credit thief chronicles
Hello darlings,
We made it to Friday, which means one thing: next week is a short week for most of us, and honestly?
That fact alone is straight up giving me life right now.
I’m already planning on how dramatically I’ll slam my laptop shut. Self-care, babes! 😇
But before we collectively sprint toward that sweet, abbreviated week, let’s talk about the chaos our community sent in:
First: the coworker who has fully optimized the performance art of looking busy. Delegating like she’s running a Fortune 100 but contributing like she’s on a permanent break? Oh, I know her. We all know her, unfortunately.
And second: the eternal struggle of trying to convince a scientist-first CEO that engagement survey follow-through is the difference between retaining people and watching them get poached in real time.
If only data mattered when we showed it to them, right??? 🙃
So roll up your sleeves and let’s dig in!
ASK AWAY
👀 surveys & fakersCopy anchor linkCopied
✍🏾 I have a coworker who’s rarely online or available, but she’s mastered the art of looking busy: calling herself on Teams, using a mouse jiggler, and sending out vague update emails. What’s frustrating is that she’s good at delegating… so she ends up taking credit for other people’s work while doing very little herself. Everyone on the team sees what’s happening, but no one addresses it. Is there anything one can realistically do in this kind of situation, or is it best to wait and let leadership eventually catch on?
Context: Company size ~80k, organization within company ~2k, immediate team >10. Healthcare industry, technology organization within company.
📣 Michelle Willis, HR Director @ Apparel Impact Institute:
In situations like this, the most effective move is to shift the focus away from how your coworker appears to be working and anchor everything in clear expectations and concrete deliverables. Visibility games only matter when expectations are vague. When expectations are crystal clear, a person either meets them or doesn’t, regardless of how often they’re online.
A few practical steps:
One. Clarify what “done” looks like.
If your team does not already have explicit deliverables, deadlines, or success criteria, start there. You can raise this proactively with your manager by framing it around team efficiency. For example: “It would help us move faster if we had clearer definitions of ownership and outcomes for each project.”
Two. Document ownership.
When a task is assigned or delegated, capture it in writing. A simple recap email like, “To confirm, I’ll handle X and you’ll handle Y by Friday” makes credit taking much harder and creates a transparent work trail without calling anyone out.
Three. Use status updates strategically.
Instead of vague check-ins, give precise, outcome oriented updates on your own work. “Here is what I delivered, here is what is pending, here is what I need.” This creates a contrast without ever mentioning your coworker.
Four. Focus on your own output.
If she is delivering results, then her online status truly isn’t the issue. A lot of people work in different rhythms, and some work better with long, uninterrupted stretches offline. If her deliverables are consistently late, incomplete, or falling on others, the documentation and clarity above will surface that naturally.
Five. Involve your manager only when it’s about impact.
If her behavior is causing delays, confusion, or rework, you can flag that to your manager in a neutral way: “Here’s the impact on the project and here’s what would solve it.” The conversation should never be about her mouse jiggler. It should be about the work.
Six. Let reality catch up.
In large companies especially, people who rely on looking busy instead of delivering often hit a ceiling. It may take time, but when expectations and accountability mechanisms are clear, like you indicated, leadership will eventually notices.
Super frustrating, but hope these tips can help!
📣 Rosetta Williams, Sr. Director, People Talent & Culture @ Immigrant Justice Corps:
I hear your frustration – and you're right that the whole team seeing it while leadership doesn't address it is maddening. After 35+ years in HR, I can tell you this pattern is more common than it should be, especially in larger organizations where activity can be mistaken for productivity.
The reality: In a company of 80K with your org at 2K, visibility issues like this take longer to surface than anyone wants. But they do surface – usually during performance cycles, project post-mortems, or when someone actually needs her expertise and finds there's nothing there.
What you can actually control if you're a peer:
Protect your own visibility. Document your contributions clearly. Make sure your work has your name on it and decision-makers know what you delivered.
Redirect credit in real time. When she takes credit in meetings, speak up matter-of-factly:
"Actually, Sarah led that work – I can connect you two." Don't be aggressive about it, just factual.
Stop enabling the behavior. If people on your team are doing work she's "delegating," they need to stop unless she has actual authority to delegate. Delegation without accountability isn't delegation – it's offloading.
The bigger question: Where is her manager in all this? Someone managing a team of 10+ should be evaluating based on actual deliverables and outcomes, not Teams status or vague email updates. If everyone on the team sees this, either leadership isn't looking or they're not measuring the right things.
When to escalate: If her behavior directly impacts your ability to do your job or your team's performance, document specific examples and raise it with your manager or HR. Focus on business impact, not activity monitoring.
