Inviting coworkers

knottie0b846f29693aafb9

I am an office manager at a doctor's office. We are a small Dept and got very close. During covid our Dept merged with another site. Since we have been remote the past couple years I am not close with the others we merged with. Only 1 clinician and 1 of my direct employees joined the new site. The rest left our Dept. 

Our group from our old site still keep in touch via group text all the time including my direct employee. I'd like to invite this whole group.  My question and concern is is it bad for me to invite my direct employee, from my old site, and not the 4 other employees I acquired when we merged. I am worried if I invite her it'll look like favoritism but I can't invite the others from our old site without her. 

downtondiva

If you are closer with this direct employee and have known/worked with her longer than the others at the new site, I think it would probably be okay. The main thing with inviting people from work to your wedding is that you generally don't want to include more people than you exclude (i.e. inviting 7 people and excluding 3, or something like that), which wouldn't be the case here. 

That said, if you aren't inviting anyone else from the new site, keep wedding talk at work to a minimum, so that nobody expects to be invited or feels at all involved.

MyNameIsNot

Generally, it's fine to only invite the people who you have a relationship with outside of work. Those who you would invite to your house or go out with on the weekend. But it's a little more complicated when you're a manager. Even the hint of favoritism can cause problems. I would err on the side of not inviting any direct reports at all. 

short+sassy

I think it depends on the tone of your worksite.  If you don't think your other direct employees would side-eye it or feel hurt, than it's probably fine.  Since it is just one and someone you've known a lot longer, I think it would be understood.  I've seen both ways on this.

I had a workplace that did lots of socializing outside the office.  Sometimes there were events where some, but not most, direct employees were invited to a manager's house/party/dinner/etc.  I wasn't offended by that on the occasions I wasn't included and didn't get the impression that others were either.

But then I also remember one party where everyone was invited, except for three people in the office.  It also didn't help matters that in the days leading up to the party, everyone was flagrantly talking about, including the manager.  There were A LOT of hurt feelings over that and some of us side-eyed that manager.

I think if it had been more on the down-low, even that would have been fine.  The three excluded people might not have even known how excluded they were compared to everyone else.  So it would also be important to keep any wedding talk totally outside of the workplace.