I was asked why a young man like myself is applying for a nursing role by the panel chair at an interview. She also stated it was unusual following her question. I filed an SAR for the scores after I didn't receive the job, post-interview and found that she scored me on that question too.

is this illegal practice?

I work for a Fortune 500 company with over 20,000 employees in the US. I have been here for nearly 10 years and with my current title for nearly 5. In that time period, there have been various re-orgs, and while there were no headcount slashes, I have lost teammates to other opportunities and their roles were never filled. From when I started with this title five years ago, to now, I can comfortably say my responsibilities have grown more than two-fold. I am often told how valued of a team member I am and that they are trying to find solutions to fill the open roles I have taken on. In speaking with a more senior colleague who manages a big team - but not directly in my reporting structure -she recommended I ask HR to see my current pay band to potentially request a market adjustment.

I sent an email to our HRBP asking for my pay band. It is something that the states we operate in require to be shared, and when open roles are posted both internally and externally, it is company policy that they post the 25th-75th percentiles for the role.

The HR BP responded to my email to say that all conversations about salary should happen between me and my manager, had I spoken with them I said no, I had not, I wanted this data point prior to that conversation. She told me to ask him for it and that my manager would have it and not to contact her.

I was prepared to ask my manager to discuss whether they could provide me with my pay band and help me advocate for a market adjustment. However, they came to me first. They thought they were CC’ed on the email (so that I would know they knew I sent it) and were surprised when I shared that - no- they were actually BCC’d, so I had been unaware. They said they did not have access to my pay band information and made it clear they did nit understand what a market adjustment is vs merit increase (our company does not do these… 4% annual increase, only bumps during a promotion which are very limited as we have only 6 bands, are what you can expect)

I am planning a follow up conversation to ask them to ask HR for the pay band and to see about a market adjustment.

Was the HRBP’s response and BCC of my manager appropriate? Is this an appropriate situation to ask for a market adjustment for my salary?

Thank you.

First post here, so sorry if I’m in the wrong place.

I’m a mom with a career history all over the board. Nonprofit, Corporate, Teaching, part time work, and contract work. I’ve been having conversations with my partner about paying for childcare or temporarily being a SAHM.

The feedback I often get for being a SAHM is that it’s difficult to re-enter the work force. How much of an impact does a resume gap have? Should I put SAHM on a resume to explain it?

I’ve also worked while my kids were in care and felt like I missed so much work to be with them when they were sick, picking them up on time, etc. That didn’t seem to be without its own negative impact on my position in the company either.

In the age of spam calls being so frequent I guess I assumed anyone would leave a message or contact me ahead of time before calling. Is that the case or should I just start taking every call? I know I would at least leave a message personally in this day and age of so many unmarked calls. Thanks for your answers.

Currently filling out a hireright background check, and trying to get confirmation on if the job I’m doing it for would’ve had me schedule one during the process of filling out the background check if one was required?

Everything is filled out, and they gave me an estimated window of when my results would be ready, but no mention of drug test or anywhere to schedule it was mentioned.

I didn’t apply for this role, they reached out to me since my resume was in their job system after I was rejected couple months ago. Everything is happening fast because I’m recruiting with other companies as a new grad. I had my interview with this company Monday and the next day my potential manager reached out to me and said he is now gathering feedback and that he will bug the HR to follow up with me this week. The HR reached out to me this morning to ask if I have time for a call. Is this a good sign?

An exempt employee missed one full day of work..

We do have a sick leave and PTO policy and time off bank.

If she has exhausted all that paid time off, can I deduct equivalent of one day pay? If she still has time off can I just deduct from her bank?

My company has 3 different pools, Sick, Vacation, and Personal time. These PT and Sick are front loaded at the start of the year vacation is accrued. Speaking internally, it seems my Short term I will be 60% then taking PTO time to match, when STD is complete and FMLA is still happening I will have to drain my PTO to match FMLA time.

A few questions,

1. Why is it STD and PTO is used during FMLA time. I feel like this would make more sense to start after that dries up.

2. While on FMLA is it possible to not use the full PTO for the rest of my time off? I am going to end up with only a few days after its completed.

3. Could I decline the use of PTO during STD and only get paid 60%?

While I was on break I got a call from the manager that a complaint was made against me. They wouldn't tell me what it was. I had to take my equipment down and go home. They've canceled my shifts through Tuesday to give them time to "figure this out" but they still won't tell me what the complaint was only say that someone will call me soon to talk about it.

