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?

Only a bad manager will make changes that negatively impact 10 good employees because one employee happens to be taking the piss.

If someone is taking the piss, you manage them appropriately - if you do it properly, record it the right way and in accordance with HR and your disciplinary policies, it's not really relevant whether the employee in question finds it "unfair".

This

We don't have TOIL.

But we have a great manager who accepts that some days you're working 15 minutes over your time because the job needs finishing and is happy for you to aim to leave 15 minutes earlier another day or come in 15 minutes later (usually same week but sometimes week after) to make sure over the month you work your weekly hours.

I've also sometimes got 15 minutes of my 30 minute unpaid lunch and have left 15 minutes early. They can't make you take and you can't request to take lunch breaks at end of shift by my job allows for me to leave early for this as it doesn't effect operations.

I think you may need to change your username 😉😆

But the issue here is that the company currently doesn't have a policy against it. So what exactly are they supposed to say? As @DarkForces pointed out the system is too flexible

They could instigate a policy against TOIL without pre-approval, or needing a certain amount of time worked over to qualify, but as you can see in the comments, so many people consider that 'rigid'.

If pisstaker hadn't taken the piss nothing would have to change, but they did so , it must. Maybe the rigid complaining people are actually the pisstakers themselves. And the good employees won't mind as they actually were not piss-taking anyway.

Yep, so again, the issue is the company policy and a lack of effective management - because if they were keeping an eye on people's hours and the amount of TOIL accrued, this wouldn't be able to happen in the first place.

I've personally never known any company not to have policies around TOIL - when you can take, how much you can accrue in a month etc. - some are more flexible than others, but there's never been a company who's just said you can do whatever hours you like and accrue days and days of TOIL to take in a massive chunk of time.

If OP does work somewhere like that, then it sounds like her colleague is just taking advantage of the system and not doing anything wrong (in terms of going against policy) - it's just OP doesn't feel comfortable doing the same herself for whatever reason.

Has anyone done the maths yet? Staying 15 minutes extra day, takes 6 months to build up an week of holiday. Paid for holiday, while others do your work.

Yes, i'd be either pissed off, or if management allow it, do it myself!

Sorry, I probably wasn't very clear about that!

We had a system whereby we all worked for different teams under a bigger umbrella department (think HR but with different divisions). We all had to cover one colleague for the purposes of sickness/AL/TOIL. I covered her workload and she covered mine.

It was designed so that - broadly speaking - we all provided/received around the same level of cover each for Leave, over the year.

Her workload, like all of ours, was busy but not excessively so & manageable within 9-5 hours. However, she was accruing a huge amount of TOIL which, on top of her AL, meant that my workload was effectively doubled providing cover for her, far more often than other people.

I couldn't understand why, as she wasn't doing anything markedly different to the rest of us and her workload wasn't any bigger.

Our manager (who managed the umbrella section but not the individual workstreams) constantly told me how my colleague was 'snowed under/collapsing under the weight/on their knees' etc and so was forced to come in at 7am just to manage it all.

It was impacting on me quite a bit so I spoke to my colleague and suggested she speak to management about her excessive workload that was impacting on us both. I'd also noticed that the reason management thought she was snowed under was that she walked around from office to office telling everyone that she was snowed under.

That was when she explained that she didn't need to come in at 7am, she just did it so that she could get a lift in to work with her husband. She continued finishing work at 5 as that was when he picked her up. She then just blithely claimed for the extra 2 hours a day.

None of it needed to happen as she had her own car and parking space so could have started at 9am. She just didn't want to (for whatever reason).

So what happened after that?
An excellent example of bad management - two people in a team, one claiming vast amounts of TOIL, one not, someone's clearly taking the piss.
BTW she didn't need to speak to management. There was nothing stopping you from going to them, saying that you covered her far more than she did for you, and that you wouldn't be doing it anymore.
If you did her work on occasion surely you're very well placed to judge whether the workload was truly excessive.

People shouldn't be getting time off in lieu unless they've agreed with their managers that they need to work after hours or on their usual non-work days. It might be worth requesting a clear statement to everyone on the rules for TOiL, without mentioning anyone's name.

