AIBU to think that team should be available at 9am for meetings?

[Overthebow]

I set up a weekly client meeting for my project team at 9am. I have had a decline from a key team member as it clashes with school drop of time. AIBU to think that 9am is a standard working time and my team should be available to attend important client calls at this time, unless they have a formal working hours agreement in place?

@hotmeatymilk

Then she began to complain that the daily meeting interrupted her work(!), could we change the time? Er, noooo. Tbf meetings do get in the way a bit

This is why lots of people actually like 9am meetings. Get them out of the way so people can get on with their actual work.

I start work at 7 and wfh. I usually take DS to school and am back within 15 minutes of leaving the house. I only pick him up once a week usually and make all this time back. My team works flexibly - probably helped as we are IT and not customer-facing.

The last 9am meeting we had booked I rushed back from drop off and was ready T my desk by to 9. The meeting organiser (our manager) logged on at 9:30! So I am a bit 🤷🏼‍♀️

[quote chlorineirene]@charliesbookmarker

You are out of touch im afraid. Sounds like your husband is too[/quote]
The employer is out of touch because they object to their staff holding calls with clients whilst shopping in B&Q? Or missing calls because they want to walk their dog the long way home from the school run?

More flexibility and WFH are definitely welcome changes but there's such a thing as give and take and not taking the piss Yes there are more jobs available at the moment and employers are finding it harder to recruit but how long will companies survive if they have to function around entitled attitudes like this?

@charliesbookmarker

ExceptionalAssurance well I am sure if they are in that much demand they can get employment else where.

Not sure how the interview process will go

New employer : 'so why did you leave your last job?'
New Employee : 'God they wanted me to be present at a 9am meeting...can you imagine!'

Then there's no issue, is there? It's a two way street, whatever some of you think is entitled. And for many workers the pendulum has swung more in their favour than previously. Employers and employees are negotiating mutually beneficial arrangements, and if the 9am is a sticking point for both then it isn't going to work.

I wouldn't usually recommend arranging flexible working with that opener, but then my last job interview was before covid and the great resignation, so who knows...

Why not just have core working hours between 10 and 2 when all essential team meetings take place? And then people can do their other work around those times?

I just don't understand why any organisation would knowingly put up barriers to women participating fully in working life.

Why exclude people who need to work within school hours? Are they less smart, less valuable, less hard working, less worthy? Do we really want to live in a society where you can only get ahead if you have no dependents? Isn't it quite important for a society to have a reasonable birth rate so that our economy can continue to function?

@icedcoffees

Clients don't get to dictate everything on their terms.

I run a business that deals with clients - they can request I'm available at certain times but if I'm dealing with other clients at that time then they can have my time when I'm free.

If they're not happy with that they're free to go elsewhere of course, but IMO it's a two way street. Meetings and appointments have to be suitable for everyone attending them, not just the person paying for the work.

Agree with this. Clients might be in charge, possibly, but no client is going to sack off a good agency merely because the agency has requested a particular meeting starts 15 or 30 minutes later.

And if they are that intransigent, you would probably be questioning whether you wanted them as a client anyway since such an inflexible attitude would be likely to manifest itself in other aspects of the working relationship.

@charliesbookmarker

ExceptionalAssurance well I am sure if they are in that much demand they can get employment else where.

Not sure how the interview process will go

New employer : 'so why did you leave your last job?'
New Employee : 'God they wanted me to be present at a 9am meeting...can you imagine!'

If your DH has anything like the same derisory dislike of his employees that you appear to have - just from the way you speak about them - I don’t think 9am meetings are going to be the main push factor in that one.

I don't think you are being unreasonable and I say that as someone with two DC in primary school. I'm WFH three days a week. School starts at 8.40am and I'm home by ten to nine. If I think I'm not going to be back from the school run or if it's an 8.30am meeting then I'll swap with my husband. When I'm in the office it's either my husband (if he's not in the office) or wrap around care.

Why not just have core working hours between 10 and 2 when all essential team meetings take place?

That's very limiting when you have a wide range of clients and are scheduling lots of meetings. Office hours are understood to be 9-5 and while you don't necessarily have to be available for all of that, limiting your meeting availability to 4 hours a day rather than 8 will limit your client opportunities significantly.

no client is going to sack off a good agency merely because the agency has requested a particular meeting starts 15 or 30 minutes later.

If key members of the team are consistently unavailable during normal office hours, and you as the client need a lot of access, then I think they ultimately will vote with their feet. They would in my industry.

@TheKeatingFive

Why not just have core working hours between 10 and 2 when all essential team meetings take place?

That's very limiting when you have a wide range of clients and are scheduling lots of meetings. Office hours are understood to be 9-5 and while you don't necessarily have to be available for all of that, limiting your meeting availability to 4 hours a day rather than 8 will limit your client opportunities significantly.

This

Bloody hell my dh business is open to 8pm with clients still trying to contact staff after that time. My lawyer friend is often dealing with clients at 11pm at night.

10 - 2 is fucking part time - that's really made me laugh

@charliesbookmarker do you work?

10 - 2 is fucking part time - that's really made me laugh

I can only imagine the look on some of my clients faces if I told them I was only available to talk to them 10-2 😆

@TheKeatingFive

10 - 2 is fucking part time - that's really made me laugh

I can only imagine the look on some of my clients faces if I told them I was only available to talk to them 10-2 😆

But not between 12:30-13:30 because you're on lunch then

@charliesbookmarker you do realise your husbands business isn't the whole world of employment don't you?