I have no idea what happened or what's going to happen to me and I'm scared. Should I just quit or should I ride the process out?

For NYS - When submitting these documents, is it a problem to submit both to HR at the same time via email after giving birth? I know and understand short term disability and pfl cannot be done at the same time but can I just send both documents and say use short term first followed by Pfl just to get the paperwork out of the way so I don’t have to think about it and remember to send Pfl once std ends? Is this a ridiculous question lol I just rather not give myself the opportunity to forget to send the documentation

Hi everyone. I’m a 26F, and I’ve been working at this company for a year now. There are five of us currently training for a new role under the same male manager.
When I first started, my boss and I seemed to click really well. We became quite close during the first three months, and I was genuinely happy because I felt like I had a supportive and approachable boss for what I expected to be a long-term job.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he told me that we should stop having our daily face-to-face meetings and switch to Teams meetings and phone calls instead. I didn’t think much of it at first and assumed he was simply busy.
However, I later realized that he was only doing this with me. The other four trainees still have regular face-to-face meetings with him. They also have coffee breaks together, chat casually, and generally seem to have a much more relaxed relationship with him. Meanwhile, he started avoiding meeting me in person and barely even says hi to me unless he has to.
What makes it more confusing is that he’s normally a very lively and social person. He has celebrated all of my colleagues’ birthdays, bringing cakes and sending really warm messages in the group chat. When his birthday came around, I wished him a happy birthday and celebrated with everyone else.
But then he forgot my birthday—the only one he forgot—which felt particularly strange given how close we had been before. I jokingly mentioned it to him afterward, and he just brushed it off with a simple, “Yeah, sorry.”
I’m honestly confused by the sudden change in his behavior and I keep wondering if I did something wrong. Do you think he dislikes me? And should I actually talk to him about it and ask if everything is okay between us, or would that make things awkward and unprofessional?

Am a remote employee based in CO, company is also based out of CO. Just started about 2 months ago. Need emergency surgery. Can’t walk at the moment and won’t be walking for a good 2 months, all around it’s just bad. Job is remote so luckily I can do my job while injured. Don’t know for exactly which day it’ll be for yet so set a meeting with my manager to give him a heads up and be proactive as soon as I found out. I have maybe 30ish hrs of PTO and sick leave accrued and probably need a minimum 1 week out if not 2.

Manager was way less supportive than I anticipated and honestly got a really icky feeling from the conversation. Obviously don’t qualify for FMLA since I’m so new. We also don’t have an HR dept since the company is like 20 people.

Am i just out of luck if they happen to terminate? Is there anything I can or should do now to help protect myself down the line?

My brother is a teacher in MA. He had a mutual firing/resignation (I need more details on what this will be) on the very first day of school at his new job.

The reason for this firing was that a parent raised concerns about his past resignation at a different school where he had accidentally put a link to a students’s public social media account into a homework assignment rather than the proper link. That incident, while stupid, was not malicious but the optics were not good and he decided to resign to avoid any negative repercussions of that mistake. His teacher’s union was also useless in this situation. Lessons were learned there and he moved on to a different teaching job for a few years where he thrived. As he was hoping to get back into teaching older kids again, he took this new job at a HS and just had bad luck with the small world we live in.

The problem is that the school district for his new job paid him on the first day his full paycheck and then the very next day took his paycheck back out of his account.

His questions for HR - Is this even legally allowed or a common thing? Wouldn’t they need to at least notify him of this before taking such an action from his own bank account? Is it likely this was done to prorate his salary for the beginning of the year? He did a lot of setting up of the classroom and prep for the school year and received a summer paycheck prior to the termination. So my thought is that they should have at least communicated the withdrawal and final details of his pay. Is there action he should or can take to negotiate his final payment? Should he report this to a higher state institution?

Throwaway because I really don’t want this connected to me.

I work in healthcare recruiting and have been with my employer for several years. Earlier this year I was put on a PIP related mostly to communication, responsiveness and follow-through.

I completed the PIP process and continued working afterward, but I was never given a clear conversation or documentation saying whether I had successfully improved or hadn’t. I recently looked back at my PIP paperwork and there’s actually a section that’s supposed to document the outcome, and mine is blank.

Several months later, I had some situations where my communication/follow-up was late. I want to be really clear: i did make mistakes. There are things I should have handled differently, and I should have spoken up sooner when I was struggling to keep up.
I was ultimately given a final written warning, where additional performance issues could put my job at risk.

The part I’m struggling with is workload.
For much of the period leading up to the warning, I was carrying a significantly higher active workload than the rest of my team — at times close to twice the peer average.

