve employee engagement. The idea is, if you appreciate employees for their work regularly, they will be happier, more loyal, and more productive. Some vendor names you might find surprising: Tiffany’s used to offer service awards, Hallmark offered recognition before that part of the business was bought, Jostens owns a recognition company. Rolex used to be a very popular service award or retirement award, but a few years ago, they stopped doing B2B sales (it was diluting their brand). No recognition vendors can now offer Rolexes — and some companies find that very upsetting.

The rewards and recognition industry tries to relieve the burden of administration from HR and automates the program flow, so it’s easy for employees to use. Rewards and recognition software generally has two components (and companies might do one or both):

A. Performance recognition. This is focused on publicly recognizing employees for good work. A user can write up a note thanking a coworker for something (things like “thanks for covering while I was out” or “good job on that presentation”), attach an amount of points to that note, and then send it off. The note is then published on a feed so other coworkers can see it, like it, and comment on it. The points go into a bank, so users can save them up and redeem them from a catalog of items.

B. Service awards. This recognizes employees for how long they have been with the company, usually starting at five years and every five years after. One of the easiest/most common approaches is a points deposit. Say you are celebrating five years at your company. On your anniversary, you would get an email that says something like, “Congrats on five years! Here’s to another five!” and a notification that 500 points have been deposited into your points bank. This could be a specific bank that now has 500 points for you to redeem in the catalog, or the points could be deposited into your recognition bank, so you can use your service award and recognition points together to redeem for something bigger.

What challenges do you see companies run into most often with corporate gifts and rewards/recognition programs?

I think the biggest challenge is a lack of commitment. There are all sorts of proven benefits to these types of programs (lowered attrition, improved business outcomes, etc.) and some companies think they can get those benefits by just purchasing a software. They don’t want to spend the time or money on creating a comprehensive strategy — and since every company culture is so different, you really need to make a strategy that focuses on what’s right for your specific organization.

So instead, they end up wasting money on a platform that doesn’t get used, because no one knows it exists or how to use it. And because they’re not getting the ROI they want, they get mad and fire their vendor, move onto another one, and have the same issues because they won’t commit, all while losing money on the software shift and confusing any users who were engaging.

Executive buy-in is also a big issue. I can’t tell you how many times a CHRO has been ready to sign a contract when the CEO comes in and shuts everything down. Along with that is making sure they stay bought-in. A lot of larger organizations with long-standing programs have started questioning the value of recognition programs. When the economy gets rough, this is usually one of the first things to get cut, as it seems extraneous. But companies who kept up with recognition during the pandemic saw improved morale and increased employee loyalty.

What do you think are some of the “secrets of success” of the companies that do it well?

1. Communicating to employees not only that this program is available, but also offering info on the best way to use it. This might be paper guides, email reminders, formal training — whatever is best for that company’s culture.

2. Having a reasonable budget. Being stingy will make employees feel less appreciated than if there had been no recognition program at all! Healthcare is notorious for having tiny budgets. Imagine working endless shifts saving people’s lives and being thanked with nothing more than a branded pen.

3. Celebrating a variety of events. Not everyone will end up being recognized for everything, but celebrating different things with different types of rewards (company milestones, service awards, promotions, personal life events, department wins, company challenges, etc.) will give each employee more chances to feel appreciated.

4. Letting everyone send recognition. Some companies set their programs up so only managers can give recognition and/or points. So if your manager doesn’t see or hear about something great you did, you will never receive recognition for it. If peers can instead recognize each other, then the volume of recognition greatly increases. And so does employee goodwill!

5. Ensuring recognition doesn’t feel transactional. We all know the feeling when you receive a birthday card and it’s a bunch of signatures vs. receiving one with actual, thoughtful notes. Companies with expectations of how recognition should be done have more sincere interactions. For example, if their policy is to mail someone a plaque for the 10th anniversary, the item becomes just another thing to set on the shelf and forget about. But if they instead present the plaque in person to the celebrant, maybe along with a handwritten card from the manager or by sharing some achievements with the team (if the person enjoys being recognized publicly), then that plaque feels a lot more significant.

Essentially, throw enough money at it that it makes an impact, but throw that money strategically.

One thing that comes up over and over on Ask a Manager is that there’s no one gift that everyone will like (except for more money and time off!). As soon as one person mentions a gift that sounds amazing to them, someone else will be ready to let them know they’d hate it. How can companies navigate that thoughtfully?

Offering a variety of options is the best way to do this. Let’s say the company is celebrating their hundred year anniversary. Rather than giving everyone the same branded jacket, the company could instead offer a few different types of jackets, maybe a vest and pullover, and then other things that could be branded, like a cooler, a Bluetooth speaker, a suitcase, an expensive blanket, etc. and throw in some things that aren’t branded at all! (I personally love a branded item, but I know many, many people hate it.)