Otherwise? Keep doing good work, stay visible, and let the system catch up. These situations typically resolve when she misses a critical deadline, gets exposed in a reorganization, or someone finally asks her to actually produce something she can't delegate away.
The waiting is frustrating, but focusing on what you control – your work quality, your visibility, and your boundaries – is your best play here.
Safe Space members can join this discussion here. Not a member yet? Apply to join here.
✍🏾 How do you convince your CEO (Scientist first) that follow through on engagement surveys is 100% just as important as meeting a client's need?
Context: We have taken an outside engagement survey 3 years in a row with slipping scores each year. Our CEO is head of the community committee but anything they suggest, or HR suggests is shot down. I can't convince them that doing the "Cheesy HR required fun" or the trainings for new managers are worthwhile. I'm always told that we are too busy to meet client needs let alone spend time on it. I just don't know how else to convince them. She sees that our staff is being poached by our competitors but doesn't seem to understand the correlation.
📣 Sharon Snell, CHRO, Chief HR Officer @ State of the Heart Recovery:
You are working with a CEO who approaches everything through data, logic, and measurable proof. That’s actually to your advantage. The key is to stop trying to sell “engagement” as an HR initiative and instead connect it directly to business outcomes.
Start by framing it in language your CEO respects. Don’t talk about engagement as a feeling or morale issue. Talk about what happens when engagement drops, things like missed deadlines, rework, turnover, and lost productivity. Each one of those has a hard cost. Every employee who leaves costs anywhere from half to twice their annual salary. That’s not an HR talking point; that’s a business loss that affects client delivery and financial performance.
You’ve already got three years of declining survey data. Put that in a chart next to turnover and client satisfaction trends. If you can show a correlation, the pattern will speak louder than any argument. Scientists respond to evidence, not persuasion.
Next, reframe your solutions. Instead of calling it “team building” or “manager training,” call it what it truly is, an operational intervention to improve efficiency and retention. For example, “This leadership series is projected to reduce first-year turnover by 15 percent.” Replace “employee engagement activity” with “workforce optimization initiative.” You’re not softening the truth; you’re translating it into the language your CEO uses to make decisions.
It also helps to benchmark against competitors. If people are leaving for other companies, find out what those organizations are doing differently. Are they investing in supervisor development, feedback loops, or recognition programs? Use that data to show that engagement isn’t about fun events; it’s a competitive strategy.
Finally, bring your CEO into the reasoning process. Ask something like, “If our engagement scores continue to drop, what do you expect will happen to our client outcomes over the next year?” That’s not a challenge; it’s an invitation to think scientifically. You’re aligning with her logic, not opposing it.
The bottom line is this: stop defending engagement as an HR initiative and start proving it as an operational variable. Once your CEO sees that engagement drives performance, retention, and client satisfaction, you won’t need to convince her. She’ll connect the dots herself.
📣 Sandi Creyaufmiller, SVP Culture & Talent @ Marine Bank:
It's time to think like a scientist. Scientists love data. Gartner, Forester and Gallup all have engagement data surveys, and the Great Place to Work Institute has data regarding follow-up results to engagement surveys. Present facts on how good employee engagement leads to excellent customer service.
I would suggest to your leader that your employees have supplied essential data, and we need to demonstrate that we value their feedback. Select one easy win to implement first and ensure your leader can tie it back to the survey data. Sometimes, it's as simple as changing your approach and language.
📣 Jill Felska, Founder @ Training for the Modern Manager:
This is such a hard position to find yourself in, but definitely a common one for those of us in the people and culture space! I'd focus on these four things:
1. Conduct Both Exit and Stay Interviews: Sometimes, qualitative data can prove a helpful motivating factor alongside quantitative data you're receiving from from the engagement surveys. Employees are most honest upon exit, but I'd also focus on gathering information from key company employees who would be exceptionally painful to lose. For both interviews, pick the top three initiatives you’d like to focus on in 2026 and make at least one question directly relates back to it. Using management training as an example, you might ask a couple of the following questions in future exit interviews:
- How would you describe your relationship with your direct manager?
- Did/Does your manager provide you with clear expectations and regular feedback on your performance?
- Did/Do you feel comfortable approaching your manager with concerns or challenges?
- If your manager had done one thing differently, would you have stayed? OR If there was one thing you’d love for your manager to do differently, what would it be?
Whenever possible, keep these responses anonymous and provide general themes backed by direct quotes, especially when it pertains to stay-interviews. Employee trust is a hard thing to gain and an easy thing to lose, so make sure to keep that top of mind!