Personally, I'd keep my nose out.
Sounds like you're just pissed that she's work out a way to successfully navigate the system.
As they say, don't hate the player, hate the game.

In my experience it isn’t just 15 mins at the end of the day it’s usually TOIL claimed in lunch hours that add the time on as well. It’s poor management to have team members working through lunches and regularly staying late it would suggest a staffing issue or ineffective processes. When I put the new TOIL policy in place I explained to everyone that it wasn’t to punish them, their work life balance was important and TOIL needed to be taken soon after it was worked. If people were staying late I needed to know so I could fix it - staggered shift starts and finishes for instance. TOIL can be a destructive hidden cost it’s very hard to count the effects of it like you would be able to with just monitoring overtime payments. The person who was abusing the system was getting other people in on extra hours to cover when they were on their never ending TOIL days so the business was paying someone to cover their time off that was completely unnecessary in the first place.

Yes!

Depending on the situation trying to 'manage' a single person results in claims of unfair treatment etc with these kinds of people, so it's easier to have a blanket policy.

I think that's lazy management, tbh. I've been on 2 different teams where there was a lazy piss taker. Both roles involved a lot of appointments out in the community or home visits, so there was plenty of scope for slacking. In both cases, the employee involved was managed more closely and required to account for where they were and when, they may have whinged about itm but it never led to any measures being put in place that affected the rest of the team.

In both cases, the person involved left the organisation eventually and they were replaced by people who weren't slackers.

Well, that's why I said 'depending on the situation'.
If there are clear policies, procedures and measurability of output management is easier.
If there aren't, then anybody you tried to manage could point out that they weren't flouting company policy.

It would be very easy in my job - my teams are expected to deliver on certain objectives. Doesn't matter how they want to work, if said objectives are not delivered they'll be pulled up.

Also for our TOIL everything is logged, audited and recorded so someone can't simply 'stay late' and get more.

Similarly, a PP's '2 hours of overtime every day' is also easy to spot given that her colleague who regularly covers gets through it fine.

In this case the company policy allows people to count TOIL in 10 minutes increments. Issues with sickness. Looks like managing a specific person isn't going to be the solution.

TOIL built up like that without prior approval is a ridiculous policy anyway. What's the harm in changing it? If the 'good employees' haven't been doing it, well nothing changes for them post new policy.

Ffs, does anyone do a day’s work for a day’s pay? Absolutely taking the piss.

Goodness me, what a good colleague you are!

yeah…just leave her alone and stop being jealous. Or stay 15min extra day so you take the same as her. Whichever one.

What's TOIL?

My Dad liked getting into work early. He used to accrue so much TOIL from just doing what he'd done for years. He was asked to do less hours so he started to leave earlier instead.

If it's an issue then raise it. If not, leave well alone.

I used to work with a colleague who did this. I was fairly new and she was an old timer who knew how to work the books. She left before I had time to question her motives but I would have done. Can say I definitely learnt from her.

"I couldn't understand why, as she wasn't doing anything markedly different to the rest of us and her workload wasn't any bigger."

But you said that she DID work those two extra hours so she must have done more work than the rest of you during those days.

"I'd also noticed that the reason management thought she was snowed under was that she walked around from office to office telling everyone that she was snowed under."

Then they're idiots. I realised quite early on that the ones who have time to go on about how busy they are can't be that busy and the ones who go on about how stressful their job is would make the least stressful job in the world a stressful one because that's what they thrive on.

No, that's not how it works if you have a flexitime system. You manage it yourself.

That's true. Nobody will be there at your funeral to thank you for never going to the dentist during work time.

Good for her!

I'm with the OP on this.
Someone taking the piss in a small team means the others are having to take on some of their work.
It's unfair and frustrating.
It doesn't matter if it's unearned toil or invented sickness.
I've worked in situations like this where the manager isn't managing and it's irritating.
I like the suggestion by LadyMacbethssweetArabianhand on this.
Maybe a bit of phoney concern might concentrate the managers mind