To think my colleague is BU r.e. 'working from home'?

[TheOtherSideOfNo]

I really need some sort of perspective with this.

This past year my workplace has introduced very flexible working for my particular team. In that we can work remotely or from home or basically wherever there is an internet connection.

This means that sometimes a couple of colleagues will set of to a coffee shop to work or stay at home, indeed, it means some colleagues arrive around 10ish but will leave later etc. This move was not easily given to us, we had to state our case for this sort of arrangement and indeed it has proven to be very effective so much so that management are considering applying the same to another team.

Now my AIBU. In my team there are 5 of us. All the same level and grade and do similar things that are complementary to each other's work. One of the team will e-mail in the morning saying she's "working from home" this is fine but she's never there if you call her on her work phone or e-mail her in business hours. I don't expect a response to an e-mail immediately but she really is taking the piss. She hasn't updated accounts or done her role at all. We're all picking up the slack. She will respond to an e-mail very late in the day and considering our work is very deadline focused we can't afford to have her 'chillaxing' on the job.

As I said, I'm the same level as her so can't really pull her up on this and I don't want to go running to management as the snitch iyswim but she's jeopardising certain projects and targets.

Yes but if the team have got together and decided to share out this person's work, it undermines the manage and hides the bad work that the person is not doing.

They haven't got together and decided to share out this person's work. They are just doing the work that needs to be done. The only people doing anything wrong are the slacker and the manager for not noticing who is doing what.

the rest of the team and I had a meeting to organise who would do what and when (her work)

Ahem...that's exactly what they did.

They haven't got together and decided to share out this person's work.

OP said they did, way back on page 1.

I said at the time that this meant that they had all made themselves complicit in deceiving their employer and they needed to undo that, quickly.

Management will have no need to look for a slacker if all work is complete. By their actions the team has deprived their management of a clear cut case against someone who is not fulfilling their contractual obligations. They simply must tell their line manager and get this sorted.

the rest of the team and I had a meeting to organise who would do what and when (her work)

They shouldn't be doing that. They should be getting together with the colleague and sharing the work out. If they copy the manager in on who is doing what and also copy the manager in on emails to the colleague then it is likely that the colleague will start working. If she doesn't the manager will know without anyone telling them.
I'm not suggesting they do nothing. I am just saying that telling the manager is only something that should be done when all else fails as it could result in flexible working discontinuing for everyone.

Yet more thorough common sense on here this morning

Absolutely agree with this! It seems the general consensus is to speak up as if it comes to light that the rest of us have just been 'carrying on' then we'll all be in for a rocket if just one thing goes wrong. I need to speak to the others informally to make sure we're all singing from the same hymn sheet. I know we are but I need to make sure they're all on side before I (we) do anything. Or rather all get our story straight.

Marynary Wrt the meeting we had, it was a planning meeting to work out who was going to do what with various clients. We often have these meetings because we tend to assign each other tasks e.g. colleague 1 needs to put together a presentation for client X, so whilst colleague 1 will put together the presentation she will need colleague 2 to do a bit of research. That meeting was divvying up the tasks but yes it also included how to divvy it up so that shirker colleague doesn't get an opportunity to fuck up iyswim.

JessieMcJessie I didn't say she was falsifying time sheets. I said that the time sheets would be a good way of proving our covering up for her because if she claimed that she'd spent 6 hours doing XYZ for a client, yet one of us claimed that we'd also spent 6 hours doing XYZ for a client then it would be looked on as wasteful that we took 12 hours. As I said, we don't have access to each others time sheets so I assume we'd need someone higher to get accounts to release these.

It had never occurred to me that shirker colleague might put in a grievance case or claim bullying. I can now see from the outside perspective esp r.e incorrect document example that it may very well come across as though the rest of us have been ganging up on her and undermining her. I won't lie - my ideal would be for her to resign. I don't care if she bucks up her ideas anymore, I'd rather she just left or was transferred elsewhere. The rest of us are coping just fine. In fact this morning I was at home then came to office because I have a meeting, another one is in Costa and the others are at home yet we've been exchanging messages and whatever else since about 8:30am.