My MD would sack a client off if they kept trying to contact staff after business hours.

Its really possible to be flexible AND successful. Companies do it all the time.

If a company really can't, then they aren't in anyway relevant to the OP, whose company doesn't have core hours.

But not between 12:30-13:30 because you're on lunch then

Lunch 😂

I think 9.15 would be a fair compromise. And sure, you could keep it at 9, but it might be lore difficult to hang onto staff that are parents, or recruit their replacements.

Im also a bit at the people on here thst think the OP is not being unreasonable because their school starts at 8.30, or 8.40 and they live a 5 minute walk, so its fine to start at 9.

We cant dictate when our children's school starts, and not all of us live 5 mins from school. Its an 8.50 start and a 10 min walk here. I get back 9.05, but not before. Either accept that some people will be a few minutes late, or move it slightly later so it accommodates most people.

then they aren't in anyway relevant to the OP, whose company doesn't have core hours.

I would actually question the OP's understanding of this, because it would be highly unusual to have absolutely no contracted obligations with regards to hours

@unim

Why not just have core working hours between 10 and 2 when all essential team meetings take place? And then people can do their other work around those times?

I just don't understand why any organisation would knowingly put up barriers to women participating fully in working life.

Why exclude people who need to work within school hours? Are they less smart, less valuable, less hard working, less worthy? Do we really want to live in a society where you can only get ahead if you have no dependents? Isn't it quite important for a society to have a reasonable birth rate so that our economy can continue to function?

Those women who have partners can share the load, that's barriers they are putting up themselves if not. Working in school hours is fine, if the person applies for part time work or makes a flexible working request to reduce their hours; if someone is contracted to and being paid to work full time hours then of course it's not workable. 10 to 2pm is extremely limiting.

@charliesbookmarker That's the whole point, though - that people who need to have part time work in order to accommodate their caring responsibilities or health needs should also be able to take part in things. And they should be able to be a part of the core team, and able to progress and become senior and take on more responsibility. Being able to work from 9 to 6 isn't the most important attribute in a team member, surely - isn't ability more important?

An organisation that only employs full-time staff is actively putting up barriers to certain groups of people. They're losing out on talent. In order to take those barriers down, we need to rethink what we mean by 'core hours' - of course people work outside of those hours, but let's have the core meetings at times which aren't going to exclude chunks of the population.

It's very lazy thinking not to consider this an option. Job shares are also a fantastic option, allowing for more than full-time hours to be covered - one person may want to work from 7 to 3, and another from 10 to 7, allowing for both a good amount of overlap plus out-of-hours coverage.

Any industry not seriously considering these options is actively excluding certain segments of the population (any guesses as to which ones?) and actively losing potential talent simply through lack of imagination and flexibility.

In theory flexibility is great but in practice I’ve had one team member wanting to do 9am and 3pm school runs, another wanting to do a 9.30 drop and 11.15 pick up and one doing different drop offs and pick ups on different days according to the other parent’s shift pattern. It simply isn’t sustainable and all of these employees would have been in the office 8.30-5.00 prior to Covid and needed wrap around childcare. All are affronted that I want a formal flexible working request and can’t just wave their various requests through without looking at the impact on workflow and the wider team. The level of entitlement is astonishing. I would never refuse a one off or short term request for flexibility for a specific reason but we can’t adopt a come and go as you please policy, sorry and all but no.

Employer's should 'pander' or be considerate of childcare needs as that is how you ensure diversity in your workforce, that is how you ensure your workforce reflects the diversity of your client base, the consumer or the general public and that is essential if you want your organisation to succeed at what at does! These small people i.e children, that some employers would rather pretend didn't exist, are future tax payers (consumers) basically people that will fund your existence when you are too old to do so- why have so much disdain for the people i.e employees who are parents, bringing them up. I find reading the short sighted, ignorant comments on here about pandering to childcare etc. So frustrating and anti-feminist and posted on a site named Mumsnet! Absolutely bizarre!!

@Fetarabbit Obviously if somebody has signed a contract and agreed to work from 9 to 5 then that's what they've signed up for.

But we really need to be thinking beyond that model and to how we can remove the barriers that stop the best people from getting jobs rather than simply those who don't have dependents to care for (or health issues) and can work a week that is "standard" only for certain sorts of people who most often tend to be male.

[quote unim]@Fetarabbit Obviously if somebody has signed a contract and agreed to work from 9 to 5 then that's what they've signed up for.

But we really need to be thinking beyond that model and to how we can remove the barriers that stop the best people from getting jobs rather than simply those who don't have dependents to care for (or health issues) and can work a week that is "standard" only for certain sorts of people who most often tend to be male.[/quote]
Well yes they can apply for flexible working and I agree that there should be better consideration given to the process and whether its feasible or not rather than employers saying no. Its not overly relevant to this scenario though, is it?

@TheKeatingFive

no client is going to sack off a good agency merely because the agency has requested a particular meeting starts 15 or 30 minutes later.

If key members of the team are consistently unavailable during normal office hours, and you as the client need a lot of access, then I think they ultimately will vote with their feet. They would in my industry.

It's interesting, isn't it? DH works with and for clients in his business and he says he has definitely noticed a sea-change in the past few years.

It very much used to be 'what the client wants, the client gets', no questions asked. But these days, there is more flexibility and more negotiation. So to an extent he would agree with you that if a key member of the team is consistently unavailable that would be an issue, but at the same time a polite request for a minor change in start time for a meeting would be unlikely to be a deal-breaker.

A happy client-agency relationship is more likely to be productive.