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Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues--everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.

Here's a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.

My company hired a new employee more than three months ago. She accepted the offer and was due to start work in a week. Today she emailed us to say she wants "to take her career in another direction." One week prior to start date and for us three full months when we could have been searching. Even worse, no phone call, no apology for wasting our time. Any advice on how to regroup and to lessen the likelihood of this happening again, other than baying at the moon and tearing my hair out?

Green responds:

It happens. If you hire enough people, eventually someone's going to back out of an offer they'd previously accepted; that's just how it goes. People get better offers, or change their minds, or their circumstances change. It's worth looking back at the hiring process to see if in retrospect you notice any signs you should have paid more attention to (so you can learn from them for the future), but sometimes this just happens.

That said, when you hire someone with a far-off start date, it's smart to keep in touch with them during that time. Not oppressively frequent contact, obviously, but checking in every few weeks, sending them an article that........

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