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?

OP, you need to get clarity on this person's contracted obligations.

Because it won't be 'do your hours whenever you like, with no expectation to be available for business needs unless it suits you'.

Or if it is, you have the words worst HR department and should probably leave for your own sanity.

No one is asking anyone to come in on a day off, so that's a pointless and false equivalence. If someone is part time and does have agreed and stipulated hours that is also different. I'm not sure if any contracts stipulate that a particular meeting must be attended, but I would be surprised if reasonable business needs or something similar wasn't mentioned; which this is. Honestly all of this whataboutery and ridiculous excuses for a meeting at 9am. Astounding.

Its not any different. Its outside that persons working hours.

'Within business needs' actually means very little. If its business needs, that someone needs to work 60 hours a week, is that OK.

Op says the staff need to be flexible. Within reason. The hold has to go to schools.

At our school breakfast club has to be booked a term in advance. Some zchos are not doing them because of high cases in the school and the mixing that happens.

So anyone who currently does the school run wouldn't be able to commit until January, if they need to book in advance.

The other parent may not be able to be flexible. Or works to do the afternoon school run. So it's not within reason.

Most Employees do not have to be available whenever they are not in work. Especially when no one bothered checking with them in the first place.

It may mean the project needs moving to someone else. But it doesn't mean that the person MUST be available outside their working hours.

I can't not imagine assuming my colleagues or direct reports must be available at all times.

Having a job should never mean you can make plans outside work. Ever, just incase someone expects you to work outside your hours.

@Lockeddownagain

9qm is when school starts lots of people are probably dropping there kids off at school. Why can't u make it 9m30 and get a reputation for being understanding rather then the person who doesn't understand life outside work

Why should the people in the other time zones that the OP said are participating have to finish work later? Maybe they have child care responsibilities to.

The OP could find a way around this situation

I am not sure it is necessarily the OP's job to find a solution. I am all for flexible working and would generally say that insisting on a 9am meeting when 9.30 will do, is unreasonable for all the reasons given on here.

But if you have a large group meeting across time-zones, then people need to be flexible. I've said above how I worked around a late afternoon meeting when I had a small child, the OP's colleague needs to find a solution. Which may be calling in from their car or walk home from the school. Or, as others have mentioned, their agenda item is further down the agenda to let them eg join at 9.15. Or find childcare. Yes it might be more difficult because of covid but the rest of the population is managing it.

I assume the OP has discussed with the client whether a weekly meeting with so many people is actually the best way of moving the project along.

@Goldenbear

Regardless of the working environment I think it is unreasonable for you to expect a parent to put work above everything else on 'work days'. Work is not more important than your children on any day at least it shouldn't be!

You can't be serious. "Work days" ? That pay your "salary"?

@fruitandflowers

Economists wondering why the U.K. has low / slow growth in productivity need only consult this thread as to the reason why

Ditto the next time someone starts a thread plaintively asking why some people earn higher salaries. Point them in the direction of this thread - tl;dr - acting as if your human rights have been infringed because someone has asked you to jump on the phone at 9am is unlikely to be the path to success. It’s not about requiring buns on seats at a certain time, it’s about expecting a degree of responsibility to be coupled with flexibility. Not getting all puffed up because you haven’t had time to make a brew (ugh) or faff about in the morning.

A work culture containing so many people stupid enough to conflate productivity with attendance at 9am meetings is part of the reason we lag behind.

I agree with @Nyxs, @ExceptionalAssurance and others replying in a similar vein on this thread. Also, I am obviously hard of understanding, but I am not getting why it seems the OP is not entering into discussion with the key team member about this, rather than complaining about people's "normal" contractual working hours not being the same as hers. Is the key team member in question actually in a superior position in the company, so she feels she can't discuss it with them? Or is there another undisclosed issue with this particular key team member? I do get the sense that the OP has missed out a step in the process of setting up the meeting, whereby she assumed availability based on her own working hours without checking.

@ColinTheKoala

The OP could find a way around this situation

I am not sure it is necessarily the OP's job to find a solution. I am all for flexible working and would generally say that insisting on a 9am meeting when 9.30 will do, is unreasonable for all the reasons given on here.

But if you have a large group meeting across time-zones, then people need to be flexible. I've said above how I worked around a late afternoon meeting when I had a small child, the OP's colleague needs to find a solution. Which may be calling in from their car or walk home from the school. Or, as others have mentioned, their agenda item is further down the agenda to let them eg join at 9.15. Or find childcare. Yes it might be more difficult because of covid but the rest of the population is managing it.

