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?

OP - yabu. Look at the bigger picture and see the employee as a human being.

At my workplace we work around the most inflexible team member where possible.

You can easily book in events on 4 other days where the person can join, don't make it a thing. This sounds stressful!

Don't make it about team morale and hopefully there's no gossip going around saying X couldn't make it and js being inflexible. It's also not about going the extra mile, Im sure the company wouldn't think twice about making staff redundant regardless of how much of a team player or extra hours put in. Be a modern manager please, we need more managers with common sense rather than on a power trip.

@Warmwoolytights @WoshPank
Re ‘project delivery’ – I think this is a matter of interpretation. Ensuring the team works better may well ensure better project delivery in the future, even if it does not impact now on one specified project. (We don’t know what they do and how they work, so ‘project delivery’ could be a wider or narrower thing.)

@Motnight Not sure how it is important in this context – employee was required to attend some Tuesdays and will be paid to do so (since she’d take another day off).

To me this is a sad example of why employers may be hesitant to allow flexible working. She’s been asked to attend one Tuesday – it’s not a big ask.

I'd say as a manager that most people who are long term in non-senior positions are like this.

Which is fine if they don't want to progress or take the risk of being first out in a redundancy or their jobs being taken over by AI.

Just as employees can go the extra mile for their employer if they wish, managers can also go the extra mile for their reports if their reports show initiative and a 'can do' attitude. These qualities are so rare in the UK that when a manager sees it, it is worth biting their hand off to support the employee's retention and progression.

If you interpret project delivery like that you end up finding a way to make anything at all fit the brief. Again, the OP says this event is non critical. And it’s been two Tuesdays so far, both for similar events.

@2blueshoes

'Which is fine if they don't want to progress or take the risk of being first out in a redundancy or their jobs being taken over by AI.'

As a manager you should know that what you suggest would be discriminatory as a criteria for redundancy or to justify not promoting people...

Because the people who work part-time, have flexible work hours are likely to be people who either:

• have disabilities/health issues
• are lone parents
• are carers.

So if you pick on them for redundancies because they are not able to oblige to your every whim and attend stuff on their days when they don't usually work you would find yourself with a flurry of legal action.

Not to mention that it is illegal to treat part-time staff differently and exclude them from opportunity to be promoted and progress within an organisation.

It looks like from this thread that many managers need some serious training...

But not everyone can and wants to move to managerial roles with more responsibility and demands. Many people are happy to work in their jobs until retirement and do their hours, do a good job in their hours and go home. And not feeling under pressure or stress.

Everyone can't be promoted. There will always be enough people wanting to be promoted to take those jobs. People who are happy to do the essential work of the company within their contracted hours should not be made to feel like they're somehow under performing.

That's fabulous management think at work there! No amount of "team days" are going to mitigate that attitude 😂. People aren't stupid.

The fastest way to eliminate team morale is by making team members come to work on their days off for something that is not essential.

Fundamentally, although many people who work part time will absolutely do their best to be flexible for work needs, from my own experience of both managing and being that person, all the statutory obligations to facilitate flexible working sit with the employer. The employee has no inherent duty to reciprocate unless it is in their terms and conditions, and even then they have legal safeguarding around the way they are treated. What will drive flexibility is trust, empowerment. good management, and transparent performance management.

I wouldn't (and haven't) attended a day on my day off.

as a retired manager I never gave a flying fart about can do attitude and initiative. What I wanted to see was OUTCOME, excellent outcome. I didn't care about team spirit, flexibility or the ability to do interpretive dance, I just wanted to see their job done and done well.

Yes, and I guess that is what employers do a lot of the time with 'any other duties commensurate with the grade' etc so that's where they failed to ensure that they will decide when it's crucial that this employee comes in, not the employee deciding.

You're right with two events of course!

We don't know over how long time this has happend. Still, having two months' notice and saying you can't attend until the day before is completely taking the piss in my view. Flexibility must go both ways, and it sounds as if the OP's workplace is flexible.

I think if the employer wants me there, organise it on one of the other 4 days of the week.

Are you deliberately organising it on their day off? Sounds like you're deliberately trying to stamp your authority. I'm older so I'd be telling you to fuck right off.

Unhealthly company to work for.

Which is in essence down to attitude. It’s impossible to do a good job unless you care about the outcome and are committed to doing the best work you’re capable of.

I dunno.....I did my best work when it was fun.

Same. It was only fun when I cared passionately about it. The day to day with no challenge was tedious.

You see I may be being overly charitable but I think the last minute cancellation could be down to the employee having tried to the last minute to find a solution to moving the day and having to admit last minute defeat.

The whole situation is definitely made more challenging if there isn’t open dialogue and it means it’s far more likely that both sides will take a negative interpretation of the other’s behaviour. Which is really unfortunate. For example I know one of my team works part time because of her hobby, and will therefore sometimes be able to be flexible and other times not because of the nature of it. Another team member is not part time but has a dog and can’t make short notice in-person meetings if there’s no one to look after it. So we make all efforts to organise meetings for times she can leave it, and if not, it’s OK for her to dial in. Mutual respect builds trust and openness. It needs to be on both sides but the employers need to lead the way.

Yeah, I think you're overly charitable :-) If I really tried to be available on such a day, but failed last minute, I would have ensured that my manager would know what the problem was and what I was trying to do, to get brownie points if nothing else. I think it is unlikely that they even tried, so to speak.

And yes of course it would have been better to organise this event on another day. There may be reasons why it was not possible (getting an external in who wasn't available on any other day in the next x months or whatever), or they may not have tried hard enough.

(I am currently assessing requests from university students to get more time for an assignment, so I may be overly harsh. People's inventiveness when it comes to getting advantages has no limits, so I have probably grown sceptical about similar things :-( )

No they shouldn't have to attend definitely not

Well it's not much of a team approach to make the event on their day off!!!!

Managers have training, so they will avoid the pitfalls and will also know the situations where it is justified notwithstanding the above.

If you don't think the selection can sometimes be rigged (and I am a manager as well as an employee), you are being naive.

....and worse still, banging on about it like there is something wrong in not coming in on a Tuesday when you've agreed they can have Tuesdays off! 🙄

And there are now fewer and fewer employers where you would want to give that much of yourself for.....

We're all just numbers, even the managers, although most of them like to think differently.

for me it was the other round. I only cared about it if it was fun.

@2blueshoes

'If you don't think the selection can sometimes be rigged (and I am a manager as well as an employee), you are being naive.'

It is the law.

The fact that you seem to think that discrimination is appropriate and/or that we should accept it just because 'selection can sometimes be rigged' is irrelevant...

Many of us managers have higher standards than that.

All those of you willing to rollover and oblige any request - you'll always be busy, but how many of you will be rewarded for it? Or even acknowledged beyond trite platitudes?