To ask my employees not to contact me outside of my working hours?

[rathernotshare]

Back story. I'm a manager in a large company. We are being briefed and briefed about looking after our employees welfare while they are working from home. My team is working all hours of the day to fit around their lives. I'm continuing to work office hours so that they know when I'm working, and we all have some kind of overlap. However I'm getting calls at all hours of all days and I can't cope with it, but it's being rammed into me that I need to support them. Am I being selfish? Can I ask them to back off or would that make me terrible?

@AmelieTaylor thats just rubbish, managers arent paid more to be working longer than their contractual hours. They are accountable for failed delivery, and responsible for resolving escalations

Turn your phone off 😳😂

Is it urgent work stuff ? Is there anyone else they can speak to?

@Ontheboardwalklease tell me you have a different definition of core hours. In my work, they are the hours you have to be in the office and you make up your day around them. Core hours are 10am to 4pm. You a can start at 8am and leave at 4pm for example.

Core hours of 7am to 9pm must be illegal, thats a 14 hour day minimum😬. Was this in the UK?

My HR dept is falling over itself at the moment to do the paste roll care stuff. If yours is too, enlist their help. Can you get them to send out an email with something about being aware that other are not working the same hours and that people need downtime with some suggestions as to how to mange it via calendars or whatever.

Itwasntme1 core hours for my team in financial services but I had 3 shifts for the team during this time. Me in my new role felt I had to be available and seen to be around at all times during every working day

This made me ill and made me turn my phone off for anything but major incidents. It took me a long time and took me to a dark place until I realised this

@Ontheboardwalk mine says similar, we actively encourage people to state their working hours and manage expectations for response times.

Look after yourself OP, being supportive does not mean being available 24/7

I probably would but I am pushover like that.

I would advise someone else to have an "out of office" on phone and email starting at 5pm every day.

I leave my work phone in my home office when I down tools. If I didn't have a separate work space I'd switch it off instead.

I worked for some years as an academic where much of the work is done at home. It often involved collaborative writing of papers and articles. On the days I worked at home I regarded myself as being available for "office" hours and would answer the phone at those times. But I would not have dreamed of disturbing my boss outside those hours unless it was a matter of some urgency where her input was essential.

In those days there were no smart phones - thank heavens.

When this is all over OP I suggest you do a course of assertiveness training. One of the things you learn is how to refuse politely but firmly and how to suggest other alternatives to colleagues, and workmates. You also learn that you have rights as well as responsibilities.

It’s tricky though, isn’t it, at the moment. I agree with a pp that it really depends on the type of work, company culture, etc. Many workers with caring responsibilities are having their boundaries breached every which way at the moment, being told that if they want to keep their jobs they need to work nights and weekends outside of their normal contracted time, while also being expected to be contactable as usual to suit their managers who are keeping to the standard 9-5 pattern. If, as a manager, you’re OK with your staff not being at your beck and call during your own working hours, and you’re OK with them being clear about this on their email signatures etc, and they aren’t dealing with time-sensitive emergencies that require your authorisation, then fine. But it needs to be clear all around for everyone.

We are similar, all working hours to fit in with lives, mostly folk are starting really early. Manager is more or less office hours. We contact him during those. He switches off his work phone when he finishes for the day. We all have his personal number for actual emergencies (more likely to be personal than work to be fair). We'd text rather than call and it would be up to him if he needed to respond. We also have a team WhatsApp group which again he would be free to look at or not. That works well as we can also pick things up if required. We also use it for just generally having a bit of a laugh.

I suggest you set boundaries, explain what emergencies could be and have a facility for those.

If you want to set up a WhatsApp group you can let people know what they can use it for. We use it for actual business continuity stuff, IT issues, team messages, jokes, nice photos or even just telling folks you are taking a break.

I don't understand why you are allowing this to happen.

Turn your work laptop/work phone off when you have done your hours. If you are supposed to work office hours then 9 - 5, Mon - Fri or thereabouts would seem reasonable. If it's off the rest of the time then they cannot contact you.

YANBU at all. Send them all an email stating your office hours. That you've been flexible to allow them to work their own hours around their families but that it has resulted in you being expected to be available for the duration of their combined hours and it's not sustainable for you. You will be available to offer support during your office hours only and please do not contact me by phone out of those hours, any emails will be checked and responded to when I'm back at my desk.

Do you have 1:1s with them? I'd just ask then that they stick to your office hours unless it's an emergency, it's a totally normal thing to ask for in orgs that were already working flexibly. I've done similar with my reports, and my boss has said that she won't reply outside of her hours unless we're on a mutual deadline- totally normal.

You know what, normally I'd wholly agree with you protecting your own (home) time.

But in these circumstances, we all have to pull together in the same direction, and for some of us; that means working strange hours (I'm home with DH who also works full time, and DD3).

I don't want to work these odd hours, no one on my team wants to work these hours, but just right now - we're doing everything we can to support each other.

I don't mean being fully logged-in, but keeping a vague eye on emails, knowing that I have colleagues who simply CAN'T work a normal business day at the moment, and me not being around to support them makes their day even harder.

I'm in a senior leadership position, I have 9 team members, each of whom manages a further 8-12 people. It's important that:

a) I'm visible
b) I'm helpful, that no one is blocked by me not being available to carry out my part of the task

@ontheboardwalk

Actually I’ve seen someone’s e-mail signature that says 'you might receive mails from me after the standard working day. This is due to my flexible working pattern and my own choice. I do not expect any response from you until part of your standard working day and work load'

That person could very well work with me, many of us, in my firm, have exactly that footer (when not in pandemic-land.

Notmyusualname - could work with me too, we have that email footer

I would just tell them to email you, or if they need to discuss an issue to call you during office hours.

I've been working odd / random hours. But have made the odd office hours call and email when I've got questions then people can reply in their own time.

If they wish to contact you, then they need to pay you 24/7, let them know, they may well ease off.

Unless you're getting paid to he on call 24/7, don't be. Switch off your phone and set boundaries.

You're the manager - manage it. Tell them when they can speak with you and that's that.

Ok tried to read through of many as these as I could, few additional points! Thanks for all the advice so far.

It is not a work phone. It's my personal mobile so I don't want to switch it off as it's my only way of speaking to my family during lockdown! We are all using our personal phones while working from home.

I don't have children. I have had to allow my team to work flexible hours on the advice of HR as they have childcare to worry about. I am not in a position to fight this. First line manager, not big business bigwig!

They are calling me about work matters, however things that can wait until the next day. They are given a workload for the week every week. If you can't do that one thing, move on to the next.

You need to remind them of your normal working hours. They must surely understand that even though they are doing different hours because of their caring arrangements, you are not and it's absolutely fine to say that they shouldn't contact you outside of your normal working hours unless it is an emergency.

Reroute the numbers to answerphone when you finish for the day, that seems fair to be honest. Work are allowing flexibility for them which is great, and you are working set hours to help accommodate that by providing consistent times where they know they can contact you. If they are doing whole days they probably aren't starting work after you have finished, so they need to be more organised in collating questions and queries from the evening before, and asking them when they start; along with having a flick through work for the next day before signing off so any obvious questions can be answered once you log on ready for when they start (if that makes sense).