Colleague deliberately staying late at work just to accrue TOIL?

Seriously, don't be that person. You sound jealous. I am struggling to believe you are actually considering doing this.

If it bothers you that much talk to the person, but snitching is not really the way.

Of course it matters, because it creates ill feeling in the team if one member is taking the piss!
I think its perfectly reasonable to ask your manager what the policy is on TOIL and on taking extended lunch breaks etc on working days.
In my experience an organisation would not expect you to take TOIL for working 15 or so mins above tour daily contracted hours- that amount of extra time is kind of expected. Likewise in my experience if you have to do something personal on a given day then the expectation is that you would gey prior agreement and make up that time that day or the next.

WOW You must be a real do-gooder to want to dob your Colleague in it. Does it impact your work load that much if she take time off? Surely her Line Manager knows what her work load is & is aware she stays behind. I'd suggest minding your own business & not go telling tales, being a brown nose isn't a good look.

People will get PAID to work extra instead of having time off of more than 8 hours at a time. They get 5 weeks holiday plus bank holidays, we have flexible working for appts and 8 hours of TOIL at a time they can have. In a small team more than 8 hours toil starts to heavily impact productivity. If an employer has people needing to regularly work more hours than their contract then they do not have the right staffing ratios and I would need to recruit more staff or look at the workload. This is meant to look after staff and their work life balance not punish them. Why do people come to work just to do more work than they are paid to do, to just to have more time off? It doesn’t make sense 😂

We have a really robust policy regarding TOIL.
We have set hours for working and where meetings or weekend events happen outside of our contracted working hours we can claim TOIL - it has to be taken the following week but with special permission can be used within the month. Obviously they spin it as looking after staff and not overworking and being exhausted but really it’s so that no one is saving a weeks worth of TOIL to take just before Christmas or whenever - works for everyone and it’s very transparent.

I agree with the TOIL being within a specified time. If I work on a bank holiday and get TOIL this applies to me.

I used to work with someone like this. She didn't even do most her work and would busybody and delegate and people couldn't ever book fridays off because she would accrue for no reason and use it to suit her. Workplaces usually have policies on this - such as if you actually need to stay late (emergency) and it can not be left, thats fine, but things that can be left its not fine. Also if theres docs apps that you can not get outside of work time it may be they let you work it back after. My last workplace used to say that if you accrued the most you could accrue was a day and thats it, but it had to be used within a set time.

The lady got pulled up on it. We worked in a hospital and we not only had her dilly dallying about not seeing patients but then she would accrue time saying she was doing her admin whilst doing f all after work and chatting and distracting everyone else.

I think here and there for genuine reason or a one off thing eg a colleague went to one concert that yeat thats a bit far and didnt want to book off two hours for travel and accrued, asking the manager and saying what work they will do, fine. All the tine just fucks people off and leaves them to struggle. Depends on the job/sector too

Love this! I would do this for sure! Also in the manger’s hearing I would ask if she needs a hand “as you seem so much busier than the rest of us!” But then I can be a bitch and this would wind the hell out of me. My business or not!

To be fair this is how modern business operate these days, the best ones anyway! It's all about flexible working, being able to manage your work/life balance. I couldn't work somewhere where I wasn't allowed to use time during the day for appointments.

Sounds like a crap idea personally I'd never work above and beyond if the toil had a load of stipulations like that on it. Thats not the way to manage deal with the people who are the issue! Not screw over the good staff because of a few bad ones. The employees are doing the company a favour working the extra time if they aren't then why are they working extra time? Poor management unfortunately is to blame for staff taking the piss with this type of thing. Which the Op's situation is a prime example of. Unfortunately Op if you've got rubbish management who don't pick up on this type of thing or deal with it. Complaining to this type of management will probably just land you in the bad books. Having experienced poor management you're better off ignoring these annoyances of others on the blag and find your own blags and perks or leave and go on to pastures new you're better than that employer.

This would really irritate me, however I had a similar situation (I was her senior but not her direct manager) and when I flagged it the manager concerned sided with the employee. I was kind of let go a few months later and I think it was related as I’d really raised the profile of the company the point where we’d won an award so was doing a good Job.
If you flag just be aware of other stuff at play. I then found out from another friend in the same industry that this employee had been exactly the same when she’d managed her so I was right in my suspicions. Sometimes this kind of shit isn’t fair, so just be careful how you do it!

But it is their business! What part of it's impacting on the poster and the team did you miss?

Time Off In Lieu

I'm with the OP on this.
Someone taking the piss in a small team means the others are having to take on some of their work.
It's unfair and frustrating.
It doesn't matter if it's unearned toil or invented sickness.
I've worked in situations like this where the manager isn't managing and it's irritating.
I like the suggestion by LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand on this.
Maybe a bit of phoney concern might concentrate the managers mind

Good for her!

That's true. Nobody will be there at your funeral to thank you for never going to the dentist during work time.

No, that's not how it works if you have a flexitime system. You manage it yourself.

"I couldn't understand why, as she wasn't doing anything markedly different to the rest of us and her workload wasn't any bigger."

But you said that she DID work those two extra hours so she must have done more work than the rest of you during those days.

"I'd also noticed that the reason management thought she was snowed under was that she walked around from office to office telling everyone that she was snowed under."

Then they're idiots. I realised quite early on that the ones who have time to go on about how busy they are can't be that busy and the ones who go on about how stressful their job is would make the least stressful job in the world a stressful one because that's what they thrive on.

I used to work with a colleague who did this. I was fairly new and she was an old timer who knew how to work the books. She left before I had time to question her motives but I would have done. Can say I definitely learnt from her.

My Dad liked getting into work early. He used to accrue so much TOIL from just doing what he'd done for years. He was asked to do less hours so he started to leave earlier instead.

If it's an issue then raise it. If not, leave well alone.

What's TOIL?

Goodness me, what a good colleague you are!

yeah…just leave her alone and stop being jealous. Or stay 15min extra day so you take the same as her. Whichever one.

Ffs, does anyone do a day’s work for a day’s pay? Absolutely taking the piss.

Well, that's why I said 'depending on the situation'.
If there are clear policies, procedures and measurability of output management is easier.
If there aren't, then anybody you tried to manage could point out that they weren't flouting company policy.

It would be very easy in my job - my teams are expected to deliver on certain objectives. Doesn't matter how they want to work, if said objectives are not delivered they'll be pulled up.

Also for our TOIL everything is logged, audited and recorded so someone can't simply 'stay late' and get more.

Similarly, a PP's '2 hours of overtime every day' is also easy to spot given that her colleague who regularly covers gets through it fine.

In this case the company policy allows people to count TOIL in 10 minutes increments. Issues with sickness. Looks like managing a specific person isn't going to be the solution.

TOIL built up like that without prior approval is a ridiculous policy anyway. What's the harm in changing it? If the 'good employees' haven't been doing it, well nothing changes for them post new policy.

Depending on the situation trying to 'manage' a single person results in claims of unfair treatment etc with these kinds of people, so it's easier to have a blanket policy.

I think that's lazy management, tbh. I've been on 2 different teams where there was a lazy piss taker. Both roles involved a lot of appointments out in the community or home visits, so there was plenty of scope for slacking. In both cases, the employee involved was managed more closely and required to account for where they were and when, they may have whinged about itm but it never led to any measures being put in place that affected the rest of the team.

In both cases, the person involved left the organisation eventually and they were replaced by people who weren't slackers.