Why don't you all just regularly message her as well, specifically asking her if she's online / when she will be online? Make it obvious to her that you know she's skiving. What's the worst thing that can happen?

Presumably she thinks none of you have even noticed - she probably can't believe her luck.

And she must be falsifying time sheets. She's not working, or she's barely working. If she's filling out time sheets saying she's working an 8-hour day, then that's a lie.

I would report it to management.

I would also start cc-ing or bcc-ing your manager when she has messed up.

'Jane - you had asked for a second pair of eyes on this document, but it is so full of basic mistakes you will need to rework it before it is fit to be peer reviewed. If you can have a revised version back with me by 2pm I could look at it then'

'Jane, client X has called to say you uploaded a stock photograph, rather than the one which was agreed.'

'Jane, it appears that you have uploaded the wrong version of the document - I tried phoning you to discuss it several hours ago, but haven't been able to get hold of you - please can you call me once you are at a computer?'

etc

I reported a slacker colleague years ago - best thing I did. Everyone knew what she was like but no-one had the balls to do anything. Even when I reported it, my manager said to me to sort it out, and I had to remind him that by reporting it to him I had discharged my responsibility and he needed to deal with it.

As far as your boss is concerned, the work is being done, so he has no worries. You need to start bringing this to his attention, both as a direct report, bat also each time there is a mistake.

Sounds like a good plan, TheOtherSideOfNo- I especially admire your thoughts about everyone being on the same page

I also completely understand your wish that she's just leave of her own accord, but let's face it, it ain't going to happen as she's onto far too much of a good thing for that

Really hope it all works out for you; maybe let us know how it turns out?

Definitely just report it.

I really wish I had done so sooner, now I'm in the impossible situation where I am expected to "make my expectations clear" to someone who is fairly senior to me and somehow now it's my fault that he's off sick/uncontactable 90% of the time.
Oh well must get my CV done and see about moving....

I also completely understand your wish that she's just leave of her own accord, but let's face it, it ain't going to happen as she's onto far too much of a good thing for that

Let that be your driving motive - she's never going to leave while you all are covering for her 24/7...

I work from home/coffee shop/anywhere with a phone signal and wherever I go, the phone and laptop go. I'd never dream of failing to return a call within half an hour tops, unless I'm on a conference call or something. I'm not necessarily in a deadline driven job, but it's very responsive/reactive/client focused.

Some people don't work well in the at-home environment, but it's a wonderful perk and it would be a shame for you all to lose it because of one person

I agree , the dowagercuntess she must be falsifying time sheets because the manager would see immediately that she had recorded insufficient time.

If the manager is too dim not notice the duplication and is signing off on bills to the clients which include her false hours he will be in serious shit.

I am a manager. If this was going on in my team and I hadn't picked it up myself, I would absolutely expect someone to raise it with me rather than trying to deal with it themselves - in fact I'd be very disappointed indeed if I found out that it had been going on without my knowledge and that nobody raised it.

Presumably though maternity, you'd have an inkling of what was going on. I'm completely amazed that this manager seemingly doesn't.

Ah yes, "shirking from home" as we call it.

"Please can you let me have your comments on this document by 10 tomorrow morning."

"Oh no that won't be possible, as I have to do school drop off and then I said I would go for a coffee with some of the other mothers and then..."

"Well can I suggest you do it this evening then, so that I can look at it first thing?"

"Oh but it's gone five already."

"Yes, but as you are clearly not going to be starting work until 1100 tomorrow, you need to put in the hours and do the work that you are paid for."

"Well alright then, I won't go for coffee."

I worked with someone who started working from home once a week. It ended up being every day and no-one challenged him, even when I pointed out that he hadn't been seen for three months. Most managers are piss weak when it comes to staff issues.

