Ask a Manager: What do you do with blog jabs from your direct reports?
Over at Ask a Manager, the following question was posed:
Last year, when she was applying for a job with us, the employee in question mentioned her blog in the course of the interview. I checked it out and enjoyed it, enough that I’ve checked in on it a couple of times since then. Today I was reminded of something she wrote and stopped by out of fleeting curiosity. I was greeted with a recent post expressing irritation at the workload she was facing while trying to get ready to go on vacation — fine, that irritates me too. But she was directly tying that predicament to me — and she was pretty snarky about it.
Was I invading her privacy by looking at the site?
On the other hand, it’s a public blog that she herself originally directed me to.
Whew, tough call. Here’s what I left for a suggestion:
“Sounds a little passive aggressive to me. Has she expressed any of this frustration to you in person? Tough call, though I would definitely print it out and mention it, perhaps even in a nicer way, like “Hey, I was checking out your blog and saw this post. Can we talk about this?”
Not sure that’ll help, but any problem exposed publicly means you and potentially her peers, know about it as well. Doing nothing means you approve of the situation, in my opinion.
Good luck! I look forward to reading about how this gets resolved, one way or the other.”
Slacker Managers: What advice do you give this manager? Do you think a confrontation is the right thing, or do you just let it blow over and hope it passes?
Slacker Non-Managers: What do you think the manager should do? What would you want done if it were you?
Please identify yourself as Slacker Manager or Slacker Non-Manager in the comments you share. Thanks!
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POSTED IN: management
8 opinions for Ask a Manager: What do you do with blog jabs from your direct reports?
Alexandra Levit
Jul 25, 2007 at 8:15 am
This is fascinating. I’m going to write a related post this week about doing this from the employee perspective. People really need to be reminded that blogs are in the public domain and if you’re going to complain, you better be sure you don’t mind if your boss “hears” it.
Best,
Alexandra Levit
Author, They Don’t Teach Corporate in College
Blogger, Water Cooler Wisdom
http://www.alexandralevit.com
LittleBlackBook
Jul 25, 2007 at 9:20 am
The right to free speech is protected by the First Amendment in the U.S. but that doesn’t mean it won’t have repercussions within the workplace. If you have a person that reports to you or you work with who is blogging about work, you should make them aware of that. There have been numerous cases where companies have taken action and terminated employees as well having future job opportunities impacted by their postings.
Look at it this way…would your hiring of this individual been impacted by seeing them complain about their workload on their personal blog?
Ann Rasmussen
Jul 25, 2007 at 10:06 am
I’m a peon.
Manager has to talk to the employee, but the first step is figuring out what the issue is. Do you want to work with your employee to manage the workload? Do you want to discuss that the snarky blog post is rude/unprofessional? That it hurt your feelings? Is there identifying information on the blog that is potentially dragging your/your company’s name through the mud?
If the blog doesn’t have any identifying information, I would take the issue to the employee without a printout - a printout spells “this is going in your file” and will lead to a discussion of semantics rather than general blog ettiquette.
brent
Jul 25, 2007 at 3:44 pm
non-manager.
use honesty please.
now that you HAVE the information, I think that talking about it is healthy. If they REMEMBER that you read the blog, and you keep the work load high then they’ll be hurt that you’re not treating them well
If you don’t want to know this person’s complaints, stop reading their blog.
Stop reading the blog if you think there’s a chance of coming across this kind of dilemma in the future.
Phil Gerbyshak
Jul 25, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Alexandra - You are absolutely right. This reminder should be shared with all who write online. NOTHING is private, and nothing is temporary. It’s all forever.
LittleBlackBook - Great point. I would never hire someone who took time to badmouth their boss in a public setting. Not on a blog. Not to me during the interview. Not on a radio show. Nowhere. If you’ve got an issue, work it out with your manager, not out in the public. Unless you’re a professional baseball player. Yeah, that’s real effective!
Ann - Outstanding points. What is the real issue here? Let’s deal with that first, and then the rest is secondary. I think you need to bring the post though, as one may try to delete the post. I would bring a copy for reference, keep a copy just in case the associate sued for harassment, and share the one copy with the associate.
Brent - I think honesty goes without saying, but I would think so does working on the issue with one’s manager does too. I would never say “My manager is bad at x” without my manager knowing that. NOTHING is worse than being blindsided by criticism, especially in public.
As for keeping the workload high, who said it’s me putting the pedal down? If it’s not, is the issue one of perception, where the associate FEELS the workload is unfair, or is it reality, where the workload really is high. Is this a temporary situation, or is this a long-term situation?
Either way, blindsiding your manager is NEVER a good idea. Unless you want to be fired. Then go ahead. Whining on your blog about how bad your manager is means you don’t want to fix the problem, and you’d rather just whine in hopes of someone agreeing with you, especially if none of your teammates are jumping in to agree with you.
Chris
Jul 27, 2007 at 9:09 am
I’m a Slacker Non-Manager at the moment. If it were me, and I was $blogger or even one of the co-workers of $blogger, or heck, even $manager about whom the post was written, I’d want the situation resolved. Communication is key, I think. Since $blogger originally pointed $manager to the blog, and since it’s available publicly, then by all means the manager has every right to read it. If there’s someone that you don’t want reading a blog post, then don’t post it. Simple. I agree with you when you say that saying nothing is akin to approval. I think it would be best for $manager to print out the post, request a one-on-one in a non-enclosed, but private setting (I’m thinking $manager’s office would be a bad idea, mouse caught in a corner type thing), maybe running to the closest Starbucks to grab a cup of coffee or something similar. $Manager should let $blogger know that s/he read it, and that s/he doesn’t take offense, but would like to talk about the situation and get it resolved. Part of being a good manager, in my opinion, is empathizing with your team and trying to help them do their best. If there’s some kind of hard feelings between $blogger and $manager, then it should be discussed between the two of them and worked out. I’m not saying that $manager should back down on the workload or even say that s/he was wrong, but simply let $blogger know that s/he understands $bloggers frustration, and find the best way to set them both up for success.
brent
Jul 27, 2007 at 2:45 pm
chris.
Yeah, but printing it out is pretty aggressive.
Like someone said, then there’s the danger of it becoming a semantic argument, rather than a discussion of what’s actually leading the peon to be upset.
Brent
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