WIBU to offer help to my colleagues?

[Nidan2Sandan]

Our job is busy, but also not linear. You can have a low amount of work that is complicated and be short of time or a high amount of work which is simple and keep on top of it. Really depends on what comes in.

Recently I have been getting on top of my work well and found that today I actually had no tasks that needed doing, so I emailed out to the team asking of anyone needed assistance on any tasks.

Several people came back grateful and took me up on my offer.

One person emailed saying everyone will hate me for pointing out I had nothing to do and offering to help them.

Just for clarity, I just had my yearly review and my manager graded me at exceeding my targets, said my work is excellent and she is really happy with me. All our cases are reviewed twice by management so she will know exactly what I'm doing, therefore i have no issues with the boss thinking I'm short changing my work or rushing it.

Would people really hate me for offering to help? Would you be offended if I did? If you had some work which was labour intensive and I could take the "easier" stuff off your hands to help?

I'm wondering if I shouldn't have offered now, but would feel bad sitting here watching Netflix instead of working knowing my colleagues are busy (not all, some have less work than me).

As a Manager, I would absolutely love someone like you as part of my team. Team work, time management and using your initiative - all fantastic competencies. In my current team, we all have days when we can be very busy and some where we are quieter. Yesterday, I had a horrendous day and one of my team offered to help me - I was so grateful. I have done the same for her in the past.

OP, you are the sort of person, who would be identified as someone who I could look at to promote and I would be looking for ways to develop you further, if that’s what you wanted.

When I have led teams in the past, those who don’t help each other out, only ever do what’s in their job description (to the letter) and sit round doing nothing when they are quiet, either don’t last long or never get considered for development or promotion opportunities.

If you are not busy of course you should be contacting colleagues and seeing if you can help out. If someone on my team didn't do that they'd be quickly out on their arse.

@Chely

I'd be annoyed if you offered to take the "easier" work off my hands.

Haha, I didnt say "only give me your easy stuff" but it would be incredibly inefficient to have them pass me long, complicated and complex work that they're already up to their eyeballs in, if I can take on the new, easy, or not yet worked cases. Saves them needing to give me a long detailed handover.

My cases will all hit the system in January so I imagine I will be back to business as usual then. It's just the typical ebb and flow and I've been lucky to have relatively straight forward stuff up to now. But believe me, it was just a few months ago that I was carrying the highest caseload! My line of work is, by its nature, unpredictable, human nature being what it is.

For those saying why didnt I just email management. They were interviewing all day, so they saw my email (and one manager quickly emailed me asking me to pick up some of her tasks) but they wouldn't have been able to disseminate this down to all 18 staff members. It was more efficient to just email the team directly but this one person had an issue.

@Lucyccfc68 thank you, that's such a nice thing to say! Incidentally, I am looking to move into a management role eventually so always pushing to improve my skillset

I think it’s lovely you offered to help. It’s nice when people help each other, however yesterday I made a vow that I will never offer to take anything from my colleague anymore because he always dumps complex and time consuming shit on me that he doesn’t want to do. Also he criticises the way I do it and mansplains to me. It’s never reciprocated either I could completely overwhelmed with work and he will just sit there telling me to make time for self care fucking twat

I used to work in a company with similar ebbs and flows of work, and I routinely used to offer to help my colleagues if I had a slow day, and likewise they would offer to help me if they were twiddling their thumbs and they could see I was drowning in my workload. It's not showing off or patronising or undermining, or any of the other weird responses. It's not because you're faster than anyone else, it's just the nature of the job that some people get different amounts of work at different times. I'd hate to work somewhere where people didn't think in such a team-spirited way.

It does depend on the situation.

You say everyone has busy times and everyone has slack times. Is that generally talked about or what you think? Do others work overtime at busy times and make up a slack times?

I've been in a situation where someone announced they weren't having enough work to do. I'm not sure if they thought this is true or not, however I had had a meeting with my line manager a couple of weeks previously because this person wasn't doing any work if it rolled up at their desk on a silver platter tap dancing and singing "this is work you should be doing" and the excess was landing very thoroughly on me.

It was very frustrating to be trying to cover things they should have been doing while they tried to sound very noble and unselfish by offering to do other things because they "didn't have enough to do."
I tried to get round it by sending them lists of what needed doing, and they did some of them in a half hearted way leaving an unfinished job, while spending most of the time doing things like rearranging the flowers which were looked after by volunteers. They'd then make a big thing when the volunteer came in about how they'd "done this to help the volunteers" and you'd see the volunteer deflate as they found their job had been reduced to the boring bits (like clearing up the dead heads from the floor).

If I found myself in such a position, I would tell my manager I had spare capacity and let them allocate me where they think appropriate.. I wouldn’t send a group email around, I think that could come across as a bit “look at me”.

@OneRuleForThem

It sounds patronising and showing off to me. Also can come across as undermining, especially sending out a GROUP email, informing everyone including the bosses implying that you’re a much faster and capable worker than everyone Else. Why on Earth did you think this a good idea?

