To think that if managers have all decided not to work on Fridays any more they should signal this to their deputies?

[Thepeopleversuswork]

Wondering if I'm being precious and if not how to deal with this diplomatically.

I'm one level down from senior management at a relatively small (c30 person) company. There are five top dogs and about six people at my level. The people at my level do most of the day to day running of the company. It's a client-facing business. I run most of my client accounts more or less autonomously and that side of things is fine.

Generally I like my job and feel able to do it competently with limited management oversight. But post COVID I have noticed that virtually nobody at senior management level is ever available on Fridays. Emails are not responded to, phone calls are ignored. All of the senior management are completely non-responsive on Fridays. None of this is ever official and nothing has formally been said about it: never booked in as leave or flagged, it just happens and isn't questioned.

On a week by week basis this isn't a huge problem. These are busy people and they don't have much time for the day to day "in the weeds" element of the job. And I'm paid well and trusted to get on with my job. But I'm starting to feel increasingly resentful that me and a handful of other people are effectively running the company one day a week and essentially acting up as management without any support or training or even guidance without this being reflected in our pay or responsibility.

There have been an increasing number of incidents recently where I've had to deal with situations which are definitely over my "pay grade" including a legal threat (and there's no legal department), a payroll issue and two sensitive HR issues (there's no HR department). Plus a lot of my having to deal with issues to do with clients whose accounts I don't work on and seriously winging it.

I've flagged this on a couple of occasions to management and said I don't feel particularly well supported to deal with things like payroll and HR and have just been told I'm sufficiently senior I'm trusted to deal with it and management will always be around if I can't (but they're not).

Is this just a normal part of being at this level in a company? Should I be asking for these to be reflected in my formal job description and for my pay to be adjusted? Am I within my rights to point out that if I and a few others are basically running the company one day out of five our roles should reflect that?

I've never been this senior in a company before so I don't know if I'm BU or not.

Definitely agree with your middle paragraph.
Mine is clearly marked in the calendar, I'm open about it and do an email hand over on the Friday morning of anything pressing.
In the context you've given I think YANBU to be peeved.

They are definitely management not sales. We don't have a sales force, it's not that kind of business. They run the company and bring in a lot of business and are very hands on Monday to Thursday. They've all worked very hard for 20+ years and built a successful business and I guess are taking a bit of a step back.

It's fair enough and I don't begrudge them this at all in principle. It's the way it's done.

I will routinely get emails flicked over to me on Friday by my big boss to do with client accounts I don't work on or HR matters or something saying "can you deal with this I'm out of pocket today" or something like that. If it was once or twice in a blue moon I'd be fine but it happens on a nearly weekly basis without being reflected in my pay or job spec or even acknowledged and I just think its enough for me to focus on the things which are part of my role without all this. I have no doubt my colleagues at this level are put in similar positions.

Most of all it's just the dishonesty and sneakiness which irritates me. If my bosses were at important all-day meeting or something and flagged it at the beginning of the day it would be fine. But its the combination of total radio silence from all of them and lack of transparency and accountability. Every Friday.

Can you and your colleagues club together and address it then? Maybe a chat with one of them you feel would actually hear you out?

It's one thing for them to skiv off but to then add to your workload, they can piss off!

Yeah we probably should. A couple of us have chatted about it unofficially and had a bit of a moan but I don't think anyone's taken it any further than that.

Apart from anything else it affects the work ethic of other people further down the company in quite a big way. The more junior staff know that the boss class don't really have their eye on the ball so they tend to slack off more on Friday which has the effect of piling the work on for people at my level. It's almost like the whole company, with a couple of exceptions, is basically working an unofficial four-day week. It's shit. I think I will have to raise it.

Or declare everyone else is following suit and all go to the pub and message the bosses lots of selfies of the new Friday extended lunchtime! Who has access to the petty cash? 😀