WWYD: Team member accidently sent me a...mail

[Junestepe]

WWYD: Employee accidently sent me voice note via TEAMs outlining how they were hungover in work today. They were supposedly WFH and didnt attend team meetings were uncontactable for large parts of the day, they provided excuses BUT they just accidently sent me a voice note meant for a friend detailing their hangover and elaborate cover story for not attending meetings/not working today!!!

Employee is senior, established team member who can go rouge from time time but over all is a solid performer.

WWYD: How do I handle this? Person works full time remote. I don't want to fire them...don't want to involve HR..but I want deal with this appropriately and send the correct message so the incident is never repeated. I'm a new manager so your advice appreciated! Thank you

Right but zero tolerance alcohol probably describes a tiny handful of companies in the UK so not really relevant

I think you should do this. I you ignore it or laugh it off it has the potential to become a regular thing and when you try to address it then, he can say "well it didn't bother you last time".

Great idea. Honestly I usually really wouldn't care; people skive off due to bad form every now and then. All those sticklers for company rules on these threads likely aren't high fliers or they'd see that at C suite level and above the hypocrisy/bad behaviour is omnipresent tbh and way worse... "WFH"/a different continent has existed for them for decades. However, if he was gloating about it, I'd send the above message.

This is so true. Well said.

I think this is what I’d suggest

I’d have a 121 with them, explain what I had heard and go through my expectations of the team, how they are usually a good worker so to hear that message was disappointing. And then say you don’t expect something like this to happen again. Hopefully they then understand and realise that behaviour is not acceptable.

I agree with this.

Obviously what they’ve said is inappropriate but it doesn’t mean it’s true. They may well have exaggerated for the friend, it could have even been a joke. Just say “was this meant for me” like others suggested.

I have managed large teams and younger teams (20+ teams most or all in their 20s).

If he is a good performer in general id be inclined to go with @chocolateisavegetables response.

It's firm but fair, doesnt let him off completely, keeps it between the two of you and is a good humoured / non dressing down way of dealing with it.

There is not a hope in hell I'd take this to HR *it removes all good will and will create an adversarial vibe) unless they were a poor performer or it was a chronic issue (in which case - good because you want them out). Recruit talent is a nightmare. So is working with people who you dont have trust and good will with...

I'd actually report to hr, and give a warning. You're not mates, it's work. It's unprofessional of him, to be too hung over to go to work.

This. Exactly what I would suggest doing. Doing nothing isn't an option.

Way, WAY, over the top

I would send a message back saying ‘I don’t think this is for me’

Then have a 1-1 and say you expect them to call in sick if they are too poorly to work, and if they WFH then you expect them to attend meetings and work as normal. You won’t take it to HR this time but to bear in mind for the future.

🤣

I would respond to say I think you've sent that to the wrong person. Then arrange a teams meet for the following day and discuss it and leave it at that

OP is rogue colleagues manager.

@Junestepe Call them with @chocolateisavegetable ’s suggestion and talk through a short performance plan. Logging on by x time, phone call check ins and end of day. Ask them why they didn’t take that day as a sick day, check they haven’t used up all their leave already.

I work in HR.

I agree with the suggestions that if there are no performance issues an informal warning would be appropriate. You need to do this because otherwise the boundaries of normal/acceptable behaviour get blurred over time and you may find you start getting performance issues from them more frequently. You can meet with them and tell them that this was unacceptable and must not happen again.

Doing a formal warning for someone who is otherwise performing well can be done but this is more likely to impact employee morale and alienate an otherwise strong performer.

As a new manager, how you respond to this will be setting how they see you in future.

As a manager, my response would be along the lines of -

Acknowledge the voice note
Not acceptable but on this occasion won't escalate any further
Will, however, allocate a sick day/days leave (which ever more appropriate - in our company sick pay is full pay so no lesson to be learnt there, I'd be allocating a days holiday instead)
Gentle warning for future depending on contract wording - e.g. if WFH is a privilege, outline how that depends on trust and will be reviewed if repeated occurrences.
Finish off with a light hearted - probably a good job you didn't come in as your judgement must have been impaired to send it to me in the first place! (Or whatever)
Save voice note just in case needed later, so he can't delete it and it's your word against his

If its on the works TEAMS isn't everything logged and recorded.......

Coming at this from another angle, as his manager, you have a duty of care here - 'going rogue' occasionally could hint at a wider drinking problem than just this one day. You need to talk to him before deciding where to go with this.

I'm not a 'high flier' I'm just a basic local authority manager being paid from public funds supervising other people who are being paid from public funds to carry out essential services. Anyone failing to do their work and claiming pay for it in my team is taking the piss out of taxpayers the way I see it.

As if you could sack him for this, people on here are clueless! At worse it would be a written warning and it wpuld have to happen again before youd get anywhere close to being able to sack him, and he'd have a good case for unfair dismissal. You have zero proof. All he has to say is I was talking about another day or i was over exagerating showing off to my friend. And you can't prove he didnt do any work now. All he has to say is yes, I wasn't feeling great, but i still did x, y and z, read some emails, read some documents etc. And being hungover isnt a crime!

I’m astonished by people who think letting this go will give the green light to this person to keep doing it. This is just not how my
mind works at all.

If I did this, and my employer responded simply with ‘I don’t think this was meant for me…’ I would never ever call in sick ever again for the rest of my days out of absolute mortification and desire to prove myself.

Whereas if they made it a great big disciplinary issue I’d resign.

This. Doesn't go OTT but doesn't just let it pass.

He wasn't available for work on a working day.

I think you need to do something. Yes, we all make mistakes and yes trust and flexibility is required for a happy workforce but I’m not sure the “you should trust your staff” line really works when they’ve been AWOL, not turned up to meetings and then bragged to their mates about it. There’s also the matter of consistency and fairness- can you be sure that if you’re applying discretion you can apply that fairly across your team if others do similar things? Did other team members have to cover for them whilst they just didn’t turn up? Is it fair on those people if you turn a completely blind eye?

Yes we’ve all drunk too much from time to time. I can safely say I have never then spent the day uncontactable and missed work commitments because of it. If was so hungover I wasn’t fit to work then I would have called in sick which would then be on my HR record. I guess in some roles an ad hoc day of holiday could’ve been taken. Just pretending to be at work whilst you’re hungover in bed isn’t really on.

@Bunnyhair
I would feel the same as you, but unfortunately it does have that effect on many.

So often managers bring performance issues to HR and the first question they will be asked is ‘what have you done about it so far?’ To which the reply is usually ‘nothing, because it was only occasionally until recently but now it’s got worse.’

Then by this time the issues are bad enough to need a formal process. Always a real shame when if they had just been informally spoken to much earlier their behaviour would not have deteriorated in the first place and it would not have the resulting impact to morale that a formal process has.