JessieMcJessie apologies, you didn't actually suggest that I'd said she was falsifying but you are right that she must be. I was thinking that it might be an idea to arrange a meeting with all the team plus the two managers to explicitly go through all our time sheets. This would absolutely prove that she's falsifying because in the example I gave earlier about the call for tenders document - I'm sure my colleague spent 4 hours or so re-working the document yet Jane would have also claimed that she spent 4 hours doing the document. This is impossible. In a normal scenario my colleague wouldn't have logged 4 hours. But it might just be easier to go to manager and get him to go through it all as it might be awkward all of us sitting there plotting her demise iyswim.

WFH is only acceptable if the work gets done. I wfh one day a week. I am not part of a larger team - in fact I am my own 'team' so the only person directly impacted if I don't get things done is me. I can't see how it would be effective if you are all depending on each other so closely.

Puzzledandpissedoff Thanks, I will do, however a significant update will probable take months if not years. Whilst I can see it shouldn't be as easy as 123 to get rid of someone I think there should be policies in place that make for a quickie exit (with no recriminations) if need be. This instance being one of them!

I just don't understand why you can't go to your line manager and talk about it honestly and openly. The rest of the team is doing a really great job. It suits all of you to be able to work from home and you believe that should continue. HOWEVER, one person is taking the piss. People are worried about losing the perk of working from home so they're covering for her.

Pass on the responsibility to your line manager. Name and shame.

Your line manager will find out eventually and it will look bad on you and the rest of the team that you've covered for her. You don't want your boss also thinking you can't be trusted!

Though I'm amazed if there's an online logging in thing that your manager isn't keeping an eye on who is logged in and who isn't!

She's committing fraud by claiming for hours worked when she hasn't been working.

ImperialBlether Absolutely, I think i'm dithering and concocting various plans because I really don't want our flexi perk removed! It took an age to get it this good and it'd be far easier for management to scrap the flexi than it would be for them to get rid of her. I also need to talk to the others in a way that doesn't put me at risk.

Simon As I said upthread, it's very easy to appear logged in even you aren't there. Think of it like being logged into FB messenger, it says you are available but you theoretically could be anywhere.

We are expected to be able to work from anywhere, including home, and we have to log into two separate systems so it would be obvious if someone was AWOL for the whole day. It times out if you're away from your PC for more than about 15 mins too.

The thing that really pisses me off though is that if managers feel your request to WFH is 'too convenient' (i.e. a Friday/Monday/ within a couple of days of planned holidays/bank holidays etc, they will refuse it with lame excuses about how something might come up which requires you to be in the office. It's ludicrous, because the company has spent a lot on tech so people can WFH, yet some managers are hell-bent on finding spurious reasons to prevent people doing it.

I think you need to clear your mind of all ideas of how the company might reprimand your colleague, otherwise your opinions may well become part of the problem.

The only problems are:

1. your colleague is frequently not available to be contacted when she should be
2. You are all doing a share of her work

so you are telling your manager about these issues as you feel that they need her attention.

Then the only other message that you want to get across is that you highly value your flexible working arrangements, you've been responsible and managed your work well and you really want to be allowed to continue working in this way.

Obviously, your colleague may well be sacked or moved back to the office for heavy supervision, or removed to a new department but whatever the company does about your colleague, you should not be seen to be urging them into sacking her (because no one likes to be told what to do and because it will look like there could be substance to a bullying claim).

Just call your manager and ask for a confidential meeting because you have a concern. Then tell her what's been going on (but leave out all the bits where you deliberately tested your errant colleague just for the sake of it).

You are being an absolute idiot for trying to cover and allocate the work between the rest of the team.

go to your line manager and say given the WFH arrangements and not everyone sitting together, you would like to have [daily, weekly, whatever suits your project planning] calls between the team and manager to discuss work allocation and progress.

Then there is a record of what work has been allocated, and in the next call if its not been done then its obvious who hasn't been doing he work.

You seem to be looking for a solution we can't provide, OP.

There is no cast iron guarantee that your perk won't be removed. So on that basis, it seems like you're all just going to carry on covering her.

Lucky her - she's onto a total winner. Sh
She seemingly has the lot of you over a barrel, and a totally oblivious manager. Win-win for her.