What’s something that’s surprised you about working in this field? And/or something that you think would surprise people outside of it to learn about?

Receiving recognition points counts as reportable income, so you get taxed on it. Seeing that on your paystub without knowing why its there can be kind of upsetting (one of those things that I don’t think companies tell their employees about). It’s especially upsetting if it ends up being a burden on you, rather than your employer. That’s why R+R providers recommend organizations “gross up,” i.e. if you are awarded $100 of points, the company actually pays something like $140 for those points, so the employee receives the full $100 and the $40 goes to covering the income tax portion.

Service/milestone awards have their own tax situations. In the U.S. and Canada, if a milestone award meets certain requirements, there is no income tax on it.

Also, this industry is cutthroat, which is funny for an industry ostensibly focused on helping create positive employee experiences. The R+R industry is not super large and there’s maybe five really big players. Lots of employees move between these different companies, so plenty of company secrets get passed around.

It is always funny when the executive of one company goes on LinkedIn and writes a rant about another company being mean to them, or stealing their idea, or spreading rumors. It happens more than you would expect!

When you say companies run into trouble because they don’t commit to a good strategy, what does that look like in reality (when it’s done well and when it’s done badly)?

First, most important thing: recognition cannot be used as a substitute for a living wage, raises, bonuses, or benefits. You have to first make sure you are adequately providing those things, or else spending money on recognition (especially when your employees are paycheck to paycheck) is only going to breed resentment.

Signs a company has a good strategy in place:

Users know how to access the software and use it regularly
Can find worthwhile items to redeem for in the catalog
Career anniversary gifts/trophies become a point of pride, rather than a useless tchotchke
Employee satisfaction scores usually increase

Signs a company has a bad/no strategy in place:

Users don’t know about the software or can’t access it easily
Limited users can send recognition
Budgets are so low that recognition points are quickly spent
Point values or gift options are so low that it is offensive
There is no company culture around recognition, so people feel disappointed when their work is not recognized or their anniversary goes by without comment
Career anniversaries are non-existent or don’t start for a long time, like year 10
There are no regular notifications nudging employees to take action, such as giving recognition, approving recognition, or redeeming points (companies like to turn these off)
Holidays, employee appreciation day, and company milestones are not celebrated

Example of bad strategy: My sister was at her job for three years before realizing she’d received hundreds of points she could redeem. There was no communication on the software (that it existed, how to access it, or how to use it). Giving recognition is limited to managers and above. Since she works different hours from her manager, they rarely saw her work and thus could not recognize it in person. For her first anniversary, she received a tiny bonus and doesn’t know what people receive on other anniversaries.

The company is spending money on this software, but probably receiving very little ROI. In this case, they’d probably have better ROI if they forewent the software and gave that money directly to employees via raises, increased PTO, or better benefits.

You mentioned stingy gifts, and I hear about this all the time (like a hospital that gave its doctors hospital socks for Christmas or a company that gave everyone “cheaply-printed gratitude journals” during Covid). Any insight into what these companies are thinking?! It seems like it should be obvious that really cheap gifts are going to harm morale more than if they did nothing at all.

I think this is the same mindset that leads to giving overworked employees a pizza party rather than rewarding them with bonuses. It’s that paternalistic “They should be grateful for anything I give them” sort of feeling. The people making these decisions can be very out of touch about what actually matters to employees.

How to fix that? When coming up with the recognition strategy, companies should involve employee feedback (surveys, focus groups, town halls, etc). They should also keep doing this (some vendors have features to help with this) throughout the program and adjusting as needed.

You recommended letting peers send recognition. Do companies worry that if they set it up that way, people will abuse it? Does that ever happen in reality?

Yes, they worry about abuse, and no, it doesn’t really happen that often. There’s ways to flag if recognition looks suspicious; you can put checks in place like all recognition has to be approved by a manager, and you can put caps on how much recognition people can give and/or receive.

I think this worry comes from that same mentality that leads to sick leave policies requiring a doctor’s note; some employers think their employees are unruly children that need to be managed with a firm hand rather than responsible adults you can trust.

Does your company do amazing employee gifts for you and your coworkers? I feel like the expectations must be very high!

My company loves doing gifts. There are some events that have the same gift every year, but they go all in for big milestone events. There was a large anniversary a few years before I started and people still talk about the items they got. One person uses the collapsible wagon they ordered all the time, and I am jealous whenever they wheel it into the office.

They really commit for service awards, and I’ve never heard anyone complain about their experience.

They also do gifts for Employee Appreciation Day, and sometimes they miss the mark, but the gesture is always appreciated. I have received more water bottles than anyone could possibly need, but they’re always high-quality, so I can always find a friend or family member who would like one.

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