Contacted outside of work

[Rose789]

I work in a call centre, in normal times I leave work at the end of my shift and don’t think about work until my next shift.
For the first few weeks of lockdown they weren’t sure what my department would be doing if we would be furloughed or if we had the capacity on systems to work from home. The manager sent links so we could access email, teams and the internal intranet from our phones and advised in an email in March that they would be contacting us with updates and this could be outside of working hours. Which was fine, it was a highly unusual situation and plans needed to move swiftly and we all wanted to know what was happening.
But I’ve been working from home since the beginning of April and the contact is constant.
Full Team what’s app groups
Partial team what’s app group
Emails to my work address but reading them on my phone.
Emails to my personal email account
Notifications on teams- although I have turned them all off and they still keep bloody coming.
Messages on Facebook messenger with queries when I don’t answer on what’s app.
Calls on my phone and on teams
Text messages.... it just goes on and on.

Yesterday was my lieu day and I was with my kids so my phone was in my bag. Today my boss emailed me and then called me to say he had tried to contact me yesterday and why hadn’t I responded. It was nothing urgent, and a task he wanted me to do that he is meant to be in charge of but is time consuming and fiddly so he asks me to do it. This task is in no way part of my job description and doesn’t need completing until month end.
I told him that I hadn’t looked at my phone it was my day off and I was spending time with my family. Told him I was overwhelmed with the amount of notifications coming through and people asking questions constantly. In the office I don’t mind when people have queries, I’m experienced and normally know the answer but contacting me on my day off on Facebook to ask what the wording in a policy booklet means- nope.
Or sending 2 teams chats, an email, a what’s app and a Facebook message when I’m in the middle of a call with a customer and already stuck 20 minutes past my finishing time- absolutely not.

He basically said it’s unprecedented times and everyone has to go above and beyond and be flexible. I told him I do go above and beyond I do many things that aren’t in my job role that I don’t get paid to do, I have no problem helping anyone during working hours but outside of working hours my time is my own. He ended the call saying “we’ll discuss this in your 1:1” and then hung up.

If it was a work phone I would just turn it off outside my shift but because it’s on my personal phone I obviously can’t. I’m so tempted to delete the work apps and mute all the what’s app groups but he sounded thoroughly pissed off. What makes it worse is this 1:1 is my mid year review which helps dictate year end score and bonus so I really don’t want to piss him off but I also can’t deal with the stress of it all.

Your manager sounds awful. What are team members who don't have personal phones doing?

Or can you flag that yours has been smashed and is now unusable? (Then remove all work related apps. Block numbers etc) They cannot reprimand you for not using your personal phones at work, and what they're essentially asking is for you to be on call 24/7. Doesn't he realise that's his ask?

It means you cannot ever truly log off, which is completely unrealistic and ridiculous.

Are you in a union?

Get his expectations in writing if it looks like this is going to influence your bonus/etc (I'd expect my line managers to have agreed performance targets or quality criteria in this setup, not left to the end of year subjective crap might pull on this)

I say this as a manager of managers btw.

(Note that you may be able to get HR support on this, but frame it as clarifying your role unless you know they'll back you - they're paid to ensure compliance with company policy and to ensure off message managers aren't going to get anyone sued.. so may be an ally or may not be, hence my suggestion to be careful)

Wow, yanbu.

They should be providing a work phone and you should be able to switch it off outside your working hours!

Yes people are being flexible but that doesn’t mean working 24/7 with no boundaries.

We do have a union however it’s people from work that run it (that’s not the right word i know) so they don’t tend to do much at all because they don’t want to ruffle feathers. It still might be an idea to send an email clarifying the companies position on using personal mobiles though.
We don’t have an HR department, we used to but budget cuts means all disciplinary, sickness, grievances etc are all done by line managers now.

Year ends are an absolute pain. We are assessed on how well we performed across a number of different metrics against the rest of the department and then depending on your overall banding depends what pay increase I will get next April. It’s a crazy way to do things and it can be easily influenced on whether or not a manager likes you or not which is wrong as a lot of it is subjective.

@Gillian1980 that’s what I was thinking. I’ve done jobs where I have been on call and paid a lot for that service. But now I’m on call centre wages I’m expected to be contactable every single minute of the day.

In your position I’d back up that phone call with an email.

Phrased along the lines of, ^“Good to chat yesterday and thanks for listening to my concerns about the overwhelming volume of unnecessary notifications to my personal phone and email. Just to clarify so that I’m clear on what’s expected of me, as we discussed, I’m happy to go above and beyond during my working hours (I appreciate these are strange times) and continue to do the many tasks that are not part of my normal job role. I fully support the business and I’m happy to do this. Equally outside of my working hours I may not be contactable due to me having family commitments during my time off. Happy to discuss this in my 1:1 as you requested”.

Having it in writing may come in handy for later discussion with HR. In case he twists what you were saying. Your boss cannot expect you to work outside your hours unless that is written in your contract and compensated for through money or TOIL.

I always back up testy conversations with managers like this so they can’t throw me under the bus later.

@RonnieBob I love this! Thank you! I’m stealing it word for word and sending it at 9am tomorrow- can’t send it now because then I would look like an absolute hypocrite
Thank you

Ronniebob she just said there is no HR.