Completely disagree with this. You are clearly a team player. As a manager I'd love it. But as a colleague I'd love it too - who wouldn't like a bit of help if their cases have kicked off?

You haven't done anything wrong OP. It was a really nice offer especially with Christmas approaching. There will alway be people both on mumsnet and in work who try and cut you down just so they can feel better about themselves. Don't let the fuckers grind you down.

One person emailed saying everyone will

Jealousy.

Such an ugly emotion.

@Chely

I'd be annoyed if you offered to take the "easier" work off my hands.

Why on Earth would that annoy you? You wouldn't have to accept the offer.

Honestly the responses on this thread are so very disheartening. Working in a team and having a colleague offer help/assistance can sometimes just be the lift you need in an otherwise shitty day.

Help from colleagues when it's all going to rat shit has actually brought a tear to my eye on a terrible day. In contrast, I have been sat at work, several hours late off when all my colleagues had fucked off home and it is heart breaking.

Helping out in your team often inspires others as well. I remember vividly working in a team that were very selfish. A new guy joined us and at the end of every shift he would ring round and see if we were all getting off on time and ask if he could do anything. Within weeks, we were all doing it and it honestly changed the whole feel about the place. We became a happier, more productive, better team because of it. Were I ever in a management role, team working will be one of my priorities

@MargaretThursday

It does depend on the situation.

You say everyone has busy times and everyone has slack times. Is that generally talked about or what you think? Do others work overtime at busy times and make up a slack times?

I've been in a situation where someone announced they weren't having enough work to do. I'm not sure if they thought this is true or not, however I had had a meeting with my line manager a couple of weeks previously because this person wasn't doing any work if it rolled up at their desk on a silver platter tap dancing and singing "this is work you should be doing" and the excess was landing very thoroughly on me.

It was very frustrating to be trying to cover things they should have been doing while they tried to sound very noble and unselfish by offering to do other things because they "didn't have enough to do."
I tried to get round it by sending them lists of what needed doing, and they did some of them in a half hearted way leaving an unfinished job, while spending most of the time doing things like rearranging the flowers which were looked after by volunteers. They'd then make a big thing when the volunteer came in about how they'd "done this to help the volunteers" and you'd see the volunteer deflate as they found their job had been reduced to the boring bits (like clearing up the dead heads from the floor).

No, no one really needs to do overtime. We will all occasionally work over our hours if something needs doing or a court case is imminent for us but generally as a rule it's very 9-5.

But, if my colleagues are having to work outside their hours and I'm not I'd rather help them so they didnt have to do this.

I'm not going to sell myself short, I am very good at my job and very efficient. But I'm always happy to muck in, hence my email today.

I dont know why the guy took offence to my email, I'd have helped him too! (Although he currently is carrying the same workload levels as I am so wont need my help. And fair play to him for also keeping on top of his workload).

Our workloads are always talked about. Our work numbers go out on a spreadsheet twice a week for all to see, our individual cases are reviewed by management at least twice from opening until closing, our team meetings we always discuss caseload (and some of the funny/nonsense cases we get in to lighten the mood), we also support each other in the more "emotional" sense for the hard cases. Nothing is a secret, and no one struggling would EVER be looked at as less, or underperforming. I genuinely just wanted to help, and not be paid for sitting on my behind watching Netflix

@Aprilx

If I found myself in such a position, I would tell my manager I had spare capacity and let them allocate me where they think appropriate.. I wouldn’t send a group email around, I think that could come across as a bit “look at me”.

I guess this depends very much on the job, but my manager wouldn't have a clue about exactly what I'm doing on a day to day basis, or what anyone else is either. He knows when our deadlines are, any issues we're having in meeting the deadlines, ad hoc project stuff we might be working on that we've actually been assigned, all very high level stuff, but we all work with a lot of autonomy and often work on side projects with no management involvement at all. He would know if someone had a quiet few weeks coming up and suggest we might be able to use them as a pair of hands until their workload picked up again but it would be totally up to us to decide how to use them.

If someone had extra capacity in the very short term and wanted to offer help he might be able to point them in the direction of people who were a bit snowed under and could use a hand, but he wouldn't have a clue what they might need a hand with that would only take a few hours, or what we could reasonably hand over (most likely grunt work, a bit of research, maybe deputise at some committee or other etc) or what we'd really need to complete ourselves (a day of back to back meetings or writing reports). There are about fifteen of us in the team reporting in to three managers but a lot of crossover in who does what work for whom.

It would be far more efficient in our team, if you didn't already know of a way to make yourself useful, to just post in the Teams channel or send round an email that you've got a bit of capacity this afternoon and if anyone needs a hand with anything to give you a shout. It would definitely not be seen as "look at me".

But like I said, I guess this depends on what you actually do. If you're all allocated work and you pick up a task, do it, finish it, pick up the next piece of work etc it might be more appropriate to ask management.