Colleague deliberately staying late at work just to accrue TOIL?

[KatParr]

She admitted yesterday she'd been staying past her contracted times, 10-15 mins here and there deliberately and has managed to accrue a whole week of TOIL!? we are a very small team who has an issue (imo) with sickness. Although we all have different roles, it inevitably impacts everyone when someone is off, even for leave. She also arranges appointments and runs regular "errands" on her working days (so leaves the workplace for up to an hour) when she has every Monday and Tuesday off. She is incredibly skillful at "looking busy" and talking constantly about having loads to do. Yes, I do notice it because none of us imo are busy enough to accrue TOIL.

She said she has leave left but wanted to 'save' it. I'm feeling pissed off. She has no reason to stay late every day as she does, genuinely, it's not that kind of role. I'm thinking of speaking to the manager about what she said regarding the TOIL. AIBU or should I keep my nose out?

It's none of your business though

Do not go to your manager about this. It will look like you are jealous. Do go to your manager and ask if the work is fairly distributed because you've noticed Janice needs to work longer hours than the rest and you are concerned about her health. 🤣

Is it adversely affecting you, eg making the work hard to do or undone? Is it having a genuine impact on the team or putting customers/service users at risk?
If so then raise a concern

If not then don't.

Well it is her business if her colleague is slacking off and disappearing for extended periods during the working day. I don't understand this idea that we all operate in isolation at all times and nothing anyone ever does should affect us.

What is your manager doing when she's fannying about and "having" to stay late because she's so overworked?

There's usually strict limits in organisation's policies about how much TOIL can be built up, when it can be built up and how it can be used. If your employer has implemented a flexi system with no clear rules to avoid this there's nothing you can do.

I dont know how your workplace works but if we stayed without permission we wouldn't receive anything and it needs to be authorised. Surely your manager must already know and has authorised it or does your system automatically do this?

It wouldn't bother me atall. Makes no difference to you

If it's obvious then it won't go unnoticed. As for hours out of the office is that not the point of Flexi and is that why she's working later?

Really, mind your own business and stay out of it if it doesn't affect you or your work.

Of course it is when it impacts everyone when she is off.

I'd be surprised if she can take a whole week as TOIL. I'm usually in the let others get on with it camp but I think here I'd ask for the TOIL policy just to refresh my understanding and hope it nudges others to notice too, including manager who would have to agree the week off.

Your workplace needs some rules in place. We are on flexi, but you can only build 3 working days per month (pro-rated for part timers). You also need to do extra work, not just sit there looking busy. So your daily target would increase if you worked an extra hour etc.

I’d raise it. It’s taking the pee if they are having a whole week off and you’ll be covering for them in an already impacted team.

I banned this practice at work because this started to cripple the business. Managers should be keeping an eye on this. When I got a promotion as manager this was the first thing I put a stop to. We had someone doing this every few months they had 5 weeks holiday a year plus 3 extra weeks of TOIL from staying 15-30 mins regularly for no valid reason. Now anyone can only accrue 8 hours at a time and all TOIL has to be agreed with a manager before it is worked. The TOIL has to be used in 8 weeks cannot be saved up for longer. You can’t accrue new TOIL unless you have used up your hours first.

10-15 minutes a day? It must have taken years to build up a week of TOIL

I work in IT and build up huge amounts of TOIL when working late to implement out-of-hours changes.

I maintain a spreadsheet with all the times, dates and change references.

I took three weeks of TOIL this summer and have a fortnight scheduled for Christmas.

If the company isn't happy with that, I can either stop doing unpaid out-of-hours changes or they can put their hand in their pocket and pay me overtime. 🤷‍♀️

With regards to the OP, I've worked previously with people that took the piss with sickness. There were women that clearly coordinated with each other to have a weekly day at the beach during the summer - shamelessly coming back to the office with fresh sunburn and suntans! Them being off work, resulted in my workload rising massively, so I can see why OP might get pissed off.

Why isn't OP's manager tracking this TOIL to ascertain why it is required? If it can't be justified, then surely it can't be claimed back - what's to stop her colleague sitting there until midnight twice a week to build up the 'holiday' entitlement?

Stay out of it. I agree that it’s annoying and I would feel exactly the same as you, but it’s not your job to police her and you don’t need to waste your emotional energy on it.

There’s also a risk that anything you try to do will backfire or create an enemy of her.

Try to let it go and just focus on your own job (I know that that’s easier said than done).

I can build up 20+ hours in one weekend!

There's no way your petty rules would work in an IT department.

When I worked for the NHS this was rife amongst admin staff.

It’s a pisstake. Flexi time and TOIL are meant to be “for the needs of the organisation”, not for Janet to stay late for 15 minutes every day browsing the internet because she fancies building up enough time for a few days off at the end of the month.

Good luck with your line manager though, if it’s anything like the NHS managers just don’t manage staff and they’ll do fuck all.

We are small and there is no need to work extra hours. We close at a certain time, it’s not the same environment. I assume you know workplaces are different. I don’t run an IT department. And as you say, I would probably pay you to work that time if it would impact the business to have the time off. If I ask people to work extra I pay them for doing so.

TOIL in some business is not good business sense. You end up having to pay someone to work overtime to cover the person who is off using TOIL. I either pay them or encourage them to go home at home time.

It would bother me if the time selected for time off was as inconvenient to the rest of the team as possible. Not your case, an example would be someone in retail having time off in December.

Presumably you can demonstrate why though (incident, releases etc).

If someone on your team was completing the same number of tickets as everyone else but was apparently working hours extra a week to complete then you would question it.

Rife in the civil service with people starting at 7am from home with no meetings or little work till 9am. Not much you can do about it OP, can understand how frustrating it is.

10-15 minutes daily would be an hour a week approximately. Assuming she's contracted 37 hours a week or thereabouts, assuming she's doing it every day, that's around 9 months worth.

But I'd have thought anything under 15minutes or so wouldn't be counted anyway. I mean I can easily leave 15 minutes later because of just plain rafting at the end of the day. You know, remember there's half a sandwich in the fridge to take home, must just deliver the book I borrowed back type thing, so I'd look at that as being normal working. Never occurred to me to start counting it. I just see it as building a favour for the time I need to leave slightly early, or the traffic is bad so I'm late.

Well clearly you are working then. This is a different situation

"She also arranges appointments and runs regular "errands" on her working days (so leaves the workplace for up to an hour) when she has every Monday and Tuesday off."

This is none of your business. If other people have this flexibility on their working days (whether they use it or not), she is also entitled to it on her working days. Most people don't work part-time just for fun, they have other commitments during their "days off".