Would I be unreasonable to ask that all changes to ways of working are communicated via email/in writing and not Teams/phone calls?

[I8toys]

Been in current position for years. New person comes in same sort of position as me but with a different title. I don't work for this person.

Requests on how to do things for my line manager have come in over Teams from this new person. These have not been discussed with me and the new person tells me my LM has agreed such and such. I have mentioned to LM and HR are looking at job descriptions.

I think there will be more to come in the future. AIBU to ask that anything changing with my role be communicated in writing - email or letter and not via Teams/phone calls?

I’d say it would be a bit unreasonable yes

and come off as very precious

adapt or die

If your LM has agreed it and tells you such, I'm not sure you'll have much choice in the matter anyway.

But if the LM hasn't told you and its come from someone else?

I would absolutely agree that any changes to your role need to be communicated formally to you in writing and email is now considered equally appropriate to a hard copy letter in that sense to I think it's fine to insist that formal changes to your contract are communicated to you via email formally.

general day to day communications... teams is fine.

it depends on your set up.

At my work people log onto teams from their company provided desktop or laptop computer during work hours.

so it’s not unreasonable for things to be communicated in this way. We also have company provided mobile phones so again it’s not unreasonable as long as it is only expected that people check them during normal working hours.

But you said you spoke to your LM

have they said what this new person has told you is incorrect?

if not it would be very unreasonable to make this request

Surely the problem is that the new person is telling you how to do stuff for your boss, rather than how that is being communicated? It wouldn't bother me that it was teams rather than email - they're both work communication tools. But if you don't answer to the new person then they are overstepping trying to manage you and that's what I'd focus on.

Have they agreed it or not? you said the worker told them your LM had agreed and that you spoke to your LM but you didn't say whether they said whether they did tell them or not.

Whenever your colleague tells you LM has agreed a change, I would email CC'ing both of them "just to confirm/ensure that I have understood correctly, from now on we will be expected to XYZ instead of ABC, is that right?"

Agree. Teams message threads are a bugger to find in the morass if you get a lot of them.

You have to make a special effort to have a clear "paper" trail.

You could always confirm the changes back via email with your lm copied in. I don't think teams is the right place for anything you need to refer back to. Though if people persist, I do screen shot and save conversations, I work with a lot of stuff that needs proofing, so need the original instruction to refer back to.

I asked for clarity regarding as what this new person is doing was "my job". And she clarified for me but now more things are changing that were seen as "my job". Its hard to explain. It feels like a gradual diminishing of my position and I know I'm on the defense. Just trying to get other perspectives to tell me to just suck it up I suppose.

I think it's a sensible request. Teams messages disappear after a time and you can't file them as you would an email to refer to at a later date.

Yeah doing that is a sure fire way to 100% be seen as ridiculous

honestly, have some of you come straight from working in the 1980’s?

But surely the obvious route is:

Your colleague told you your LM said all communication is now to be done via Teams.
You speak to your LM to find out if this is actually true or not.

Am I missing something?

I'm not explaining this very well.

New person says to me via teams I'm doing this for LM now. So I asked for clarity face to face from LM who confirmed what was happening as job lines are now blurrying.

There will be future changes I can see coming. I just want clarity regarding what my role is and how changes will be communicated.

So then yes you are being unreasonable

You could however ask that all requests from LM come from them, via teams

I work in a regulated industry and changes to process/scope of responsibility that aren’t documented just wouldn’t fly. If it’s not written down it didn’t happen.

good luck to your LM trying to performance manage you in this scenario

I’m with the others @I8toys I’m confused what the problem is.

Is it…
A- New person is using Teams as a form of communication
or
B- New person’s role overlaps your role
or
C-New person is relaying directions from your manager to you with managers agreement and consent

can you clarify, as that will help us give meaningful advice.

It sort of depends on the scope of the change. I mean, if it’s something major, like you currently manage your LM’s diary and that’s a substantial part of your role, and this new person dropped you a casual Teams message to say she’s going to be handling it from now on then no, that’s not appropriate. But if it’s like, once a month you take minutes at a meeting and she’s going to do it now, I think Teams is fine.

B & C. But those directions are communicated via teams and never seen in written form.

Never written or via team message?

As your post title directly contradicts this comment

Have you recently been on maternity leave by any chance?

If you think your role is being hollowed out, I think it's fine to ask that there's a record of that. And you can then object as need be.

Otherwise, send an email everytime to your line manager so you have a consistent record of everytime they unilaterally changed your job description.

I personally don't see Teams messages as formal written communications. I can screenshot I suppose to document.

@Comefromaway I guess the issue I have with that is that when I'm working obviously I'll be on teams but when I'm on leave I'm not. I'll go through my emails when I return but I'm not going to bugger about scrolling through a week's worth of multiple teams groups to see if a process/procedure has been updated.

Also I don't do work WhatsApp etc. I have a perfectly good work email address that people can send work related information to.