Aibu to tell her that she needs to do a full shift.

[DawnFawn]

Hi,

Posting here for traffic to see I'd any managers/HR gurus knocking about.

I am a fairly new manager, I have been managing a department for about 2 months and all is running pretty well, however, I have an issue with a member off staff that I cant get my head around.

Let's call her Linda, she started under a previous manager who was a friend of hers. She doesn't drive and lives about 15 miles away with not great/not horrendous public transport links.

For about 18 months she got a lift to and from work with manager friend. But since manager friend left she was able to finish work earlier than the rest of the team, to get a lift home with another member of staff who finishes earlier. The stand in manager allowed this for an easy ride.

So......(thankyou if you are still reading)
In I come as a department manager, there is a festering resentment with team members that colleague is going home early, and it shouldn't be allowed. I totally agree but how do I stop this? She doesn't have any children, and doesn't require flexible working as such.

Would I be a bitch to say that she needs to be making her own way home? I'll allow a degree of flexibilty in the mornings, she can start 15 minutes later as this is when her lift arrives at the office, but she needs to finish with the rest of the team? Does she have any rights to say that she has been doing this for a while and should be allowed to continue?

Double check her contracted hours and then record her hours for a week.

Then present her with your findings and explain that she is not working her contracted hours and this is causing problems in the wider team.

I would ask however if theres a reason that shes having a time keeping issue that she hasn't told you about rather than assuming. There could be a deeper issue.

I have no real advice other than to check with your HR department, but the idea that someone only really deserves flextime because they have children is pretty disgusting to me. If an office offers flextime it needs to be for everyone, not just those with children.

I'd have a discussion about a reduction of hours to accommodate her current working pattern.

The issue you have is that this has been going on for a while so it has become "custom and practice". You can absolutely have a conversation with her about this and say that as you've been in the manager role for a couple of months now, it's a good time to review this arrangement and make it more formal (i.e a permanent change to her working hours/pattern and a drop in pay) or she will need to work the hours that are in her current contract.

You'll need to give her a decent amount of notice to make these changes though; I've dealt with stuff like this before and we've usually been quite lenient and given 3 months' notice to make the change.

I think an informal conversation with her would be a good starting point - it's annoying, but from her point of view this isn't a problem as she's been doing it for ages so she might not take it well. However, she needs to understand that she is currently being paid for hours she isn't doing, and that isn't fair. You wouldn't expect her to work overtime for no pay so it works both ways (hourly pay makes this a lot easier to manage).

Like previous posters said, flexible working requests are open to all and her travel arrangements are not your problem - she needs to ensure she can get to and from work on time and how she does that is up to her. Of course there will be times when you need to be flexible (as you would with the rest of your team) but she needs to understand that this can't continue.

Hope you manage to get it sorted!

What does she do if her lift is ill or on holidays?

I just don't see why you are changing this agreement. It's not like she's missing work time that you're paying her for -- you've said that she gets paid less too. And you're now saying that the aftermath is likely to be her leaving, and you having to recruit somebody new. Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and easier to retain a member of staff by continuing to allow her to work flexibly like this?

I can see that you want to stamp your authority a bit, but this seems counterproductive as it is ultimately unhelpful for you (unless you want to get rid of her).

Just tell her she needs to work her full hours according to the contract. Getting to and from work is up to her to organise. You should not allow her to start 15 minutes late or you will soon find the whole department has a punctuality problem.

I would bring it up during her return to work.

Terrible plan. One is a welfare conversion the other is a formal matter, that will be a highly charged conversation. What you could do is after the RTW say “oh I also want to pencil in a meeting with you to have a talk about your hours” so she knows what’s coming. Or ideally in a P&D interview.

I think you need to speak to your HR department but I think it might be a question of offering her to work full time as you as a business need those hours to complete the work the department need to do or you need to recruit someone who can? I would make sure you have the full backing of HR and a clear brief on how to handle this before you have your meeting.

Ridiculous, unless she can work from home and it fits with her working policies at work?

Cut hours
Flex working by making hours up at other times convenient to all
Work from home
Leave for another job

Also, write notes about everything!

Her living in the arse end of nowhere and not driving is not your problem.
She took the job knowing that she needed to be there for a certain time. How she gets there is just her problem.

If you manage it properly she might not quit - just pay her for the hours she can do. Present it as fairness to other staff but also that you want her to stay.
In return to work you can prove her a sense and ask how happy she is.
To be honest if she does have a sense problems and does quit you can employ someone else into the role who will be better.

DawnFawn I take your point about a possible 6 week hole in the team if she leaves, but surely that's better than the whole thing being left to fester?

Short of rolling over completely I doubt anything you say will suit her, since nothing will match the golden days when the boss was a mate. She'll probably go anyway, but at least then you've got a clear way forward to having a much happier team

So she’s paid hourly and the time is deducted from her pay and it suits your wage bill.
Why are the other members of staff resentful then? She’s not getting free money.

She is not paid for the time when she goes early but OP says its inconvenient to the team as they have to finish up her work. One solution might be paid overtime for the person who takes on the additional work.

Without being too outing here is the scenario.

Linda is meant to start at 6.45. Her lift to work starts at 7.

Everyone is paid hourly. No salaried staff, just salaried managers.

Linda's lift works 7 until 2. My department work from 6.45 until 14.45. Linda leaves at two. She does not get paid for the 45 mins she leaves early or the 15 mins she arrives late. This means she does a 7 hour day as opposed to an 8 hour day, leaving me 5 hours short a week. I am trying to get all the KPIs in order and I'm trying to account for the shortfall in labour.

Janet and George are Linda's team mates, they are often left to do the last 45 minutes of daily tasks on their own. If all three stayed 14.45, then I could have another little job checked off before the next shift comes in, leaving us in a better place for the next team. Or i could use the time to do training, or help another department.
I want to have the time to do appraisals, and give people proper attention when they are struggling, 5 hours a week is a lot of time I could play with.

You need hr

If she stays,she can argue that a manager agreed her contract

However. You may need to create a business case where a worker is needed 10-5, for example. However your current staff should be dealing with this let down

Is it a hospital?

@RussianSpyBot

I'm not telling you, you're a spy 😂

So it sounds like you dont actually need Linda if you are thinking you could be doing some extra work or getting ahead in the time.

@Pinkpartyplanner

I think it just pisses them off watching her run out of the door at 2pm. Its warm weather now, everyone wants to be out of the door. Especially since we finish at 3 and most people want to be out in the sun. People dont care that Linda isnt being paid for it. If they all decided to do it, I would be screwed.

How she gets to work is her problem.

Just tell her straight that you expect her to work her hours from now on. I would not really elaborate any futher, so no reasoning such as "it makes the team unhappy" or "previous managers shouldn't have allowed this" or whatever. Just a simple, your role is for x hours so you will need to work them from now on. Keep calm about it.

Any excuses she has, just respond with "I understand that but your role is for x hours, you will need to work them".

If you are feeling generous:

• give her some notice period before this kicks in (2 weeks?) so she has time to get something sorted
• offer her the chance to do less hours for less pay if company policy allows this and you would be able to offer similar if someone else asked. Otherwise don't do this.

@Teacakeandalatte

I don't get where you are coming from.

What your saying is "If you can manage 5 hours without linda, you can manage the 35 other hours she isnt here either"

You sound like my boss.....

Just saw your last note about her already not being paid etc. Don't offer that then.

p.s. I always agree that doing the right thing is worth risking someone leaving. Better they do, you take the pain now and hire someone better.

Could you offer an hours overtime to someone on the later shift to start early?