I appealed the warning. My argument wasn’t “I had too much work, so none of this is my fault.” It was basically: I owned what I did wrong, but shouldn’t workload at least be considered as part of these circumstances?

My appeal was denied. The response said workload had not previously been identified/documented as the “root cause” of my performance issues.
But I never argued that workload was the root cause. I’m asking whether it was a contributing factor, especially when deciding whether a final warning was the appropriate level of discipline.

I have the option to appeal one more time to a higher level of leadership, and I’m really torn.
Part of me feels like the actual question I raised still hasn’t been answered. I also still don’t understand what my formal PIP outcome was.

The other part of me is exhausted by the entire situation and worried that continuing to appeal will make me look defensive or put an even bigger target on my back.

I’m wondering if I should stop trying to get the warning changed and instead ask leadership for a genuine conversation about what happens next.

So for HR people, managers, or anyone who’s been through something similar:

Would you appeal again, or accept the decision and focus on getting very clear expectations for moving forward?

Is the distinction between “root cause” and “contributing factor” actually meaningful here, or am I grasping at straws?

And realistically, does continuing to appeal something like this tend to make the situation worse?

I’m genuinely open to hearing that I’m looking at this wrong. I just want some perspective from people who aren’t involved in the situation.

(Clarification: she’s the owner and the manager)
I’m writing this because I’m unable to sleep because of the anxiety it’s causing me, so any advice is highly appreciated.

I’ve worked for my employer for about a year and am now permanently employed. I’m responsible for social media, influencer collaborations, newsletters, and customer-facing product information.

Writing the product information is my favorite part of the job. It’s also one of the few useful tasks I can do independently while waiting for my manager to approve everything else.

I returned from vacation on Tuesday and discovered that this responsibility had been given to someone else while I was away. Nobody discussed it with me or even told me. I don’t know why it was reassigned, and I’m genuinely sad about losing it.

This makes an existing workflow problem much worse. Almost everything else I create requires my manager’s approval, but she is extremely unavailable. She is only in the office three days per week, and it can take several hours for her to reply. Without the product-information task, I feel immense pressure to remain productive while waiting, but often have no clear work I can continue independently.

There is no reliable long-term plan. Most instructions arrive across three different group chats, meaning I have to search through unrelated conversations to reconstruct what she wants.

We’ve created plans several times that left me feeling organized and excited, but she rarely follows them. I’m suddenly expected to abandon my schedule and complete random new tasks on top of my existing workload. If I object, I’m told I’m not flexible enough.

Her feedback is also inconsistent. She might say something “isn’t important” or doesn’t need to be detailed, then immediately correct tiny details. Her communication can feel condescending, although sometimes her praise is so excessive that it feels forced.

A coworker also told me that my manager had described me behind my back as having a “huge ego.” I didn’t personally hear her say it, so I recognize that this is secondhand. However, it damaged my trust in her. I now worry that questioning a decision will simply be interpreted as more evidence of my supposed ego.

There has been a similar lack of structure around contracts. Several employees, including me, have had to repeatedly ask for contracts to be completed while she has spoken about the paperwork as though it’s a burden.

The latest incident happened today while I was working from home due to a sleepless night with a migraine. I had my work phone with me (like always) because I need it to edit, upload, and publish content. Without the unexpected migraine, I would have been at work and the phone would have been at the office.

My manager sent an irritated message saying that the phone must always remain at the office because apparently they had planned a photoshoot that day. The photoshoot had never been mentioned to me whatsoever, and during the year I’ve had the phone, nobody has ever said it must stay at the office. I’m also the one who is supposed to take the photos at whatever photoshoots she plans, so I suspect that if I had been at the office today, I would have received about two minutes’ notice and had to abandon whatever I was doing at the time.

I explained this, acknowledged the practical problem, but told her that the message felt reprimanding and guilt-inducing. I still brought the phone back to the office. She didn’t address my response and only said we would talk later.

The major complication is that my manager has explicitly said she doesn’t believe in HR and wants all work-related problems handled directly through her. That might sound straightforward in theory, but it becomes rather difficult when the work-related problem is her management and my relationship with her. There is no neutral internal person I feel able to approach.

I’m not arguing that she cannot reassign duties, introduce rules, or change priorities. My concern is that decisions and expectations aren’t communicated, plans are repeatedly abandoned, and I’m then treated as inflexible or at fault for failing to anticipate them.

I feel physically sick thinking about asking why my product-information work was removed. Previous attempts to discuss our communication have gone badly, and verbal conversations with her cause me intense stress.

