To be losing the will to live with staff who chosen a job with a long commute & then complain about it

[Benibidibici]

I work in a well paid industry - think 6 figure salaries.

We've made really clear through hiring processes that roles are hybrid, not remote, we as a team really get a lot from collaborative working so we expect 2 days a week in the central office. There's flex about which days but we ask that people try to mostly hit the core days of tues/weds/thurs. As a line manager I'm not watching the clock and we are happy to play around with what time people start & finish - eg. One guy leaves at 4.30 to collect his kids by 5.30 & this is fine.

We've hired 3 people this year and made all this clear and they're all grumbling about their commutes and regularly asking to come in less. We offer what we can in terms of flexibility but when we insist we need them in 2 days, they are basically sulking. Its clear one of them in particular never had any intention of coming to the office more than a day or so every 2-3 weeks and expected to get away with remote working.

Its really frustrating. We were honest about what we needed and people just seem to think they can insist.

Why do people do this? One lady has moved 2 hours from our city 3 years ago, and during that time consistently keeps applying for and taking jobs here rather than in the large city where she now lives. Her husband also works in our industry and between them they'll have an income of £200k plus, so they aren't forced to live in a cheaper area.

Its really shit for me to have to go through the unpleasant process of monitoring people's attendance & imposing formal consequences etc (I'm not that kind of manager at all) because they took a job they don't want to turn up for.

What can I do to stop people doing this?

We’ve just had a load of strikes in the NHS with the doctors demanding better pay. Where a particular employer has a fixed pay structure progression then there won’t be much wiggle room on this point at a personal level, but healthcare workers ( and teachers etc) absolutely do try to negotiate better pay and conditions collectively. As is their right. As they should.

And the consultants don’t want to work on the weekends either. You hear stories about the weekend NHS being more dangerous because there are so few senior medical staff around.

My DH works in a role that has unsociable work hours, and he is very well compensated for that. This wasn’t always the case. It’s because the previous generation of workers joined unions, and were prepared to strike to get better agreements. There is nothing unethical about this - in fact I think it was brave and heroic. And it’s not simply a matter of self interest - we all have families to feed and care for and a duty to them above the duty to our employer.

No double time Saturday normal working day . Rarely requested to work Sunday but Sunday is at a higher rate
This is all made very clear in the job offer .

the point is if you don’t want to do it don’t accept the job

Well I disagree, I think it’s perfectly normal to try to negotiate better conditions after proving your worth and value and ability to do the job. I think if you’re having trouble getting people to work Saturdays then you need to pay penalty rates.

People aren’t on individual contracts open for negotiation

Well, if you get requests for compressed hours or no weekend work, obviously staff do believe that there is room for negotiation. Are these requests ever granted?

If contracts are set then it’s up to the unions to organise collective negotiations.

I hear you! YANBU

hybrid is great. However, also have employees and people in my wider work network who avoid work days. And productivity is down. My current concern is that there’s so many employees exploiting it companies will have to get more hardline.

To those trying to shirk the commute I would say -
take 2/3 days on the chin before your forced to do 4/5 as hybrid is considered a failure ! .

As I’ve said earlier, it’s a negotiation. A student who begins work on a Saturday in a shop isn’t an indentured servant who has pledged to work Saturdays for the rest of her life. If it ceases to suit her to work on a Saturday, say when she leaves school, she can try to renegotiate her contract to work weekdays instead, maybe a pay rise, if she is more experienced now. If she moves house, maybe she tries to negotiate a move to a different branch.

Either the 2 parties come to an agreement, or if a satisfactory agreement cannot be reached , then one or other of the parties can choose to terminate the employment. This happens all the time. People leave one company because another company makes them a better offer. And companies try to get the terms and skills they want for the lowest price.

There’s nothing childish or unethical or irrational about any of this, on either side. In fact, it’s a key skill in the adult world for employees, managers and everyone to be able to conduct an effective employment negotiation.

no compressed hours as for safety reasons our work has to be done in daylight so somebody working three 12 hours days is no use as they would only be able to work 2/3 of there shift this time of year

Saturday is part of your standard rota to meet service level agreement set by the regulator

the main driver for these working patterns are safety and regulatory compliance

So, many employees made requests to vary their working hours, these were refused and then the employee either decided to stay and put up with it or look for another job with preferable conditions. That’s just the reality of the labour market.

If you find you are losing a lot of staff or are struggling to recruit then you need to adjust the conditions. If the hours can’t be changed then the simplest change is to increase wages for antisocial shifts. Many industries offer penalty rates for night shift , weekend work etc so it’s not that unusual. Having a strong union helps employees in these negotiations.

Total derail but how do I get a job paying this much? I’m a manager at a uni and get about half that or less. And won’t complain about being in a couple of days a week, promise :)

I agree with OP - they probably thought they could argue their way around it but shouldn’t have applied if they didn’t want to truly be hybrid.

I can see why you're peeved but it also pisses me off when they want us in the office when we can do the same job and better from home.

I had an early role where I was the first one in opening the office at 8.45 most days. I was also measurably the most productive team member.

But because of a quirk in the trains, I always left on the dot of 5:30, or else I faced an extra 45m delay. One manager took absolute offence to this and would always ask me an "urgent" question when I got up from my desk. To add insult to injury, he loved locally and always arrived last.

