Work Flexibility Coming Back to Haunt You? Ask Madeleine

Dear Madeleine,

I have been managing people for decades. With the advent of Covid, I put a lot of focus on getting better at managing hybrid teams. (This blog really helped me.) I have some people who come to the office and about half the group works remotely. I go in four days a week.

I have developed a reputation for being fair, working with individuals to find challenging opportunities and being flexible with work preferences. But lately I have begun to wonder if I am being too flexible, at the expense of the functioning of my team. For example, I have one direct report who has informed me that he intends to move to Australia. He just assumed I would be okay with it. I am not.

I really wish he had approached me with this as a request and not presented it as a fait accompli. I never would have approved this move. But now all the plans have been made—and if I were to say no at this point, it would cause a lot of turbulence. My biggest issue is that we already work with multiple time zones, and adding another one on the opposite side of the world is going to increase complexity. I haven’t even begun the process of talking to HR about the laws governing employment in Australia, and that worries me. This person is a good employee, but there have been some issues with accountability and entitlement. I wouldn’t mind letting him go and hiring someone new for the job.

What I really want to do is ask him if we can roll back this decision, but I worry that he only behaved the way he did because I sent mixed messages. How much of this is my fault? What can I do now?

Not OK

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Dear Not OK,

Wow, this is so relatable. As a manager, I often have erred on the side of giving people too much freedom (which is crucial to me) and have suffered similar mix-ups. I applaud your willingness to consider the part you might have played in creating the situation and your desire to take responsibility for it. But, at least from the information you provided, it does seem like your employee took some liberties.

In the blog post you mention, Real Talk About Leading Hybrid Teams, Randy Conley points out that with hybrid teams, it is even more critical to make the implicit explicit. I think that point might be the one to focus on now.

Blanchard just sent out an updated employee handbook that outlines very clearly how employees should proceed if they wish to relocate. It begins with a conversation with one’s manager to obtain explicit permission. I can only imagine that your company has something similar. So there might be a chance that your direct report ignored precise direction.

Even if you don’t have such a handbook, you are within your rights as a manager to have a serious conversation with your world traveler. It is completely fair for you to point out that you would have preferred that he consult you, rather than inform you, before making such a huge decision. It is also fair to tell him that you need to do your homework—both with HR to see if it is feasible, and with your team to see if the time difference will correspond with the team’s workflow. Finally, assuming you have talked about accountability issues already, it is fair to express your concerns about how the distance and time difference will affect this person’s ability to stay on top of his deliverables.

I appreciate your worry that your flexibility has led to a misunderstanding, but I think a line was crossed here, and you can push back. You would need to do so even if the employee were a superstar performer. It is never too late to be explicit when needed. It really is not your fault that your employee jumped the gun. And if you can’t make it work, he will reap the consequences.

Do your due diligence. Decide one way or the other if you can make this work for you and the team. Share your thinking. You can own your part in this situation but you can also insist that your employee own his. If it can work, outline the parameters of how. If it can’t—well, it might be a hard conversation.

Be clear, be direct, and be kind.

You can use this as an opportunity to get ahead of any other non-negotiables you haven’t shared with your team. Examine additional assumptions your direct reports might be making, and make the implicit explicit.

Most people crave certainty, so the more you can give them, the better.

Love, Madeleine