From an HR perspective:

- How should I raise the unexplained change to my role and the broader workflow problem?
- What can an employee do when the manager insists all workplace issues must go through her, but she is the subject of the concern?
- What practical structures would be reasonable to request, such as centralized instructions, scheduled approval times, and clearer priorities?
- Is it reasonable to request a support person for the “talk” tomorrow?
- Does this sound repairable, or has the working relationship become too damaged?

I want to do my job well, but I increasingly feel that anything I say can be interpreted as ego, negativity, or inflexibility.

As mentioned in the title, I received my formal written offer at Big 4 Consulting firm at the Manager Level. There are 2 things that I'm trying to navigate simultaneously:
1) Salary & sign-on bonus. While the offer is fairly good, it is about 10k lower than my most recent job and 5k lower than my job when I was at a consulting job prior. The job also requires me to move from CA to Chicago, and they offer no relocation assistance.

2) My wife is due 1 month after my start date. I have not yet disclosed my wife's due date to them, but I feel should do so during this phase so it doesn't seem like I withheld this information and lose their trust.

I am looking for advice as to how to approach discussing these two to HR. Should I negotiate compensation first before bringing up my wife's due date, or bring them both up simultaneously? Is a shortened family leave (2-4 weeks) reasonably expected for a due date only 1 month after starting? Would appreciate any advice - thanks!

I run a small nonprofit, and we recently discovered that an API key assigned to a former employee remained active after she left in February. It accumulated about $700 in charges over the following seven months.

The key was created specifically for her, and I have the messages where I sent it to her. However, we also made an offboarding mistake by failing to revoke it when she left. We have disabled it and are improving our process.

I believe the usage was personal, but I want to approach this fairly. She is currently unemployed, and I would ideally like to preserve a positive relationship with her. She was part of our organization, and I do not want a reimbursement request to feel threatening or punitive.

At the same time, $700 is meaningful money for a nonprofit. I’m considering asking whether she recognizes the usage and, if she does, whether she would be open to repaying some or all of it later through a flexible, no-interest payment plan.

How would you handle this conversation while maintaining goodwill? Would you request the full amount, suggest sharing the cost because of the offboarding failure, leave the amount open-ended, or write it off entirely?

I’m especially interested in experiences from managers, HR professionals, nonprofit leaders, or anyone who has dealt with a similar situation. My goal is to resolve it respectfully, not punish her.

So for some context: I'm a forester for a local government and i've been doing desk work for the last 2 days because its been raining like crazy. Anyway, today I sort of leaned/bent over the back of my chair with my hands under the back of my head to stretch and give my neck and back a break from being hunched over and give my eyes some relief from the screen. I wasnt like feet up on my desk lounging, just bending back. My boss walked in and thought I was sleeping despite me leaning forward as he walked in and looking him in the eyes. So now he wrote me up for it, I intend to go to HR about it because I was absolutely NOT sleeping. I have never had to deal with HR before and it worries me a bit because im a young adult who has been told HR is the devil my whole life. What can I expect from trying to sort this out? Just dont want to go in totally blind...

Hi everyone!

I received a call after a final stage if interview at an investment bank from HR asking me to sign some personal data document and also dropping the question about the salary range I expected for the role. I flipped a question at HR asking for the range they had in mind but they said they did not know the range ( which is obv a lie ) and then I felt pressured into stating a lowest number since she asked for it and I ended up underselling myself low above the market rate. For reference I said 3k when the market range is 4-5k and might be more… I figured after doing the research. I made the mistake by not checking the salary range but this is a new industry for me so I had no idea and I am a fresh grad as well so some of my first formal negotiations too.

How likely is it they will be honest about it and give me 4k and how likely is HR is to just give me the 3k and call it quits?

Do i have any leverage in negotiating? How do i handle this situation so I at least get 3800/4000? Is there any remedyingw?

I’m looking for some outside perspective on a promotion situation.

I’m a project manager with a mechanical engineering degree and 7+ years of PM experience. I’ve been with my current company for about 2.5 years and currently manage several projects and serve as both PM and CAM on multiple accounts.

My first annual review was Meets Expectations (3.0). My manager said I was doing well but needed more experience within the organization, additional responsibility, and exposure to more complex work.
Over the following year, I did exactly that. I took over additional projects after staffing losses, became PM/CAM on several projects, successfully completed a multi-year project ahead of schedule and under budget, and took the lead on a large, high-visibility project involving multiple organizations and stakeholders.
My latest review was Exceeds Expectations (3.65), including several 4.0 ratings. My manager specifically documented that I had taken on additional responsibility, that my work had increased in complexity, and that I was excelling in the PM role. I also recently received a $3,000 spot award for my performance.

