To stick to designated day off?

[HandbagsnGladrags]

Am early 50's and work in a mid senior high pressure role in financial services. I've just dropped to a 4 day working week and taken a 20% pay cut. There was initially some resistance to me dropping my hours but I eventually got agreement. I've asked for the same day off each week and that was agreed.

Here's the dilemma - on only my second week of the new working pattern, one of my colleagues who was resistant to my drop in hours has put in an overnight stay which would mean me either travelling back home on my day off, or swapping my day off that week.

I don't want to start agreeing to swap days all the time as the whole point of me dropping my hours was to give me a better work life balance and be able to plan things for my non working day. WIBU to say that my day off is my day off and not be chopping and changing all of the time?

But equally they don’t want to end up with a case for constructive dismissal (or they shouldn’t).

Well, what’s done is done. OP, you know best how reneging on this arse will go down in your workplace. FGS when - not if - he tries to land you in it again, make up your mind what to do and stick with it.

On a happier note, I also love the NWD terminology and think it would be very helpful to add your working days to your email signature as a PP suggested

I have about 10 years experience in this predicament. And issues still arise.

I have found as I have become more senior it's been more difficutl in some ways. While I have more autonomy I also have more responsibility and things can't always wait for me to have a working day.

The way I play it is I assess things for (1) urgency and (2) importance. If it's both urgent and important I make an exception, if it's neither then I don't. It's incredibly important to me to make the arrangement work, which is why I do it this way. I don't want to miss out on promotions or do a bad job, but eqaully I don't want to give away my free time. Once in a while I get someone who makes it difficult, but actually people most of the time are really considerate of my time, and value the fact that they know I will be avvailable if important.

One thing I would say is when you aren't in, don't be in. Don't start to respond to emails on occassion, or reply to messages (unless truly urgent). Otherwise people think you are working, even if you are not.

In your predicament here, I would assess the importance of you attending this event and the inconvenience caused to the client by rearranging.

I worked part time for 15 years and came across these situations all the time expecting me to come in on my day off or even work past my finish time, i found it easier to say sorry I can't I have made an appointment for that day when I am off or I have made an appointment for when I finish work so need to finish at my actual finish time.

I put my working hours on my outlook signature, along with upcoming holidays.
Also in this case it does seem to be malicious intent, but I try to work on the assumption people don't know or have forgotten and respond accordingly. Embarrassingly someone I work with doesn't work a Wednesday and sometimes I forget and schedule meetings in then, probably because she hasn't blocked it out.

In fact the only people who annoy me are those who do the school run or whatever but don't block the time out in their calendar, then expect me to know when I schedule a meeting then, or message me and tell me they will try to attend - which is pretty useless. Lack of ambiguity works for me, so if you're not going to be available fine - make sure your diary reflects that.

I'm always flexible for things booked long in advance when they are time critical, or for business emergencies. I am entirely inflexible to other people's lack of planning. It isn't business critical, nor time critical, so I'd decline.

"Happy New Year! I will be able to attend this event until 6pm on Thursday, due to Friday being a non-working day for me. If you needed my attendance for the evening session, then please adjust the date. My calendar is always up to date, so please do check it before booking future meetings, or get in touch with me in advance if a session is time sensitive but falls in non-working time, so that it can be scheduled."

This is excellent advice :

"One thing I would say is when you aren't in, don't be in. Don't start to respond to emails on occassion, or reply to messages (unless truly urgent). Otherwise people think you are working, even if you are not. ^"

I got myself into trouble in lockdown by picking up the odd thing on a Friday. At first I didn't mind - genuinely wasn't doing much and people were appreciative- but then my workload started ramping up as if I was working 5 days and people put stuff in routinely. As the main reason I work reduced hours is for good mental health and work life balance, this caused me serious stress.

Now I'm pretty hardline. I will pop into Teams occasionally as I can log on from my i-pad, but only if it's a genuine emergency or like recently a team member's DD w^as ill, and I wanted to see how she was.

The meeting/jolly whatever is a thing you absolutely say no to. Part of working 4 days is that there will be some things that you’re not at. You are not there to do 100% of the job in 80% of the time. You need to remember that and help your colleagues get used to it as well.

I think it depends on whether you'd ever want work to be flexible with you. If you foresee a time when you might want to switch your day off so you can do something without taking a holiday day, then it might be best to accommodate the request from work.
I work a "10 days in 9" pattern - I do 10 days' worth of hours over 9 days, so I have a day off every fortnight, and no loss of pay. Whilst I was asked to specify a day, I have switched the day off several times, either for my convenience, or to attend something important for work.

It works both ways.