I assume the OP has discussed with the client whether a weekly meeting with so many people is actually the best way of moving the project along.

Of course it's the ops job.

She isbthe one organising it. She is the one that agreed the time and day without checking with her 'key' attendees.

Yes, I suggested similar work around. If they don't work for the OP, then she needs to find another solution.

You would hope the op has discussed it with the client. But it sounds more like the client said 'this works for us' and op said 'ok' and is now stuck because its not ok.

I am not sure it is necessarily the OP's job to find a solution.

The only reason for OP to be so het up about this would be if it's her responsibility to manage the clients expectations.

She said she couldn't possibly move the meeting because the client set the time and it's non-negotiable then changed and said she could change it but it'd inconvenience the client.

I'm pretty certain it is OP's job and she just wants her colleagues to sing to her tune, rather than having an awkward conversation.

I don't see the harm in the colleague joining the call 15 mins late. It'll take the first 15 mins for pleasantries to be exchanged and for the previous meeting to be revisited anyway.

A work culture containing so many people stupid enough to conflate productivity with attendance at 9am meetings is part of the reason we lag behind.

Yes, this is very true. The OP’s management approach to the problem is a tiny case study of the appalling management (human and systems) in this country that are one of the real causes of the productivity crisis, not workers seeking performance rather than presenteeism based workplaces.

What a long thread ...OP have you spoken to the staff member ...and tried to reach a compromise.
I had a situation with a boss who booked a 1 to 1 every single Monday for a year at 9.15am it got my back up as I like to prepare myself and do a to do list at start of each week...she wasn’t flexible and now am glad I’m not there any longer...

@ilovebrie8

What a long thread ...OP have you spoken to the staff member ...and tried to reach a compromise. I had a situation with a boss who booked a 1 to 1 every single Monday for a year at 9.15am it got my back up as I like to prepare myself and do a to do list at start of each week...she wasn’t flexible and now am glad I’m not there any longer...

But it sounds like you weren’t flexible either. Why couldn’t you do your to do list before finishing the previous week?

I also agree with @Nyxs and others. If the role has no fixed hours, the member of staff is seemingly well paid so will
have autonomy over their diary.

If they're key to a particular project then meetings should not be scheduled without checking their availability.

Conditions and expectations of other people's jobs are not relevant.

Unfortunately his staff are, frankly, a bunch of lazy, entitled twats

Who he hired, and manages, and continues to employ.

Have you asked why they can’t use a childminder or breakfast club?

Don't do that.

Yes I could start the meeting earlier (if the client agreed), but then someone else would have to start work earlier than they like to start, and outside what is usually considered working hours in the UK.

And your team member is being asked to start outside her normal working hours. Why is that less important? Is it because she is a working mum?

Ex-healthcare professional here, so obviously I’m finding this thread all kinds of bizarre, but I’m baffled by posters who need half an hour every morning to “get their heads round” being at work.

It isn't about that. For a 9am meeting, some prep is required. You can't just get in to work and join the meeting. Would you expect to do work before your normal working day, to prepare for your working day?

People who refuse to be flexible don’t get on well here and usually don’t go very far.

Translation: working mums are discriminated against here.

Are you so interested in the working hours of your colleague when she is completing a report or responding to emails at 10pm?

@BoredZelda - whilst I agree with you, the OP has already said that the key team member in question is a man. Not that it actually detracts from your arguments.

@BoredZelda

And your team member is being asked to start outside her normal working hours. Why is that less important? Is it because she is a working mum?

Translation: working mums are discriminated against here

The OP has said that it's a man. Bit of a sexist assumption on your part?

@Grenlei

It's not jealousy - if my kids were young now and I wanted to do the school run, I'd request flex working, either to limit myself to 9.30-2.45, or if I couldn't afford the resultant cut in pay, I'd do 9.30-5.30, so I could cover drop off and arrange childcare for pickup.

No problem with people making actual flexible working requests. Skiving off for 30 mins or more twice a day on the pretext of I'll cover that work after hours is just unprofessional.

As a colleague said in a (8am) meeting the other day, what about when our company policy changes to require us in the office (could happen at any time, many companies have gone back 3+ days a week) - how will these people manage these arrangements then?!

You sound quite old and out of touch and I say that as someone far from young myself

OP has explained that We don’t have set times in our contracts.

