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 used to have 90mins once a week in my Outlook as I went to my Nan's for lunch during that time. Then she passed away but I just couldn't bring myself to remove it from the calendar.

In more recent years I just got fed up with people demanding pointless meetings to go over the same shit I explained the last time, when I had my own work to be getting on with. So it got to the stage where I was booking all kinds of "meetings" and marking myself as busy just to get through the day.

My company has a culture of "openness" Everyone including directors have their calendars open to some degree.

As her line manager tell her that the expectation is for her calendar to be available. All of this blocking off chunks of time for no reason is ridiculous (I have someone like that and ignore it, it's on him if he doesn't go to meetings).

I think you're going to be a bit hard nosed with her.

It's entirely possible to create a personal calendar if needed in Outlook (other calendar programs are available). That is one that only the creator can see. So no need to put personal details in the work calendar if that's a worry.

Most places I have worked have been setup so that managers can see direct report calendars (it's why you enter reporting lines in Active Directory, so you can use a group policy). Particularly on the tech side you can find yourself invited to a meeting by your boss if they want some expertise. Woe betide you if your calendar wasn't up to date.

Last enterprise organisation I worked at dictated calendar access, resource access (who could book what and when) and permission level (view titles, view full, view & edit, create) from the organisation chart before you started. (They also took 3 months to authorise a £10 expense claim, so size isn't everything 😀)

This.

As long as you can justify it, it’s a reasonable management instruction. Be firm, clear and fair, starting with open and honest conversation about their concerns. And then move from there if conduct doesn’t improve.

sorry about your nan.

Your behaviour is ridiculous though. (this also for OP) as companies are switching over to more agile forms of management - this leaves their employees more free to manage their own calendars. For that reason they at least need to be available to their manager (it's your company policy: write her one email saying that you are required to have full access to her calendar and that is to be implemented by Monday. If you can't see it on Monday, send her a reminder then escalate to your manager)

Set up a meeting to discuss her time management and planning. I always think an informal 1-to-1 every other week is very useful (i work in a hybrid way - i do this with my boss and we spend 45 minutes walking around the area we work talking about anything that comes up, work related things etc). This would be a good time to bring up why she tries to attend meetings that aren't in her job-scope. If she is suffering from FOMO it would be better to nip it in the bud and be firm that if needed she will be invited. If she is angling for promotion, find out what she wants, then take this to your boss and discuss if it's realistic.

The other thing that agile working is that you should feel free to say "I'm not required at this meeting, i can be productive elsewhere" and leave it. Equally anyone holding a meeting is free to bin off people who aren't needed.

Don't want to be confrontational? send a reminder team-wide that it is company policy to have their calendars fully open to you, and that your team isn't compliant and for everyone to check their settings.

From your description of her (and I think you've posted before about her not relinquishing her temporary duties to you?) this is a symptom of a wider issue. She needs performance managing and some firm boundaries. I'd use the complaints about her conduct/inappropriate meeting attendance as the hook.

On the blocking out time, I do this to manage my working time and also to avoid being pulled into pointless meetings that could be a teams message, or having people put in back to back meetings so I'm booked up for 4 hours straight (those people have a special place in hell!!). So perfectly possible she is doing that, especially if she has poor time management issues. She still needs to have her diary open though if that's the org policy.

But over all she sounds like a bit of a nightmare to manage! Good luck.....

I think the first thing that should be addressed is her calendar/time management. Explain why you need full access to her calendar and ensure that any meetings that are put in there, there is a reason for them to allow you to assess the priority over any team events you need to book. Also see pp around the privacy function if needed.
She may be blocking out time to complete tasks and if she is doing so she should make it clear on her calendar so you can assess the priority.
Explain to her that she seems overwhelmed with work and there are new starters eager to take some of the load off. Review what her duties/workload looks like day-to-day and re-assign some of these to the new starters yourself rather than allowing her to do it. Have a chat about what aspects of her role she enjoys more so you can negotiate her keeping those aspects as opposed to feeling like she is handing over everything she enjoys doing.
I know from personal experience I can be a little bit precious over work I have looked after for a long time but when it begins to be looked after by someone else, can actually be a massive relief.
It sounds like maybe she didn't want her promotion to be temporary and if this is the case you should talk to your manager about progression opportunities within your team. This could give her an incentive to be more of a team-player and manage her time more effectively as well as treat you with more respect and more warmly.

You need to lead with the outcome/impact and then talk about process.

So: thank you for covering the manager responsibilities while a permanent appointment was made. Now I'm in role I need your capacity back on core team activities so you can stand down from x y z meeting.
I've been struggling to book team meetings because so much of your calendar is booked out and it's not clear what is client critical work and what is not. So please can she adjust the settings to show details so you can book these short-notice high priority meetings.
(Is she delivering the desired outputs to deadlines? If not, raise that and make it part of the discussion to understand how she's spending her time/helping her with time management).

Ultimately though, you need to work out how critical it is that she is always available 9-5 if she's getting the job done.
At my workplace we have a degree of day-to-day flexibility eg occasional school pickup and make up the time in the week.
If you are a modern manager focus on results on presenters. HOWEVER that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to schedule meetings with the whole team because she's never there.

Oh - and yes you need to make sure you're having a development conversation with her.

I don’t really get this thing of people deciding meetings are pointless so they just don’t go or make themselves appear unavailable. If you think your time could be spent better, have a conversation. Your calendar isn’t a tool to communicate to your colleagues and seniors your dissatisfaction about the nature of your job.