Manager Writes About Aspects Of Work She Does And Does Not Care About, Her Post Gains Massive Audience

Nov 22, 2021 by apost team

Work-life balance is crucial for everyone, but this becomes especially apparent when working from home. Boundaries are necessary when finding a balance between staying motivated at work and caring for yourself and your family. Megan Witherspoon is the Vice President of Communications at a company called Altria, and she made a post on Linkedin in September 2021 about what she does and does not care about when managing her employees.

Witherspoon’s list went viral after thousands of people felt connected to the kindness and flexibility she shows her workers. Her post highlighted situations like having a child fall ill and needing to miss work to take them to a medical appointment. She made it clear that she does care that the child is sick, but she does not care if the employee needs to take time off for the appointment.

Another example she gave was employees missing meetings because they need to drop off or pick up their child from school or daycare. Witherspoon says she does care if her employee’s child is lacking reliable transportation, but she does not care if they take an hour off to drive their kid where they need to go. She cares about her employees and their families and understands that life is messy sometimes and things come up that force us to miss work.

The post drives home that to Witherspoon, the when, where, and how work gets done is less important than the quality of the work and general performance as an employee. She expressed that working from home is a merging of professional and personal life so managers need to be more flexible. Keep reading to hear more of Witherspoon’s opinions on business management.

Many of the people commenting on Witherspoon’s post seemed to misunderstand her tone when she stated, “I DO NOT care when, where or how you get your work done.” She clarified her opinion in the comments section, writing: 

“Given how much time we spend with colleagues and the level of trust and collaboration required to produce good work, I believe it's important that our relationships are more than just transactional. I do actually care about the people I work with.”

Speaking to Newsweek, Witherspoon also said, "We're now bringing more life into business — merging the personal and professional in a way we've never seen before. It used to be that when we entered the office building, we checked our personal lives and emotions at the door. But now these aspects of our lives have become intertwined. We're meeting with teammates in their homes surrounded by their personal things, family members and pets."

Witherspoon thinks being compassionate is something everyone should practice in the workplace, especially when working remotely. The manager added, "I've been an advocate for flexibility for a very long time, and I believe in being fully human at work. I want to see more trust, empathy and warmth in the workplace. I want to work with and for people I care about, because we spend an awful lot of time together.”

The post has over 100,000 likes on Linkedin and has gained Witherspoon a lot of notoriety. She shared, "I never expected my post to get this much attention — I've had a huge outpouring of support, both from inside my company and on LinkedIn. It's reaffirmed that this matters so much to so many people."

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What do you think of Witherspoon’s opinions? Do you agree? Let us know, and feel free to pass this along to your friends and colleagues.