Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/my-new-employee-is-someone-i-fired-at-my-old-job-2.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34930

A reader writes:

I recently took a new job in my same industry and city. In my new role, I’ll have a team of eight reporting to me in various capacities and functions. During the interview process, I got a brief read-out of the team and a high level talent assessment. Nothing stood out as an issue. On my first day, I met the team reporting to me. One of the people on the team is someone that worked for me before and who I terminated for cause due to performance at my previous company.

What do I communicate to my management team and/or HR about this situation? It feels weird to say nothing because ultimately, this could be a management issue — I’m sure this employee doesn’t feel great about the situation. On the other hand, I don’t want to risk harming this person’s reputation at this company if they are doing a good job so far. This person is pretty new here, too, and my impression is they are either doing a better job in this role or management has not yet identified an issue with their performance.

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:

•  Why do people respond to emails with a phone call?
• Setting boundaries on requests for help from a significant other’s network

The post my new employee is someone I fired at my old job appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/my-new-employee-is-someone-i-fired-at-my-old-job-2.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34930

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/my-employer-has-taken-all-flexibility-out-of-working-from-home-and-people-are-upset.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34043

A reader writes:

I work for the government. A few months ago, changes were announced to our employment situation. Government employees who were able to work remotely have been doing so since the pandemic. In 2022, we were mandated back to the office two days a week. It used to be that people could choose what days they were on site, and if someone missed a day in the office here or there it was no problem. Now everyone is required to be in the office Mondays and Fridays. You are not allowed to swap for any other day of the week. You can’t work from home Monday or Friday (for example, you can’t say you’re not feeling well, have a plumber coming and need to be home, etc.). If you can’t come on site, you must take either a vacation or a sick day. You must have childcare for the days you are working remote now and can’t be responsible for caring for children during work hours. You can only take time-off in full- or half-day increments now. No exceptions.

We have all been given new laptops and all of our work, our email, our phone app and everything else is behind a portal. The portal is only accessible weekdays between 9 am and 5 pm. You can no longer log into it on evenings, weekends, holidays, or any time outside of our work hours. If you are using a vacation day or sick day, you can’t log into the portal. This makes it so no one can work outside of our work hours. We are also required to log out of the portal for 30 minutes each day for a lunch break, and this is tracked so people are unable to work through their lunch. Besides when we are on our lunch break, we are supposed to be at our desk/laptop working. Screen captures are taken randomly. There are other measures to ensure we are at our laptop working if we are working remotely, and all of them are legal.

We are told these changes are because people were working unauthorized overtime, outside of hours, and on vacation days. Or people were doing things like errands and appointments during the workday and then working outside of hours to make up for it. Our location is also tracked because people were working in other jurisdictions, and it was causing tax and employment law issues. I know of one person who was hurt in a car accident, and they were over two hours from home in the middle of the workday and had not booked a vacation day. Things like this were cited as the reason for the changes.

There are no exceptions to any of this. It is legal, all of the elected officials agree with it, and it is allowed under our employment contracts and the various union agreements. I am a manager but I have been told even the unions say nothing that can be done.

The changes are unpopular, but how do I get my employees to see that the changes are here to stay? I am just as unhappy as they are, but this is the reality now. Even since the changes happened, all job openings get hundreds or even thousands of applications. The unions and any lawyers people talk to say nothing can be done. I understand everyone is unhappy, I am too, but how do I get them to realize the changes are here to stay?

The best thing you can do is to be very blunt with people about the reality of the situation, so that you don’t inadvertently say something that encourages them to think things might change. For example, don’t say anything like, “This is the situation for now” (which leaves room for “it might not be forever” — which may or may not be true but either way doesn’t help them right now). Instead, be very, very clear: “It’s not how I would have chosen to do things, but there’s been a lot of pushback and it’s been made very clear that this will not change.”

You might also consider adding: “I hope you’ll try it out and see if you can get used to it, but they understand we might lose staff over it and they’re prepared for that. I of course don’t want to lose you, but I also understand if you decide it’s not for you.” Because ultimately that’s what it comes down to — they can stay on knowing the conditions of the job have changed or they can decide not to. It doesn’t sound like there’s a middle ground.

(Or rather, I’m assuming there isn’t a middle ground. If someone is able to show that the changes are causing bigger issues than the problems they were meant to solve, it’s possible your employer will walk some of this back. But I’m guessing that they figure they have the upper hand, given the job market, and it sounds like they think people were abusing the earlier flexibility.)

You can also say, “I want to be blunt with you because I want you to be able to make the best decisions for yourself. The changes are here to stay. They’ve been challenged in every possible way, and we’re told nothing will change. At this point we each need to decide if we want our jobs under these conditions. I hope we won’t lose you, but ultimately that’s what it comes down to.”

From there, it’s really up to them. All you can do is to (a) repeat that you don’t want to lose them but understand if that’s what they decide, and (b) make sure they’re not complaining about it so much that it’s distracting other people or bringing down the morale of your team.

For what it’s worth, the requirement to have child care is very, very normal (assuming it only applies to kids under a certain age and not, like, a 16-year-old). Before the pandemic, that was an utterly routine requirement for remote work; it got relaxed by necessity when schools and daycares closed, and even afterwards because child care shortages lingered in many places) but it’s been becoming a common requirement again. It’s genuinely hard, if not impossible, for most people to care for young kids while focusing on work; one or the other ends up suffering.

If your employer was having issues with people working unauthorized overtime or working on vacation or sick days, that’s likely what drove them to restrict portal access to work hours. They can get in a lot of trouble for allowing people to work unpaid. The same goes for tracking people’s location to ensure they’re not working from a different place than they’re authorized to work from; employers can get in a lot of trouble for not following the tax and employment laws of the jurisdictions where the work is taking place, even if they don’t know about it while it’s happening. I’m not surprised that they’re cracking down if there were more incidents like that car accident two hours away from the spot where someone was allegedly “at work.”

And I’m guessing the Monday/Friday in-office requirements are because they saw that people were working less on those days because they’re near the weekend.

The screen captures are overkill. But it sounds like your office felt people were abusing the flexibility they’d been given, and that’s how you ended up here. It’s not good! But it’s also foreseeable if that’s what was happening (and it’s actually good that they’ve still left three work-from-home days; other companies have made people do a full return on-site).

The post my employer has taken all flexibility out of working from home, and people are upset appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/my-employer-has-taken-all-flexibility-out-of-working-from-home-and-people-are-upset.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34043