I’ve done compressed hours working, and I agree with the advice of previous posters. Use the terminology “non-working day”, set up a recurring appointment in your calendar to block it as out of office, put your working hours in your email signature. I also set an out of office auto reply on my non-working days to say I won't be picking up the email until Monday, but if it is an urgent matter then contact …

In some ways, it is good that this situation has come up now. You can use it to really think about your boundaries and communicate with your colleagues about them, under the guise of everyone is still getting used to your new hours and the situation is still bedding in.

Eg, as part of the discussion with management for my flexible working, I agreed that if two specific important situations arise then I will consider working on my non-working day/swapping it for another day that week. That actually happened within a month of me starting the new hours, and meant I spent an hour on email on my NWD on one day. I didn’t mind because it was part of the mitigation proposed for some management to get them on board for the flexible working arrangement in the first place, and I’d clearly defined up front the situations in which I would make myself available. It actually reassured management that the business would not suffer for my new working hours, and took some of the pressure off!

Not saying I disagree with your approach but I think 10 days in 9 is different though @KnickerlessParsons as you're still getting a full time salary.

I had this argument with my much more senior manager's manager when I had zero flexibility over my hours because DS needed picking up from school. Sure yes could have used expensive after school but kind of defeated the point in reducing salary if I did.

I worked part time in one job, mornings only, and combined it with adult education classes in the afternoons. I refused to attend any meetings in the afternoon or work late as I was paying for the classes myself. Took a few weeks but people learned not to book me in for anything. The phrases, that doesn’t work for me and it’s not convenient were used on several occasions. No reasons need to be given, no one’s business but your own.

It doesn't matter why you have a day off, you now have a 4 day week contract and are paid accordingly. But colleague needs to be stopped from doing this - he's definitely doing it on purpose if he thinks hes in charge of you! Escalate to his manager if he keeps doing it.

I mentioned earlier on that for me my non-working day is non-negotiable. The other thing I do which you might wish to consider OP is having your out of office message on that day, saying you are back at work tomorrow (or Monday if Friday is a non-working day). The message might get through to some if not the original inconsiderate colleague.

I have no children at home either.

The out of office will definitely be on, and my diary is already blocked out every Friday. Can't decide whether the email signature will piss people off.

Yep - I realise it's different. I was just suggesting that what's good for the goose is good for the gander - it might behove the OP to be flexible occasionally, if she's likely to ever want some flexibility herself. She might not though - I was "just sayin'".

On a separate note, and I'm probably digressing:
Whilst I wholeheartedly uphold the recent move from employers to grant flexible and/or part time working requests from employees - as I said above, I take advantage of this myself - at my place of work, so many of us are now "working flexibly" or part time, it's becoming impossible to schedule meetings that everyone who needs to can attend.

We have several people doing the condensed fortnight that I am doing (we've all chosen different days off), and some doing condensed weeks. We have people who work 3 days a week (not all have chosen the same days off) people who work short days (finish at 3pm, or start at 10am, or some other pattern - can be different from day to day) people who don't work in the school hols, and some with other non standard work patterns. Most people who WFH also seem to think it's their god given right to disappear a few times a day to walk the dog too, which adds to their lack of availability.

On the dog walking point, I am guilty of this. But only in my lunch break. And if it's not in a lunchtime slot it's because some fucker has put in a lunchtime meeting because they have to pick the kids up from school at 3pm.

@HandbagsnGladrags my dh dropped a day last year and is now on 80% salary, same as you.

His out-of-office email message says something like "my working days are Tuesday to Friday, if you need anything dealt with outside of these days please contact Mr xxx" He doesn't refer to it as a day off.

When it was agreed, both parties said they would be flexible if necessary, but so far in the last 8 months he hasn't been asked to move day and everyone is used to it now.

On my out of office for my NWD I say please contact x or Y but in an emergency my number is xxxxxxx. I think I've had one call in about 10 years.
Give people clear parameters and they'll usually stick to them.

@rookiemere we use personal mobiles for business (we were encouraged to give up our work mobiles as a cost saving exercise and tbh I couldn't be arsed carrying two around) so everyone has my number. But I will just ignore all calls on a Friday.

Incidentally, there is another person in my team who has Fridays off. Same arsehole colleague texts her on a Friday if he needs to know something.

we use personal mobiles for business (we were encouraged to give up our work mobiles as a cost saving exercise and tbh I couldn't be arsed carrying two around)

i am always so happy, reading these threads, that i live in a country that frowns on this kind of thing.

When I dropped to part time hours and corresponding pay, those non working days were totally respected and I was never asked to change anything.

Tbh I've learnt that swapping days just leads to a mass of confusion re: Bank holidays

There's a whole system where you get 0.8 of annual BH allowance and then use it to book BHs off when they fall on a normal working day.