AIBU for thinking my work colleague underworks?

[Wendywoodd]

There is a bit of issue with my department, performance and team morale. I’m on the bottom level of salary/responsibility and have two colleagues. One works full time and I job share.

We were going to approach our new boss due to various issues and I wanted to mention workload. My colleague who works full time said “no don’t mention workload because they will think you aren’t up for the job”?

The said work colleague is in a bit of trouble with management and they’ve cited they don’t think she does enough work.... but I’ve never done her job so I don’t know.

AIBU for thinking she is happy with her workload and doesn’t want more, even though the two part timers are struggling?

@MichelleScarn Backlog she is working on. If I don’t respond to X email, I’ve noticed it won’t get picked up by the other Admin. The emails are time specific and we have KPIs as other teams relay on that information.

@Dishwashersaurous it’s an AIBU as per the first post.

It sounds like a management issue and management need to decide who staffs the mailbox on your non working days.
Beyond that the full timer does her job (and management intervene if there are any performance concerns), the other part timer does her tasks and the OP does theirs.

again, to repeat having multiple people monitoring one inbox is not an effective or efficient way to work. You need to be really really clear about who is doing it when.

Eg person 1. 9am to 11am
Person 2 11 am to 1pm
Person 3 1pm to 3pm

Etc. Otherwise duplication and stuff gets missed

@LolaSmiles I work every day.

We don’t have personal email boxes.

but if your colleague underworks underworks that is for management to deal with appropriately. It is not for you to handle.

You need to focus on making your job manageable

@Dishwashersaurous it’s very effective, when people keep on top of it. We don’t have personal mail boxes. It’s how teams work when I’ve done this in other jobs.

but its not working at the moment. So you need to be clear about how it should be managed going forward

@Dishwashersaurous And I’m not handling her performance?

I’m trying to manage my work flow and I would love if the other admin spent a proportion of their day doing a task that benefits them, delays my work and makes us all inefficient, missing KPIs and senior management telling us of.

And this is being dealt with

I would suggest that if you have all been given your own areas to look after, then all you need to deal with in the group email are emails from your own areas. The others should be picking up the emails that are from their areas. With our group email, the team take turns monitoring and emails get allocated to the relevant person via a category. Anything general the person monitoring deals with. I think they swap weekly and it works well.

I would talk to your line manager. Outline the issue you are having and provide a workable solution or a couple of options that they can consider.

@Dishwashersaurous I’m working on it. Hence why I wanted to let our manager know we have excessive workloads and getting extra stuff dumped all the time. So I had hoped we would have a session working together, putting a plan together.

Wendywoodd
I get you don't have personal mailboxes. What I don't understand is why it's not possible for you to monitor it on set days/times and someone else to manage it other times.
It sounds like a management issue rather than a full timer issue. Unless I'm missing something, either the full timer hasn't been directed to staff the inbox (in which case the management haven't managed the team effectively), or the full timer has been clearly told when she needs to be responsible for the inbox (in which case the management need to be dealing with their performance issues appropriately and confidentially, whilst allocating key tasks across the team appropriately).

I'm a bit confused. In your opening post you say you job share, then later you say you don't job share. Which is it?

@Wendywoodd Yes it has been discussed before and X was supposed to happen, but didn’t. The manager is also new.... hence why I’m saying it’s all not black and white.

Ultimately when I log in 5 hours into the FT shift and emails haven’t been filtered or other departments emails haven’t been responded to, how can anyone say she’s pulling her weight? When I take leave, or have training for say 1 hour, that’s 80-% of her shift whereby she’s done none of this joint work. This has a knock on affect for my work. Obviously it’s not for me to tell her to do more work and she partly why I’m falling behind/working extra hours. I really believe my work load needs more hours. So something has to give..,. Because I’m damned if I don’t do the inbox, damned if I don’t:

@TriciaMcMillan yes I Shouldn’t have have said job share.

Wendywoodd

I am still curious as to when the other PT person works?
Do they start at the same time that the ft person starts, they do the morning and then you do the afternoon.

Either way, it seems to me that the ft person has got a raw deal out of this and you and the other part timer are now both going to see a reduction in work and the full timer an increase.

It is also strange that you say that you all seem to have excessive workloads
Hence why I wanted to let our manager know we have excessive workloads and getting extra stuff dumped all the time.
Yet only the full timer gets more work whilst yours is reduced.

@FrippEnos they work a few days a week. I work daily.

I would love to say the “full story” but ultimately I don’t want the paper trail. My original question was regarding me wanting to raise workload as a team. The other PT is also complaining she doesn’t feel like her workload is manageable. The FT has had their work load dropped. So I’m really indifferent when I look at piles of emails that haven’t been touched since the start of the FT shift. As I’ve always said, I can’t give you the full story, there is also her version of events, but ultimately I just wanted to check what others thought of her comment. I know that some people don’t like working of limited events/half stories.

Ultimately I thought it was a weird comment and I can’t help but thinking her workload is manageable.

^fuck ive just realised that she’s had one area dropped from her workload and I’m picking up that area. Wow, ok.

@FrippEnos just to put it in perspective, I get work 53% of her hours.

Wendywoodd

sorry if I am coming across as being difficult with this.

I think that what you need to do is talk to your line manager and get them to do a full review of the workload from the six areas and reallocate the workload and possibly reorder the working day so that the priority emails fall to one person.

Depending on the decision the latter would mean that you and the other part timer would have to step in and support the full timer when they are dealing with the priority emails.

But that may also mean that the order of hierarchy may need to change as well.

Hi @Wendywoodd no you aren’t coming across as difficult, I wish I could write in depth but it would leave a paper trail.....

I have spoken to my manager and she’s aware of the issues. I’ve seen some changes ;)