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… And two other tricky workplace dilemmas.
Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues—everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.
Here’s a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.
1. How can we attract good candidates when we can’t pay more?
I run a small firm with two locations and 12 employees, and we’re struggling to attract candidates. We meet the median wage for the area, but I can’t really go above that. We offer decent benefits (15 days PTO, 10 paid holidays, subsidized health insurance and dental insurance, free life insurance, free short-term and long-term disability insurance, a tuition reimbursement program) but can’t offer the other perks that the management books talk about like flextime and work from home due to the nature of the jobs we hire for. We try to treat our employees well by buying lunch, surprising them with gift cards, handwritten thank-you notes, casual dress days, team-building days (think escape rooms and dinner out)—things that fit into a small budget but still say “we appreciate you.”
How can we be more attractive without increasing our payroll?
Green responds:
The thing that immediately jumps out is that you’re offering very bare-bones time off—assuming your 15 days of PTO is combined vacation and sick leave, that’s the equivalent of two weeks of vacation and one week of sick leave, which is the absolute minimum considered acceptable for most professional jobs in the U.S. If you’re looking for low-hanging fruit, it’s definitely your PTO.
Beyond that, talk to your staff about what they want (you might find that they don’t care about the escape rooms but would really like more back-up dealing with difficult clients, or who knows what) and their thoughts on what would attract more applicants. And if you haven’t already, make sure you look at what other options are available to your candidate pool in your area, and what those jobs are offering. But the PTO is the thing I’d tackle first.
2. Is it weird to have my video on if everyone else is off-camera?
Recently, I started a remote role that works with a global team. I manage incident response and ongoing programs, but other employees don’t report to me. I normally rely heavily on my ability to develop relationships at all levels of an organization to hit my quarterly goals.
Is it weird to turn my camera on for meetings (if I’m leading them) if company culture means everyone else keeps their cameras off? I would never ask others to turn cameras on, but 1) I hope that seeing me will in some way help them get to know me or at least remember me, and 2) maybe it would inspire others to turn their cameras on as well?
I feel so disconnected from not seeing people’s faces and body language when I’m talking to them! I’m concerned about how this affects my ability to have working relationships with my co-workers and move forward in my new role.
Green responds:
If your only interest was in letting people see you when you’re facilitating, I’d say go for it—you could even explain at the outset that that’s what you’re doing and that others don’t need to turn their own cameras on if they prefer not to. But since part of your motivation is a hope that other people will follow suit, I’m less enthusiastic.
There are a lot of good reasons people might prefer to have their camera off, from bandwidth issues to privacy to other household members’ privacy to general video fatigue if they have a lot of meetings (research shows video meetings are more draining than ones without video).
That doesn’t mean there aren’t advantages to video (there can be!) or times when it’s especially helpful (there are!), but you’re in a culture that doesn’t use it. Given how many good reasons people can have for that, I wouldn’t push back too hard on what they’re doing.
3. My new hire is starting on my last day of work
I’m preparing to resign my position and accept a great opportunity. However, we hired a new person who is supposed to report to me. Their first day will probably be my last day. What do you think are my obligations in this regard? I want to be honest with the new person but not give them a list of grievances of why I’m leaving. And I want to set them up for success. How do you think I should break the news and what should I do in the interim?
Green responds:
If at all possible, tell the new hire now so they don’t get blindsided by the news on their first day. Contact them before they start, explain you’ve accepted another job and will be leaving, and let them know who’ll they be reporting to until your replacement is hired. Don’t get into your reasons for leaving. That’s not really appropriate; just let them know you accepted a great job somewhere else. And work closely with your team to figure out how to ensure the new person’s first few weeks go smoothly—with you gone, there’s a risk they’ll be left to flounder unless some clear planning is done now to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to [email protected].
This post originally appeared at inc.com.
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