Work request

[Outbackmate]

I’m a line manager. My team is small and work remotely - we’re scattered v far and wide.

The day I started, my manager shared his outlook calendar with me, asked me to share mine, and told me to ask my team to share theirs with me.

One member of my team has an issue with this, the rest have been fine. She lowered my access to only give me permission to see titles. I can’t see any other details. The people I manage are not supposed to be in any regular meetings. Yet her calendar is always full.

The problem of lack of access is:
-The title could be just “Catch up” This makes it difficult to schedule things in with rest of team availability as I cannot assess what is urgent or not, she’s just “busy”. We deal with urgent requests as part of role so priority things can get booked at short notice.
-she booked herself in meetings that are not grade appropriate, resulting in her being removed from some by the organisers and complaints about her conduct
-she seems to unnecessarily book things in to block out time for the wrong things and for an unnecessary length. She has poor time management and regularly works outside of working hours. Seeing her calendar helps me see what’s on her plate from a wellbeing perspective, helps me remove blockers.

AIBU? She thinks it’s unnecessary and like I’m “spying” on her. I’m not, but I am her line manager and need to line manage when required

I would start by having a conversation and ask her why she is blocking out time in her calendar. Is there something about her role that makes this necessary? You may find that you don’t understand some particular aspects of her work and requirements for blocks of uninterrupted work time for efficiency.

once you have that conversation, you just tell her that it is group/department/division policy that she set her calendar share settings in a particular way. Offer a session with the company tech helpline if she needs assistance getting it adjusted properly.

Explain to her you are not spying, you are managing. I would tell her what you have put in your OP - be open about it. “I’ve noticed that your tendency to book longer than you need for tasks is impacting my ability to see clear space in the team diary. I need you to share full details of your diary - you can mark private any HR sensitive appointments. if you are using your work diary personal reminders, these should be left “free” so it’s clear your time isn’t blocked in your calendar”

Alterntively I would book a 10 min catch-up with her every morning to go through her diary for the day and ask her what every meeting is. Explain you need to understand how she is using her time and there have been complaints she has been attempting to join the wrong meetings.

If she feels you are spying, that’s really her problem not yours…

A manager I liked working for was coaching me to mange people eventually and one recommendation from her was to have employees report their time, say in 20 minute blocks, to their manager for a while. This was working in an office too. It was explained to me that it would help the manager understand time management, priorities, and skills of each employee. Eventually, once there is trust earned, no more need for time reporting. Most of us did this for about two weeks but one employee was sitting time reporting after 18 months.

Agree with you're not spying, you're managing.

Sounds strange. She's the only member of your team that won't allow you access to their calendar.

I'd be firm with her. It's a requirement of her role.

She is also working outside of working hours.? Could this mean she's not actually working during work hours?

Can't you just fire her?

"Managing"? Or "micromanaging"? There is a fine line between these but I think you need to be careful not to completely stifle a direct report's autonomy, scanning their calendar and questioning the meetings they are attending isn't ideal.

I'd start by having a general conversation about calendars and the reason you need to see what the meetings are, in case you want to book something that's a greater priority. I don't think it's unreasonable for them to want to attend meetings where they make a judgement call as to its relevance to their role and their wider development.

when I need quiet time I put "Focus Time" in the title, so I get time to actually do work, or block out an hour and add the title of the work into the calendar scheduler, so it's clear what it's about. My team do that now, so we all talk the same language. I respect their need for time to think and focus on their deliverables.

she booked herself in meetings that are not grade appropriate - if they want to develop, then not allowing them to attend a meeting because of their grade is short sighted imo. If their conduct is an issue, you need to understand what that issue is, rather than putting it down to their grade. That's keeping people in a box, when a manager's role is to guide and allow for growth.

your management style sounds very old-fashioned. People nowadays should be mentored and guided, with clarity on boundaries and priorities but not stifled and restricted. It takes patience and skill but you get better cooperation and productivity if you support staff by giving them some elbow room.

That's too heavy handed in my experience and creates an atmosphere of mistrust.
It's quite an unhealthy way to manage I think.

Surely better to treat people like adults and tackle any issues that arise.

This. She is upto no good

Is she actually doing her work? I think you absolutely need to manage her and advise her that everyone needs to be accountable for their work and nobody else has an issue with being transparent about how their time is being used.

@daisychain01 I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I'm not sure I agree with you on which side of the line the OP and her employee are falling on.

In my workplace we also block time to focus on work but our diaries are open enough that the team can understand what that time is for. I consider that part of my management role is working with that information to deliver against requirements- so if a team member has blocked a couple of hours for prep on a task for next week but we have something urgent come in that needs addressed today, I can ask them to adjust their plans to respond.

And I agree meetings allow opportunities for growth but that has to be done appropriately- so I would expect employees to agree attendance with a manager in advance. Juniors can't all just rock up at a board meeting because they would get something out of it personally.

The need for personal development can't trump the need for the work to be delivered, and surely one role of managers is to have oversight of how best to achieve that with available resource?

I’d suspect she’s dropping kids off and collecting and possibly attending appointments for or with them. If your company encourages flexible working, that’s fine. I’d arm yourself with what the policy is and if she’s catching up just tell her to put school run/ toil in. If your company doesn’t encourage flexible working you’ve got a big problem managing wfh workers’ productivity.

@daisychain01 you have it the wrong way around like @piscesangel pointed out.

I align more with “new leadership” styles and this staff member more “very old fashioned” as you referred to it. I’m also younger than her so she sometimes questions my authority.