As I’ve said earlier, it’s a negotiation. A student who begins work on a Saturday in a shop isn’t an indentured servant who has pledged to work Saturdays for the rest of her life. If it ceases to suit her to work on a Saturday, say when she leaves school, she can try to renegotiate her contract to work weekdays instead, maybe a pay rise, if she is more experienced now. If she moves house, maybe she tries to negotiate a move to a different branch.
What are you on about indentured servants for?

And as I've said before:

• renegotiating a contract down the line
• moving branches to a different job/to fill a staff gap there that's more convenient for you
• taking on a different role that is not weekend working

And so on

Is not signing up to a Saturday job and then fairly quickly deciding to be awkward and refuse to come in on weekends because you'd rather not and never intended it.

And as the PP who first mentioned people refusing to work weekends, this was from people who applied for a job with weekend working, accepted a job knowing it was weekend working, had no intention of working weekends, but thought they'd get their own way once appointed .

No nothing like a mutually agreed variation of role/role/location/contract down the line. Her gripe is not mutual agreements down the line, flexible working etc. It's people taking on jobs they have no intention of doing.

Jobs are advertised as a package and there's a negotiation before starting. Don't apply for, negotiate (if required), and accept a job you've got no intention of doing.

Mr Monkey works in retail (a new flagship store - the first in the UK so a big mass recruit happened in late summer) and they have a number of staff complain recently they have to work in the week before and after Christmas.

This is retail in central London where people were warned before they took the job it was standard not to allow any leave in December exceot in emergencies (they still get the standard 2 non working days a week).

Recruiting isn’t a problem it weeding out people who jump through hoops to get a job say they will work weekends then once they’ve got the job don’t want to
plenty do work weekends and some request

the whole point is if you don’t want to work weekends why take the job in the first place

My Dd (uni student) has a job in a nightclub. When she took the job in September her and the other newbies were told that they had to work New Years Eve but the club would be flexible about Xmas as they knew they would be going home. DD came home yesterday and said the manager has already sent out an e mail telling people to stop asking for New Years Eve off as they were told and are still expected to work.

Recruiting isn’t a problem it weeding out people who jump through hoops to get a job say they will work weekends then once they’ve got the job don’t want to
plenty do work weekends and some request
the whole point is if you don’t want to work weekends why take the job in the first place
This!

It's the issue of:
Advert: this post has weekend working / shift patterns of X, Y, Z / is a hybrid role with X expectation of office attendance

person applies for the job

Employer: just to confirm, this post has weekend working / shift patterns of X, Y, Z / is a hybrid role with X expectation of office attendance

Applicant: I understand and that's ok. I accept the job.

Short amount of time later

Employee: but what do you mean I have to work weekends / why should I come in to the office when I prefer working at home / actually, shifts don't work for me so how about I work 9-5 Monday to Friday only and I'd also want WFH for some of that / the office is a 2 hour commute for me so it doesn't work for me to come in, if you insist I come in then I'm going to arrive 45 minutes late and leave early because I want to get the most convenient trains / can I not just do the hours and location that best works for me

Does the company have some sort of a clawback whereby the people benefiting from it commit to a minimum period of working (including weekends) after the training ends or they have to pay back the cost of training?

Sorry, but in a capitalist system workers need to do what is best for themselves and their family, not the company that is trying to make as much profit out of them as possible.

Sorry, but surely there's nothing to stop you having "normal workers" who work during the week and "weekend workers" (who might work for other people at other times, or might be part-timers or might be your own weekday staff) who do the weekends?

Sorry, that was rhetorical. What is happening, I presume, is that the company is doing what suits them, which is to pressurize "ordinary staff" to work weekends, as opposed to letting staff choose their hours and then paying what it takes to get people to come in at weekends. They are doing what is cheapest and they can get away with.

Both parties are being rational, the ones pressuring staff to do anti-social hours for as little pay ass possible, and the ones trying to avoid anti-social hours.

That is a long way of saying "HR aren't any good at sorting the wheat from the chaff at interview stage and as a result all applicants need to be completely open and honest".

Out of interest how many weeks or months must an employee do before seeking a change in terms, or does it vary industry by industry?

That is a long way of saying "HR aren't any good at sorting the wheat from the chaff at interview stage and as a result all applicants need to be completely open and honest".

I'm no fan of HR, but I don't think that's their fault - they don't do the interviewing or candidate selection (unless it's an HR role). They just do the paperwork.

@LolaSmiles totally agree- guess those who think it's ok to take jobs with contract conditions they have no intention of filling after a few weeks have never owned a business or been the person having to deal with people who seem to think they are doing you a favour turning up. Who is paying who??

If you want a job fully remote- look for one

If you don't want weekends or shifts- don't apply for a role that involves them

If your family circumstances change and you need to look at seeing if you can make some amendments then you can always ask- but it's not an automatic right as it might not fit with the company's way or policies. But in the main that's not what is being talked about here- it's a lot of people taking jobs on certain terms and then deciding they want to move 150 miles away and that hybrid is now a pain in the arse etc or in many cases nothing has changed but they suddenly don't fancy shifts or weekends.

For me, it's not so much about whether posters think its OK as the fact that it's an inevitable consequence of the current worker shortage.

I quite understand why people who are doing recruitment and rotas are fed up with it. Totally understandable. It's just none of the opinions about what people should do, what is and isn't rocket science etc make any difference to the bottom line.

It's about supply and demand. If an organisation can still recruit enough people at the wage they want to pay regardless then they're fine. If they can't, then the incentives are insufficient.