2. Identify Pain Killers, Not Vitamins: Often people-focused initiatives are seen as vitamins versus pain killers - nice to have, but not crucial. I’d work on directly tying your project pitches to the core pain points that are keeping your CEO and the leadership team up at night. Here’s are some examples of the difference when it comes to management training:
Vitamin: “This management training will improve employee engagement across the organization and create a better culture.”
Pain Killer: “We've lost eight people since January and six of them cited specific issues with their manager in exit interviews. That's $48,000 in replacement costs and we're on track to lose more.”
Vitamin: “Training will make managers more confident and help them feel more equipped in their roles.”
Pain Killer: “HR gets pulled into 12 ‘urgent’ management situations per week that should never reach us. That's 15 hours we can't spend on strategic initiatives that actually move the business forward.”
If you’re not sure what’s currently top of mind for your CEO or leadership team heading into 2026, I highly recommend kicking off a leadership listening tour to end out the year. Link below on exactly how to do this.
3. Define the End Goal Using Data: You identified the CEO as "scientist-first" which means that are likely all about the numbers. When pitching a new idea or project, showcase both how you'll define success and what the actual tracking will look like. Make sure to lay out:
- What success looks like: What the team will do differently post-initiative.
- How to measure: How you'll track it the changes.
- A specific target: When you expect to see as a result
Following our theme, here’s a management training example:
Goal #1: Escalation Reduction
- Success looks like: Managers handle 80% of performance issues, team conflicts, and operational problems independently without escalating to HR or senior leadership.
- How to measure: Track the number of situations escalated to you per week/month before and after training.
- Target: 50% reduction in escalations within 90 days.
Goal #2: New Hire Success Rate
- Success looks like: 90% of new hires reach full productivity within their expected timeframe and report feeling well-supported by their manager.
- How to measure: Time-to-productivity metrics, new hire satisfaction scores at 30/60/90 days, and early departure rates.
- Target: 40% improvement in new hire success rates within 6 months.
4. Be Prepared for Objections: It sounds like you know what objections may come up after working closely with the CEO. Use this to your advantage and prepare some responses to things you know will likely come up!
For example, in the past your CEO has shot down the idea of providing management training stating, “We are too busy to meet client needs, let alone spend time on it!”
Instead of accepting this as the end of the conversation, prepare something like this as a response: "That's exactly why we need this. When managers aren't equipped with efficient leadership tools, they spend more time firefighting—having the same conversations repeatedly, dealing with preventable conflicts, and managing performance issues reactively. Good training gives them frameworks that actually save time. For example, learning how to have one effective coaching conversation can eliminate five future crisis conversations. We're not adding to their plate—we're giving them a better tool to handle what's already there.”
Not sure where to start when it comes to sound objection rebuttals? I highly recommend using AI as a practice partner and asking for effective responses to the specific objections you may face. At the very least, it will help you feel more prepared going into the conversation!
I truly hope all of this helps! Here are a couple additional resources that should make the above suggestions easier to implement:
Conducting Stay Interviews: wtwt.beehiiv.com/p/issue-21
Planning a Leadership Listening Tour: wtwt.beehiiv.com/p/issue-65
Safe Space members can join this discussion here. Not a member yet? Apply to join here.
🚨 ON YOUR RADAR
🎧 This week’s episode might be my most unhinged-but-therapeutic journey yet, starting with a live coaching session! Afterwards, leadership coach Mary Pat Jacobs swoops in to remind us that our leadership style is inherited from every chaotic workplace we’ve ever survived. Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
❤️ From ‘I Hate it Here’ to ‘I Love it Here’: Your Culture Transformation Roadmap. HR can influence culture change in any organization, and this course teaches you how. Join the Safe Space community to access it!
⚖️ Still tracking harassment laws manually? Ethena’s guide breaks down every state’s training requirements (and what’s changing soon) so you can stay compliant and reduce legal risks, without losing your mind!*
*This one is brought to you by one of my amazing brand partners
📝 RESOURCE OF THE WEEK
Each week I feature a resource I love from the Safe Space library that I believe would be relatable to this week's newsletter topic.
[Insert description]. Check it out HERE ⬇️
FRIDAY FUN
😂 the most me exchange i've ever witnessedCopy anchor linkCopied
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Amy's podcast is QUICKLY becoming my fave!!!
She gets incredible guests, she's funny and I just love what they talk about.
Ariana in this exchange IS ME.
That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed! If you have any thoughts, please let me know. I'm allll ears.
Reminder: Today is FRIDAY. 🙏