It’s not so much questioning her. I’m relatively new to the role and need to get up to speed on how things are being delivered.

There is a backstory in that this staff member was temporarily promoted for a few weeks before I joined as I was serving my notice period. She has left things in her calendar that are longer required, hence working out of grade. We have discussed what is expected of me to attend, or her to attend. She was reluctant to relinquish my duties to me. In turn, she is reluctant to share her duties with other staff that have joined the team ie they have no work whilst she’s simultaneously working outside of her hours etc so the balance isn’t there.

Avoiding micromanagement doesn’t mean full autonomy to the detriment of the business. Development is important but it’s what the business can support. I manage 4 people, so if both her and I are in all the same meetings that knocks out 40% of my team’s capacity and isn’t fair on the others. It’s also not fair on the stakeholders who could need my sign off or input vs someone I manage.

Another person wfh whilst looking after the kids. Do these blocks of time coincide with start/ end of school day or school events?

Exactly.
I worked in a team with one of those, they also booked lunches as meetings so that they could claim the time back later. Office setting but in a satellite office.
Then the systems were upgraded to automatically show when you were away from the desk and it became apparent that they were going in and out of the office on a whim and doing school runs ect.

YANBU OP

Someone always pipes up with “micro managing” or “old fashioned” on work threads.

Did she apply for your job, is that why she’s so résistent to being managed by you?
I think you need to be able to see what your team are doing. You’re not managing if you can’t have an eye on workloads, who’s doing what etc.

Just be firm it’s not an unreasonable request
she sounds difficult do take advice from HR as no doubt she’ll push back and you need to make sure it’s all done correctly

Have you asked her why she isn’t comfortable giving you full access? This may be something that can be resolved in a conversation.

try and explain it in a way of what is in it for her I.e if she is sick you can see her day and cancel any appointments/ send apologies do it doesn’t damage her reputation. Also show her the option when making appointments that she can put the occasional one to private so you can’t see it. This can be used if she has a medical appointment or other personal reasons throughout the day.

Sounds like her ego is bruised and she thinks she is higher up than she is. This needs resetting especially her not giving work to others.

I think there are lots of factors at play here that have all been mentioned above and I think you need to address them otherwise she will think she can pull the wool over your eyes.

• not sharing calendar fully: where I am it is company policy that calendars must be shared with managers - not adhering to this would be questioned we can set appointments to private so the manager can’t see what they are but too many of these raises questions - check with your manager what the company policy is
• attending meetings she shouldn’t be - she has already been removed from meetings and questioned about this - if she is still doing it then this also needs to be addressed

continuing to be obstructive not being a team player etc would be addressed as a performance issue in our office with a improvement plan put in place and if no improvement in the agreed timescales then it would be escalated.

I would start with a conversation about the by she doesn’t want you to have access and also address the working outside of working hours as this would be seen as well-being red flag for me - either her workload is too much or she is struggling for another reason during the day resulting in her needing to catch up later on.

i think these need to be proper meetings with her, minuted and possibly with a third party there as I fear the minute you try and deal with this there will be push back from her and it could result in a he said / she said situation.

^she booked herself in meetings that are not grade appropriate - if they want to develop, then not allowing them to attend a meeting because of their grade is short sighted imo. If their conduct is an issue, you need to understand what that issue is, rather than putting it down to their grade. That's keeping people in a box, when a manager's role is to guide and allow for growth.

your management style sounds very old-fashioned. People nowadays should be mentored and guided, with clarity on boundaries and priorities but not stifled and restricted. It takes patience and skill but you get better cooperation and productivity if you support staff by giving them some elbow room.^

What could be a clearer boundary than someone not being invited to a meeting? OP says she’s adding herself to things that are ‘not grade appropriate’. It’s not micromanagement to hold meetings at the right level of seniority, it’s just using resources and handling information in the right way. You can’t just have people unilaterally deciding to rock up to SMT meetings because they want to. And I’m not “old fashioned” - we do invite junior staff to our SMT as a development opportunity but using a managed sign-up and rota process and they duck back out when we’re talking about sensitive information eg staffing issues. Just adding yourself to other people’s meetings which are inappropriate for you to attend is pretty shocking behaviour.

Can you show her how to mark personal appointments as private?

Sharing calendars is standard practice in my organisation, not just with team members but all. It's about transparency. There shouldn't be anything in there you don't want people to see and for dr's appointments etc there is the 'private' function. Insist she does it and get other teams around to do so as well.

Our calndars are open to the whole team, but not organisation-wide.

Any private appointments are just put in as "personal appointment" and I've never heard of anyone being questioned about what they are.

Our manager will sometimes notice that someone has a lot of appointments with clients that week, and relieve them of some of the work that comes in via email etc so they don't get overwhelmed or have a long turn-around time.

I have an issue in sharing my calendar so now I’m not sure what can be seen by my manager (I’m now going to check as it all changed after an upgrade). I often shove things in my calendar for longer than I expect them to take, knowing I’ll get interrupted and really it’s saying that by the end of the time I want that piece of work done rather than it took me the full 2 hours allocated. I think you just need to talk to her as she may believe her calendar is open enough and not appreciate how you want to work. Go through her meetings for the week and if there’s some you would want to be at ask her to forward the invite and she can introduce you at the next one then she won’t need to come after that. if she’s historically done the meetings before you were in post it’s quite insulting to then be removed because it’s too senior when it wasn’t when they needed her to pick it up.

I meant to add, she may be a total pain but she equally may just be struggling to adjust her way of working that’s never been questioned before.