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

What did you decide to do, OP?

Yeah it gives them a chance to "make it right"

This is the exact reason why WFH is being stopped.Granted,so many people do work,but this person has essentially skivved off all day and been paid.Its unacceptable.I wouldn't have been able to go into work and do sweet F.A due to a hang over,but be left alone because I'm usually 'pretty solid otherwise'.

Maybe TV should change then

This ^^

Good response. Do this, then move on.

Erm. No we haven’t. I have been employed in some capacity all of my adult life and with the exception of one very easy and quiet Saturday job as a 17 year old I have never once done this. I have never taken a sickie or lied in anyway to a manager or employer.

My concern is that, even if he still manages to do a fantastic job, what example does that set? What work culture is that contributing to? What else is he getting away with? What could go wrong if he he is hungover at work?

I would take this seriously if I wanted to be respected as a manager. I’d rather be respected than liked at work.

Glad some of you mini-dictators aren't my boss.... Jeez, you make one mistake, in an otherwise great period of being a solid employee, and you're straight to HR and giving formal discipline actions .... Fucking hell.

All it would do is make sure you never caught a mistake ever again... This won't be the first time he's done this or similar, but hasn't impacted his job... He'll just potentially dig in and become a worse employee for it.

It's like those shit managers who hail you in because you logged in at 9:14, instead of 9:00 and conveniently ignore all the times you'd logged in at 8:35, or logged off at 5:45 instead of 5 to get shit done. Just leads to clock in - clock out culture and productivity, good will and staff morale drops hugely.

Just let him know you know by way of querying if it was meant for you, and leave it at that.

Like no one has ever had a hangover and made an excuse. He’s not selling state secrets, he’s just made a faux pas. He’s otherwise a good worker. Jobsworth much?

FFS don't do this. Any manager who runs to HR for something as trivail as this: (a) isn't up to their job and (b) will never again be trusted by their team.

I've never known an HR dept. with either a sense of proportion or a sense of humour.

Save them for truly serious situations. This isn't one of those.

Meh so what. Before WFH most of us have gone into work feeling like death at some point and basically did no work but just "showed up".

If you want the WFH equivalent of that then it'd be the employee sat at home staring at their screen and typing a couple of emails over the whole day.

It would be crazy to rock the boat of a good employee over this

I don't think you can let it go, otherwise he will think you are a pushover. It doesn't have to go to HR but you definitely need to pull him up on a 1:1 and discuss.

I also wouldn't delete the message, as this my be the first of many piss takes and you will wish it had been kept for evidence.

You say you're a new manager, how do you know he's a a solid performer and not just used to being a good talker or figure fixer? You've already sussed out he goes rogue from time to time.

’’thing is, it’s things like this which lead to the statistics that wfh lead to less productivity and make companies re-introduce highbrid or even full office working.

At home if you’re not in a customer facing role it’s easy to get away with being unproductive and if he hadn’t cocked up he would have spent the day doing exactly that. So how often does he pull this shit? It’s unlikely that this is the first time and it completely undermines the wfh culture.

Not everyone has had a hangover and made an excuse!! Some of us are responsible enough not to get drunk on a work night!

And if this were a surgeon? Pilot? Bus driver? We have no idea what job this man has and what the repercussions are if he makes a poor decision.

🙄

1. Does he have form for missing meetings?
2. What does company policy say about missing meetings and being hungover?
3. Take advice to ensure you're doing your job right.

All the posters saying ‘we have all done this’ are setting a very low bar. This is really poor behaviour and rolling your eyes at me doesn’t make it less so. He’s a senior employee the OP said.

Many people have done this, but most haven't accidentally notified their manager. There needs to be some consequences for his stupidity, even if it's just taking a day's leave. If he learns to check more carefully who mails and messages are going to, then it's a useful lesson.

Yes should be leading by example if he's senior

@Eyesopenwideawake

That's different as everyone as your works place was in on it too,
the works night out before & pizza 🍕 thing etc,

@Junestepe
Is the new deputy boss 🤔 she has to show she is a proffessional not a pushover however she is a solid worker too,

She just needs a workwise a bit of slap on the wrist...
and her to know this is one off kind of thing...

I think a lot of posters are assuming that it’s a ‘he’ just because the OP said the employee was senior!

@Junestepe is it a ‘he’?!

No thats not it at all. I just assumed it was a he as I'd read another post saying he so assumed the op must have said. I don't have time to keep reading ALL the posts.

I'd just say, I received your voice note obviously intended for somebody else. Clearly your actions weren't appropriate and you need to ensure this doesn't happen again because I will have to take it further.

Agree with this. You can't do nothing, but as a first 'offence' of an otherwise good employee, I wouldn't be involving HR at this stage. That said, you don't know that it hasn't happened before. I'd be watching out for similar patterns of WFH / not being on calls etc and calling them out on it.

Yes imagine if you were treated by a doctor who was hungover who didn't do what they were supposed to and the excuse was 'they're pretty solid otherwise'.