Work - At what point something cannot be considered an objective...

[PeaceLoveAndCandy]

... and should be a change in job description, potentially with a change of grade, title, salary, etc?

I don't work Fridays, never have, and no one's done my job on Fridays, if it's work of a reactive nature someone else within the team picks it up, if not, I do. They have now employed someone to cover my job Fridays and they want this to be a seamless transition between her and me, so that no one even notices whether it's me or her, we just sort things out amongst ourselves.

I don't have any subordinates. For me, this is extra work I do not have the capacity for. The new person is inexperienced and we would never cross paths. It would mean having to pass on work for her that I could happily do myself, and then check what she's done, and continue from that point, or even correct. But we have the same grade, title and salary, so I don't feel this extra responsibility is fair.

They also want this person to have full access to my inbox. There's nothing in my inbox that isn't 100% work related. Still, this feels like an intrusion and also demeaning.

I work extremely hard by the way, never take a lunchbreak and although I don't get paid for Fridays, I do a lot of work at home. The job gets done extremely well and I have never had anything but praise.

Am I right in thinking that adding this responsibility as an objective in my year review is not on, or am I being ridiculous?

I'd see this as an opportunity to trim your workload to what you can reasonably get done in 4 standard days, ie the time you are paid for.

At the moment it sounds like you are doing a full time job, but only being paid 80% of the salary that you deserve.

As your new colleague gains experience, the act of checking should be straightforward. You might even see it as a quality control exercise and she might also check yours too, just to make sure nothing is sent to clients that is wrong in any way. What are her hours - is she only working Fridays, or other days too? Might your employer think that the work required by your role requires more resources?

Could the inbox be an official shared one for the work, rather than your named work inbox, which you could keep separate, in case you need one for HR matters, training, etc?

Thanks Barbara. I genuinely don't feel it will impact my workload. This person will only work one day a week. I am just wondering if it's reasonable that this becomes an objective, surely is more of a change of role description?

This is a job share. Thousands of people do it. It may take a while to 'bed in' but it will eventually. You sound quite precious about your work tbh. As a PP said, make the most of actually working your salaried hours and not the hours required to do your job and be grateful your employer has seen it is unfair to expect you to do a full weeks work in 4 days.

It makes business sense to have more than one person doing a job. You sound like you are viewing this as her stepping on your toes.. I suggest you view it as a positive as you are likely to need to work less in your own time.

A joint email account for the job role is ideal for helping manage this sort of situation

I genuinely don't have a problem with an extra person joining the team on fridays, I will never meet this person. I have never grumbled the hours I do. I have been working happily this way for 4 years. I simply feel it is not my job to allocate work to her and then check it, as that adds to my workload.

Is your inbox a generic one like 'admin' or 'info' or does it have your name in it?

Generic, ok but make sure that the signatures are set so she can't send emails in your name.

Email with your name in it? No way is it appropriate for her to have access. She would be easily able to impersonate you.

Why would it add to your workload? Just use an hour on Thursday allocating work to them. Why would you need to check it?
I wouldn’t agree to give them access to your email account, all sorts of GDPR issues there. You need a joint email box like we have in school for the office admin.

I’d split the work vertically instead of horizontally - ie don’t get her to do tasks that you would do, offload the tasks you don’t want to do and allocate them to her

No need to be checking in, if she doesn’t do it that’s her issue with her manager

Inbox is my own, but a shared inbox could be a good idea. I still would appreciate some opinions on whether it is reasonable to add a supervisory aspect to my role as an objective. My point is that this feels bigger than just an objective, but more of a new responsibility.

Have they said you would be supervising her? Just that you said you were same salary and grade so why would you be checking her work ? Apart from training her it shouldn't impact you unless I've misunderstood and they have asked you to supervise her
In which case yes I agree it's a change but one that has increased your responsibility

Is it supervisory, or could it be viewed as just helping a new colleague to get up and running?

Once she / he knows what they are doing, why would you be checking the work. Surely if task A has been done by joe colleagues will as joe about it and if task A has been done by Bob they will ask Bob about it?

To be honest, job roles are rarely static and this doesn't sound like an unreasonable change to me

Yes, they've said I'll supervise everything so all runs smoothly, almost as if I was there in person on Fridays.

Ok so in answer to your question I would say it's a definite change but not significant enough to warrant a grade change - however hard for me to say as I don't know how narrow / wide your gradings are
It's one fifth of a person you are supervising - usually supervision would be for a whole person
It could warrant a small salary rise or other recognition

If you never take a lunch break and do work on fridays at home, you are not really managing the role in 4 days, and they are right to increase capacity. Allocating and checking work will surely not take you as long as 4 missed lunch breaks and your friday hours, so you may find it makes life easier. However if you are the same scale and are meant to be the 'same person' her work should arguably be allocated and checked by the person who checks and allocates yours.

I tend to agree with 5128gap, this could be a good thing for you, but yes, the management of the new person's work shouldn't fall on you. I'd be expected to offer some training/guidance, etc.

