To want to keep my work calendar private?

[itsanofrommee]

We use Microsoft Outlook at work, and by default we all have a calendars private where people can see when we have meetings/when we're busy, but not the same of the meetings.

We have a new project lead and she wants us to change the settings on our calendars so we she can see what meetings we have, so that when she is trying to put in meetings and is trying to find a slot that works for everyone she can see what meetings people can move/what are just placeholders or meetings that move.

However, in my calendar I've had regular meetings with HR and occupational health and whilst the names of the meetings don't delve into the nitty gritties of what has been discussed I'd rather not let colleagues see that I have these meetings.

WIBU to say I want to keep my calendar private?

It's not unusual to have access to other's calendars. It can waste a lot of time toing and froing when you could just view it yourself. You can save things as private, why don't you do that?

You can make individual meetings or series of meetings private even if the rest of your calendar as open as a compromise- would that work for you?

Set the HR/ OCC Health ones to private. Completely reasonable to want to view her team's calendar though.

Anything I don't want to share with my team I set to private - we all use that for personal stuff or non disclosable meetings

I share calendars with my team, it just shows busy and time is blocked out, so I know when to book in a meeting around that. I've never in my near 9 years doing this seen it say who or what the meeting time is about.

Sounds like she wants to make it viewable by her, not the whole team.

Mark OH meetings etc as private.

Just set the private meetings to private. No big deal.

Just make individual meetings private and then share calendar?

I think it’s reasonable for your project manager to see your calendar and know what you’re doing/which meetings you are at in work time. If there are particular meetings that are very confidential just mark those particular meetings as private.

We have the same thing - just set things to private that you wish to.

I block time in my diary so I can do actual work otherwise I would be in back to back calls/ meetings - I usually will put work catchup so anything real urgent can be dropped in, if I don’t want meetings dropped in it’s set to private.

YABU - That's what the private setting is for on individual meetings.

Technically your account belongs to the company, so yes she is reasonable to want to see your calendar.

As others have said, you can just mark those meetings as private.

Completely reasonable request. Just make your private appointments private and no one can see the details.

Just set the entry to private. Our company policy is that all calendars are open. As a former exec assistant trying to organise meetings with closed calendars made my life ten times more difficult. At my previous place I’d just annoy you with meeting invitations and if you constantly knocked them back without good reason I’d have raised it with your line manager.
So it’s easier just to have it open.

Yabu; set it to private but people need to be able to book meetings

Totally normal to share calendars. As others have said, if you have confidential meetings, just make them private.

Its totally normal and literally no one will care

Keep the HR and occ health meetings private, and perhaps one or two others if they are really about issues not for colleagues to know about.

I am surprised the default is private.

We share calenders at my office and the meetings which are too interesting for nosy colleagues i set to private.

You can make individual meetings private. I do that with my therapy sessions. It just gets blocked out as “private appointment”

As others have said , have most meetings open to view but occ health etc set to private.

It's useful as a manager to see what meetings people have, in particular if I am trying to set up a meeting at a busy time and need to know what meetings people have already that can/cannot be moved

This is a work calendar, not a private calendar for you to use whilst at work, of course people should be able to see it. Mark anything personal as Private.

This

It's a nightmare to manage a team who have entirely private calendars because it's so hard to know if something is an actual meeting or a reminder or something different. It's fine to keep some things private, I have weekly therapy and that's a private appointment, but it means that private things are actual private things and people respect that.

My work has calendars private by default. Drives me up the wall - I ask all my team to change it to facilitate timetabling. I always say that they should set private meetings to private.