How Can I Make My Employees More Comfortable Figuring Things Out on Their Own?
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 four questions from readers.
1. How can I get my employees to be more comfortable figuring things out on their own?
I've been a manager for a few years, and I've been working hard to build my bench. I keep running into an issue where I assign an employee a new task with as much lead time as I can manage, and their first response is, "Can you show me how?"
Throughout my own career, I'm rarely been given 100% of the information. I'm given a new report to run, or asked to find a piece of data. Most of the time I play around and figure it out, and if I get stuck, I'll come back with "I tried A and B and those ways don't seem to work, is there a different way to approach this or someone I can talk to?" Nothing I'm assigning is outside the capabilities or bandwidth of the employees, and when I've pushed them to try by themselves, they almost always figure it out pretty easily.
I've had success with letting them know if they want to check in with me after trying for a week, I can make some time, but not every task can come with an in-depth training. I'm spending my time with the more advanced tasks with even less information! When I'm hiring, I've made sure to include questions about what to do when you don't have all the information, and I make sure my staff know that they have my support if there is a problem with the work the first time. How do I get my team to get more comfortable swimming in the deep end?
Green responds:
Name it explicitly as something you want them doing, and something they need to work on. If you haven't explicitly told them this is your expectation, they may not realize they're out of sync with it. In fact, they may see their requests for up-front demonstrations as conscientious, since they're ensuring they'll be doing it the way you want it done.
So say something like this: "With tasks like X and Y, I'd like you to try doing it yourself first. If you get stuck, you can come to me and let me know what you've tried and that you need help. But I have confidence that if you try on your own first, you're usually going to figure it out, and that builds your skills and saves me time."
You also need to let people know it's okay if things take longer while they're figuring it out, and that they won't be penalized for mistakes in that process. (And then you really need to mean that -- if you seem irritated or upset when there are delays or mistakes, it won't help.) You also should watch for how much time this really adds to people's workload -- if someone is spending days trying to figure something out when you could have shown them in 10 minutes, that's likely not the right allocation of time.
Also, be judicious about it. You say that when you've pushed people to try on their own, they've rarely ended up needing additional support, which is great. But make sure that you don't overlook times when people really do need more support up-front, like when something uses skills they've never had to employ before or when the work is very high-stakes. Those are both times when you should provide more guidance.
2. What should I do about a candidate with an arrest for urinating in public?
A candidate recently applied who is decently qualified and who, normally, I would phone screen without a second thought. But after googling them, we found a record in the local newspaper that this candidate was arrested a number of years ago for disorderly conduct and urinating on a building. How would you move forward? Would you automatically rule them out? If you did decide to move forward with them, how would you address it on the phone call? Since it's public knowledge, we're not really sure what to do.
Green responds:
If you found out that one of your current employees had peed on a building once years ago, would you question their suitability for their job now? The only difference here is that this candidate had the bad luck to get arrested for it.
Yes, people should not urinate on buildings. And yet, it's a thing that happens, often by otherwise law-abiding citizens (late at night, on the way home, in desperate circumstances). This is not likely to interfere with this person's performance at work; it's not a sign that they'll urinate in the CEO's office or anything like that.
Arrests are not "do not hire" me signs. They're just information about someone's past. In this case, the information -- a minor misdemeanor from years ago -- is irrelevant. Ignore it.
3. How much time to give candidates for take-home exercises
I work in a field where it is common for job candidates to complete a take-home exercise as part of the interview process. Depending on the role, these may be writing samples or short technical projects. I have mixed feelings about this, but generally think that as long as the candidates aren't expected to spend more than a few hours on the task, it can be a good way to get a feel for a candidate's work.
My question is, what is a reasonable amount of time to give a candidate to complete a task that may take, let's say, up to four hours? I was recently involved in a hiring process (not as the hiring manager) where candidates completed a writing exercise. I advocated for giving them at least a week to complete it, given that they may have existing jobs, families, etc., that could make it hard to find time for this assignment on short notice. My colleagues said a week was too long, and that we should give them 48 hours to discourage people from working more than the suggested few hours. I proposed that if overworking is the concern, we could give a week-long window in which they could schedule a time that is convenient for them to work on the exercise, and send it to them then with the shorter turnaround. I also expressed concern that a two-day window with no notice filters out candidates whose life circumstances don't afford them tons of free time. Am I off-base?
Green responds:
You are not off-base. You are absolutely right. People have jobs, families, other commitments, and it's not reasonable to expect them to fit in several hours working on a hiring exercise without any notice. (Also, four hours is long under the best of circumstances. With a 48-hour window, that's ridiculous. As a comparison, I give an exercise that shouldn't take more than half an hour, and I'm fine with people taking up to a week with it, or even longer if they tell me their schedule means they need more time.)
You might mention to your colleagues that you've heard good candidates say they're turned off by employers who don't recognize that they have other commitments in their lives and that this would be a strike against your employer with the people they most want to hire.
4. What to wear on a plane with coworkers
I'm going to an out-of-state work conference for several days, and I'm curious about how to dress for the flight. In my personal life, I like to dress very comfortably for airplane travel -- leggings, comfortable boots or sneakers, and soft, casual shirts or sweaters. Can I dress similarly for work travel? I'm on the same flight as several colleagues, but we're arriving the day before the conference starts and won't be going straight into work mode. I work in a casual environment where jeans are common attire, so it's standard for us not to look very formal at work (though I'll be upping it to business casual during the conference itself). Your thoughts?
Green responds:
Yep, you should be fine. I wouldn't take it as far as, like, literal pajama bottoms, but what you're describing is fine.