I think you are being overly protective of your workload. It’s the organisation’s work, not yours. You’re not managing in four days because you’re working without lunch etc. Try and see it as a good thing and be supportive. You aren’t exactly coming across a team player.

In my organisation, I would expect more experienced staff to ‘buddy’ new joiners of the same grade. That’s not about having management responsibility or supervising, but working as a team. In many jobs people have to hand over work from one person to another. It’s part and parcel of working. A midwife isn’t changing her job because sometimes she finishes her shift before the baby is born - she hands over the care. That doesn’t make her responsible for supervising the other midwife. It does make her responsible for the proper handover of information.

The additional person is recognising workload, offers contingency and should reduce the feeling of having to work excess hours.

I think access to a named email account is unwise in terms of governance and GDPR. Ask for a shared account to be set up.

It might be helpful to create a handover template that records what you are handing over each week and what stage the work is at. Not overly complicated but offering clarity and gives an audit trail in case of dispute- although I’d try and work together positively rather than search for problems.

It sounds to me that you want this to be supervisory and recognised as such. Lots of people work in job shares or share tasks and cover each others work in others absence and it isn't a stepping stone to be a supervisor. I can see why you are worried as it might be a hindrance rather than a help to you esp in the short termm but this is a business decision the company has made. Get on with it and use it to your advantage .

Ok to add a person as a job share and split workload 80/20 to reflect contracted hours/days.

Fine to expect you to work together to ensure continuity of cover. And fine to expect you to ‘manage’ the transition/split of the role.

Not ok to expect you to manage this person as they will be your job share, your equal.

As others have said, try to see this as a positive and use the opportunity to shape it in a way that works best for you. One day per week and no face to face time is going to mean this arrangement takes some time to bed in, but it’s essentially going to give you back 8 hours that you are clearly working but not being paid for.

The other option is to go full time? If you are doing the work at home on days off anyway?

Just as an aside, if you email account is outlook then you can have something called delegate access. I have this at work for several different people and it makes doing the job a lot easier. I can send emails on their behalf - so it would be from “Mbear on behalf of Mbear’s boss” - so I can’t pretend to be someone else.
Whilst a shared inbox might be easier going forward, a lot of people don’t update distribution lists that often and if work/info is going to you the Friday person will miss it. This person may cover more of your role when you are on annual leave as well, so it makes sense.

If you are line managing this individual, then yes, that's an additional responsibility and should be recognised as such. However, it sounds more like a job share partner to me, and I think it's pretty reasonable to expect you to induct and train up your colleague, and communicate with her on an ongoing basis.

They have obviously decided that your role needs to be full time. You're actually very lucky that they managed to find someone to cover the role for one day, or you could have been faced with the choice of going up to five days yourself or taking redundancy!

I have a deep loathing for objectives. I don’t need them, I do my job. Projects come up and I deal with them.
I have NEVER completed my objectives in 35 years. I now refer to them as “Things I would do if I had the time!”
I was promoted last Friday, I earn £54k pa. so this attitude really has NOT been a problem.

It sounds like your work have realised that you're doing more than 4 days work a week and have realised they need more capacity in the role. A job share is quite a common arrangement and it doesn't sound like you're supervising them, more communicating with a job share partner.
All you need to do is set aside some of your working time on Thursday to allocate Friday tasks and then briefly on Monday pick back up again.

OP YANBU. People seem to be completely missing that you are expected to supervise this colleague, including almost as if you are present in the office in Fridays.

But then this is MN where you're expected to put up and shut up on work matters as a woman, and will be patronisingly ticked off about being lucky to have a job (only working 4 days a week, at that..!), alongside an implication that you should put your head down and give your all,100% at all times, radiating gratefulness. It's just backwards here at times.

Your Role has been changed and you've been given supervision duties. Were you not consulted about any of this beforehand? Are you now a Supervisor in terms of work and pay grades? I wouldn't be happy at all in your shoes.

Ok it's your employers prerogative if they choose to take on a new member of staff. But to change and add to your role in respect of this, is not on really. Not in the way it's being done, at least.

Why not have a general word with ACAS? If you're planning to raise matter with your employer, a chat with them will give you some pointers

This seems an odd way to manage a job share.

Are you in the public sector (you mention grade).

I think both you and your management are making this more complicated than it needs to be. Will his person only be working one day a week in total, or will they work elsewhere during the week, then cover your post on a Friday?

Clearly management think your post needs to be full time, so I think you should work with them to understand why and make sure this works. But you are the same level, so you won’t be managing this person. Make that clear. It hold be unfair on both of you, the ‘girl Friday’ could rightly argue she has been demoted.

Objective:
Enable Friday person to get up to speed with work within 3 months and to be working seamlessly between you both within 4 months so clients don't see a difference.

Roles&Responsibilities:
Supervise and manage Friday person, look after their ongoing training needs & do their performance appraisals.

Sounds like an objective to me. Allocating work is just 'communicate with your co-worker' - ie an email on Thursday pm saying A, B and C need to wait as complicated, X, Y and Z are biggest priority then others by date order.

My question is how do you train someone who you don't overlap time with?