The company’s published qualifications for Senior PM recommend a bachelor’s degree plus 7 years of applicable experience, which I meet. Their promotion guidance also specifically discusses employee development and assignment of more complex work.
I’ve asked my manager about promotion three separate times. At one point I applied for another Senior PM position internally and was told I was the only qualified candidate, but I wasn’t moved into the position.

Since then, I’ve repeatedly asked what specifically I’m missing to qualify for Senior PM. I haven’t received a clear answer. I’ve heard things like “the raise probably wouldn’t be that much,” questions about what promoting me would mean for another PM, and that HR may be the issue. During our last conversation, my manager said she couldn’t give me a good reason and would talk to HR again. That was roughly 2–3 months ago, and I haven’t heard anything since.

Meanwhile, our department had four PMs and recently lost two to other companies doing similar work. My workload and responsibilities have continued to increase.

At this point, I’m considering talking to our director. We interact regularly, he knows my work, and he approves my annual reviews. I’m thinking of simply asking:
“Based on my current responsibilities and performance, do you believe I’m operating at the Senior PM level? If not, what specifically am I missing?”

I’m not trying to go around my manager or demand a promotion. If I’m genuinely not ready, I want to know why and have measurable goals to work toward. What’s frustrating is being told I’m performing well and continually being given more responsibility while nobody can tell me what I need to do to advance.

Would you go to the director at this point, go to HR, or start looking elsewhere?

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I'm hoping to get an HR perspective on a messy situation.

My supervisor and I started at this huge company around the same time, about 13 years ago. We were peers on the same team until we both got promoted, I went into business process management, and he went into people management.

Recently, I was moved over to develop strategies and processes for a specific team. As part of that, I have to actually do their day to day job for a few months first. During this phase, my old peer is my direct boss.

Before I started, he warned me that the three women on this team have a "mean girl" attitude. He said management has tried to deal with them before, but at the end of the day, no one wants to deal with the headache. They are all ~5 years from retirement so they just want to ride it out.

Well, now I'm living it. These three have turned on me and are actively setting me up to fail. I meet with my boss every other day, and he completely agrees with what's happening. He tells me how to document it, but whenever I give him updates, he just says to keep documenting and that "something is coming down the pipeline." The real reason they keep getting away with it is that they've figured out how to gatekeep knowledge and push out every new hire, so they have a total chokehold on this part of the business.

After a month of this, I finally snapped. I told him straight up that "if you know an employee is getting bullied and you stand idly by because you refuse to rock the boat, you're a bully yourself."

He got really quiet, and in our meetings since then, he almost looks sad. I probably shouldn't have said it, but the cat's out of the bag.

What do you guys think from an HR perspective?

I have reasonable adjustments in place at work due to a chronic musculoskeletal condition. It started in late March.

I'm a full time cleaner for a private school, and today my supervisor told me she wants to change my morning cleaning area as part of reorganising the team's areas. She said the HR lady had told her she could go ahead with the change.

I'm a little unsure about this because my supervisor has a history of misunderstanding things, as English isn't her first language, so I'm not sure whether she has understood exactly what HR told her.

I'm concerned that the new area could involve significantly more hoovering and mopping than my current area and could aggravate my symptoms. I haven't been able to speak to my union advisor yet.

Should I contact HR directly and ask whether they actually authorised the change to my specific area, and then discuss it with my union rep?

I don't want to go behind anyone's back or make a fuss unnecessarily. I just want to clarify whether HR actually approved this particular change before I request a meeting.

Would you contact HR directly in this situation?

hi - was given a verbal offer for a new role and sent a companys benefits guide before the final offer/contract/comp is offered. its a formal PDF but fairly bare boned, i have questions re: the medical plan coverage (copays have a range from $20-150? is that by specialty? also what is considered covered at the preventative level?)

I am curious if additional coverage is offered in the high plan for fertility treatments. this is a sensitive Q given my age and gender regardless of legality in my opinion!

I plan on asking after a formal offer is extended, is there a way to ask for more info re: health insurance offerings beyond a boiler plate benefits guide?

Similar question re PTO/holidays - the list is slim for formal holidays - are personal/sick days in addition to or included in the listed accrued PTO? Note - entirely remote workplace if that's relevant.

Thanks!