I love ronnie’s email but id stop after this Equally outside of my working hours I may not be contactable. because it has fuck all to do with them what your home life is like.

If there is no internal HR, you'll probably find they have a rep/HR lawyer contracted to step in when an issue comes up. Many companies operate this way now as it saves money (they only pay for them when their needed).

Ronniebob has made a great suggestion and yes id be totting up all of that extra time youve ended up working and submitting a request for the lieu or overtime pay.

How far away is your 1-1? If it’s soon I wouldn’t rock the boat until afterwards if it could affect pay rises and bonuses.

Another thought OP - if you're on call centre wages, then tot up all the extra work you've done in a week and warn your boss if it looks like you might be breeching minimum wage regulations - because 'obviously I know you won't want the company breaking the law'. Do that in writing as well.

RonnieBob is absolutely right. Even with no HR, it's ALWAYS best to get this sort of thing in writing (if nothing else, it'll show the cunt you know what you're doing and hopefully he'll back off). Sorry you're dealing with such an absolute shit of a boss, OP.

luckily, with so much of your work coming and going via your personal phone, the documentation of all the unpaid out of hours work is right there, ready to be added up.

do that and make sure it comes up in your 1:1 as well. consider mentioning you expect others are averaging about the same hours. that's gonna be a problem. these are strange times, but labour laws haven't changed.

I suspect he spoke in irritation that you hadn't responded and hopefully with some thought he will realise that what he is demanding is unreasonable. I would also be pointing out that your extra mile also includes the use of your own personal phone on which he reamed you out.

I can completely understand the constant beep or ring of phones driving you beyond your extra mile. At one point I was responding to people at 1am then getting messages at 4.30 the next day - I learnt to set the timer on my phone so beeps were day time only - I could still respond if it suited me but only if it did. In your conversation I would also discuss burn out, mention you are sure he is impacted as well but that it is an issue generally and this pandemic isn't going anywhere fast and the company needs a plan to handle things going forward when difficult times become our norm - even Dr and Nurses are allowed downtime ffs

It may well be he is also aware of other things going on in the company - such as redundancies or cuts - so be aware of that as well, oh and remember a 1 to 1 has to be signed off by all parties and there is room for comment as well from you so have a think about what you might want to put in there as well.

Strange times shouldn’t come into it. You can’t suddenly decide you’re only working 10 hours a month and when challenged say “well these are strange times”.

So while you may go above and beyond, there are limits.

Being contacted on a personal phone is a health and safety issue too. He hasn't a leg to stand on to be perfectly honest. Just keep the trail of personal confacts.

I think the PP has got it exactly right about backing it up in writing.

I would also ask for clarity in exacrly what he expects by going above and beyond and being contactable on your days off. Make him put it on record exactly what he is asking.

Glad to help @Rose789 and hopefully by putting it in writing he’ll realise what he’s actually ridiculously expected of you and back off.

Sadly it comes from experience as my previous manager was the type to say anything she wanted (employment laws and company policy be dammed) when alone and then deny it later. This email method protected a lot of my old team from time to time and did work so hope it does for you.

Just a warning. Previous manager often then phoned to discuss my email so I just repeated the method each time... a quick follow up email to confirm what we’d discussed and “thank them for their support”

We do have a union however it’s people from work that run it (that’s not the right word i know) so they don’t tend to do much at all
because they don’t want to ruffle feathers.

Hi OP. Do you mean that they are internal reps? If so, as a union member, you should contact your branch officer to seek external representation.

OP this is where the working time regulations and national minimum wage can help you.

You are entitled to 11 hours uninterrupted rest each day and a 24 hour period of uninterrupted rest each week. The legislation allows for true emergencies but this is not the contact you are receiving.

All time spent "working" counts towards the national minimum wage calculation. Call centre wages may be close to this so if you are regularly doing unpaid work due to out of hours contact you could find they are paying you below NMW.

Your TU reps should be able to advise you but also check HR policies as you may be able to refer your manager to these.

YANBU OP

Everyone needs time off.
Your manager sounds like a twat with no respect for the wellbeing of his employees.

I hope things turn out OK for you, but your workplace as a whole sounds toxic, not sure what you can do in that kind of situation (collective action does sound like a good idea, but may not be an option)

As above- advise that your personal phone broke, and then delete all the relevant apps and block the relevant contacts.

That would be the simplest method. Otherwise you have to go through the process of getting everything in writing etc etc. If he wants to discuss it in your 1:1, fine, you can ask at what stage you're going to be compensated for the additional work you're doing outside your role and outside your hours

That’s a brilliant email and I agree it definitely needs to be backed up in writing. YANBU at all.

Yes and if in your 1:1 he is suggesting you do need to be contactable on all those ways, ask him to put that in writing so you can understand him fully (or email him your notes of the meeting). I would proactively suggest

• now we are used to the new ways of working, please can we remove personal phone numbers Facebook and WhatsApp as means of communication.
• if there is a continuing need for me to work beyond my working hours then I will need to be paid for that extra time/I am not able to work additional paid hours at this time.
• as I can assist with xyz tasks can we agree that these will be done by me regularly as part of a promotion with a pay rise.