to expect employee to be flexible and attend team event on a day they are usually off?

[traintocatch]

We have an employee who recently reduced hours and chose to have a whole day off during the week -Tuesdays (working week is Mon-Fri). Before approving this, we agreed they would work on Tuesdays as and when required for project delivery so not 100% set in stone. Since they started this pattern we happened to organise team events with external facilitators and 2 of these events were held on Tuesdays. Whilst not critical that they attend, it would be important for their development, their understanding of company culture as well as team morale and really showing that are willing to integrate. We cannot always choose days to suit them. They declined to attend on both occasions and wondered what would be reasonable to expect? I know I would attend and take the day off another time that week?

I haven't worked 5 days a week for a very long time. I now do 4 days and very occasionally offer to work the fifth when there is something specific about that day that I am either responsible for, heavily involved in or don't want to miss (eg a relevant training course or event I've organised). Otherwise my boss does not ask me to do so and I wouid feel they didn't have the right to do that either - it's been suggested sometimes but always in a discussion where I have the overall say.

This person has chosen Tuesdays off, and if they choose to spend it lying on the sofa watching TV, that's entirely up to them. They are not obliged to have caring duties or do chores or whatever anyone else might deem the right way to spend a non working day. Changing routine isn't easy either for a lot of people.

PS one of my colleagues has every Tuesdsy off too. It's not that she has any specific reasons for it being Tuesday but she likes breaking up the working week, due to some health issues.

I once worked Thursdsy, Friday and Monday for a year to fit round the days my childminder had vacancies.

WFH is not at all the same as a non-working day. What relevance does this have to this employee's situation?

And that I am afraid is where you are entirely in the wrong 🤣🤣🤣

It depends on the nature of the activity IMO. If it involves planning work activities, and the employee's absence means that things won't get done, or will be delayed, or other people will have to take on extra work, then I think they should try to be flexible (though it depends a bit on the nature of their contract), But if it's mainly a team-building social activity, I don't think it should be required of someone who usually has that day off.

Had a manager ask me once at an appraisal what they could do to help me grow. "Free biscuits" was my answer - don't think she appreciated my sense of humour.

Another time she wanted me to spend my own time writing up a submission for a project I had completed to our big internal awards ceremony thing. "Sorry, not interested - I don't do self-congratulatory back patting" - couldn't get her head around that either. My attitude was always that if the work was that good it should get recognition from above without me indulging in blowing smoke right up my own arse.

Even after 3 years working for her she could never get to grips with the fact that I didn't give a toss - I did my work as well as anyone else and got paid - good enough for me.

She’s clearly a civil servant, young and thirsty to reach the dizzying heights of the SCS with no real world understanding of work/ life balance 🙄

This is all about you OP. You say you’re new in your role. You’ve organised some team events. They’re important to you. You want to help your team grow, develop, gel, [insert corporate buzzword here]. You want to do your job, part of which is helping your team members develop. This is important to you. You care, I get it. But you can’t make everyone else care to the same degree, or about the same things, as you. When you work a 4 day week in the sort or corporate environment I can guess you’re in, then yes, it’s accepted that for important matters you flex. Thing is, this is important to you, but it’s clearly not important to your employee. And that’s their prerogative.

"team events", "external facilitators", "company culture", "willing to integrate"

ha, ha ha, ha -- ROFL 😂😂😂

Nor the point. Childcare etc is irrelevant. You asking her to come in on a non-working day is like your boss asking you to work on Sunday. It's not okay to expect this.

YABVU - if you wouldn't expect employees to attend a 'team event' on a weekend then don't expect one who doesn't work Tuesdays to attend on a Tuesday. If you want a whole team event then you need to choose one of the other four days of the working week.

Team building events aren't important (actually they are heinous), and take up time you could be getting on with work which needs doing. They agreed to be flexible WHEN MEETING A PROJECT DEADLINE, not fannying about somewhere.

Tbh, sounds like you are salty they are working reduced hours, and are overly invested in work - in 60 years most of us will be dead, and literally no-one will care whether you managed to bully someone into going to some naff training / team building event. Let it go.

PS. You said that one of the events was organised before the employee changed their hours. Sounds like they saw the perfect excuse to get out of something they didn’t want to do / didn’t see as necessary. You can be disappointed that they don’t want to, but you can’t expect them to do it.

I am disappointed that after saying you accept you were wrong you are now still saying you are disappointed.

"Everything to accommodate them"? What exactly did you do to accommodate them? Holding an event on their day off isn't exactly accommodating them is it?

And why are you thinking that a caring responsibility is an acceptable reason but presumably nothing else? An employee doesn't have to have, or tell you of, a reason to decline to work on their day off ( or switch their day).

The lack of awareness on this thread around what an employer can ask you to accommodate within your role is quite shocking or are you all paying your own salaries 😂

An Employer can request an employee to attend training, meetings or events by giving reasonable notice which is normally 30 days. If an employee refuses to attend then said employee can be managed through a conduct process.

This also applies to an employee with a flexible working agreement. The majority of well established and corporate business will have polices outlining expectations and within a flexible working agreement an employee can be required to attend a meeting, training or anything else that is deemed ‘business needs’ with reasonable notice.

You're annoyed she won't attend a meeting on her day off?! My boss used to do this to me too. She wanted me.in on Friday mornings in exchange I could.go.home.earlier on my set days. So.instead of working 3 days (reduced hours) she wanted me in on 4?! I also.fidnt have child care on Fridays. It made zero sense. I left after my second child as I found the boss very difficult.

An Employer can request an employee to attend training, meetings or events by giving reasonable notice which is normally 30 days. If an employee refuses to attend then said employee can be managed through a conduct process

How does that work? Request means just that: you don't have to accede to it. So how does that become conduct issue?

A link would be nice.

I'm not. There are a lot of terrible managers out there, unfortunately.

In the industry I worked in this would probably result in the employee not getting an annual payrise and be massively frowned upon so OP is not BU imho.

Understanding company culture isn't a day I'd make myself available for either!
In fact i think I'd be tempted to take a sicky for it 🥴

"....it would be important for their development, their understanding of company culture as well as team morale and really showing that are willing to integrate."

@traintocatch

You gave them Tuesdays off. They should not feel obliged to attend, especially for a staff morale day.

Development, company culture and team morale don't pay the bills, nor add to a work-life balance.

Quite the opposite in fact .

Chill out, and let the employee have Tuesdays off, as arranged.

This.

even if they can arrange childcare then it’s an extra cost.
I was miffed one time when I (with a similar arrangement) arranged childcare for my day off, at a cost of £150 for 2 children as ‘it was the only day team event x could be organised’. I then find out that x hadn’t been arranged for a different day as the team supervisor had a yoga class after work on the day everyone could do and needed to work from home so they didn’t miss it. Yes I then got a child free day off but I’d rather have had the £150, plus it took loads of arranging to get the childcare! I was less amenable about working my day off after that…

Struggle to understand why this event was booked for a Tuesday. My non working day is Wednesday so my boss doesn’t book anything on that day.
if something super urgent came up then I would be willing to WFH to help out though.

Several hours later I’m still chuckling at a team building event being held on the 1 day that a team member doesn’t work. <slow hand clap>

Quite!

It was almost like it was done on purpose to piss them off/smoke them out......but I'm glad the employee stuck to her guns and said no. 😂