Yet some posters just cannot accept this. My contract says I must work x hours a week, and that I can manage those hours myself, so long as I get the job done. This means I can block out next Thursday because I am going to a theatre matinee with a retired friend, and just work additional hours elsewhere. If I want to always start at 10 on Tuesdays, that's what I do.

Meetings are arranged around people's availability.

I don't disagree that staff who prioritise work over family/social life might be more likely to get a promotion, but many staff aren't bothered about that, they are happy with the level of responsibility they have.

These kinds of working practices are likely to become more prevalent and this has to be a good thing when you consider that the UK has the worst Work/Life balance in western europe.

@JassyRadlett

A work culture containing so many people stupid enough to conflate productivity with attendance at 9am meetings is part of the reason we lag behind.

Yes, this is very true. The OP’s management approach to the problem is a tiny case study of the appalling management (human and systems) in this country that are one of the real causes of the productivity crisis, not workers seeking performance rather than presenteeism based workplaces.

Presenteeism is a curse and it will be a wonderful thing if this awful pandemic helps us tackle our cultural problem with it in any way... that said, I'm not sure OP is the manager here. Reckon if she had any ability to pull rank she'd have at least tried it, given that this appears to be a problem she is responsible for and would like solving via someone else dancing to her tune.

@ExceptionalAssurance

A work culture containing so many people stupid enough to conflate productivity with attendance at 9am meetings is part of the reason we lag behind.

Spot on

Basically there are two types of people.

The ones who think that everyone is equal. That bosses and staff should work together to ensure staff are as happy and best able to meet their other responsibilities as possible, as this will benefit the staff and what benefits the staff ultimately benefits the company (obviously this does not apply to piss-taking staff, but if management is in any way competent those piss-takers should have been sacked already).

The ones who think that bosses (and people with titles and tory politicians) are special and important and everyone should do what their superiors say because workers are worthless.

"People who refuse to be flexible don’t get on well here and usually don’t go very far"

Translation: working mums are discriminated against here

Unfortunately working mums are discriminated against in lots of jobs, to the point where employers will avoid hiring them like the plague
Nobody suggests it's the right thing to do, but some of the responses on here show exactly why they do it

As with the petition - apparently created in all seriousness - that maternity leave should be extended because baby groups were missed during Covid, it's sometimes wise to be careful what's wished for

@Puzzledandpissedoff

A lot of managers and employers have never experienced such a constrained labour market before and are starting to get a shock that actually the employees they expected to be grateful supplicants might actually have some power in the relationship

This is true; however at the end of the day it's not the employees who are doing the actual paying

Certainly highly skilled staff are better able to call the shots than others, but often the difficulty is that folk think they're irreplaceable ... and often it's just not so

If the bosses are competent then surely they only employ people who [do things that ultimately] bring in the money that is then used to pay the people they employ?

Bosses need staff. Staff need bosses (unless they go set up their own business). It's not like bosses are sat there on £10m and just pay cash to staff as a favour. Bosses have cash to pay staff because they have staff to bring in cash.

I;ll be honest, I think flexible people, especially women, get shit on. You get told when young to be flexible and go above and beyond and you will be rewarded. Its bullshit.
There are many many women who work hard, are flexible, go above and beyond, and never get promotion. They are seen as reliable good girls, not promotion material. But businesses do depend on these women to make money.

@Puzzledandpissedoff I have jumped jobs during the pandemic. I am not highly paid. The firm I work for had great delivery recruiting anyone experienced enough to my post.
Even minimum wage jobs like carers, employers cant recruit too.

My contract says I must work x hours a week, and that I can manage those hours myself, so long as I get the job done.

Yes, DH's work is exactly like this too. He has an end point deadline which he has to hit (it could be the next day or it could be in a couple of months depending on the nature of the work), but within that time period he can work whenever it suits him.

It was great when our DCs were young as he could do school runs/after-school activities etc and then go back to work once I got home from my job, which has more regular hours. His whole industry works like this. And he is sometimes client-facing too; if a client requests a meeting at a time which isn't convenient for him, he just politely says so and offers several alternatives. He's never yet had a client cancel a contract or walk away in a huff because he has said politely that he cannot do a certain time. The flexibility goes the other way too as he will often work late at night or at weekends and is happy to have meetings at odd times – just not times which clash with other commitments.

Companies like the OP's which don't seem to want to offer this level of flexibility can always write precise terms into their staff contracts, but I suspect these days that approach is going to become less and less popular in a number of industries.