To think that workplaces should be less accommodating of personal lives?

[HangryDenimBird]

I’ve noticed workplaces bending over backwards to accommodate personal lives. AIBU to think that employees should keep their personal issues separate from work?

Totally agree.

I agree it affects more women. But I’m always careful to make sure I consider men’s requests on equal (not better, just equal) terms, eg if they need to flex around childcare or other caring responsibilities.

What I won’t do is run my whole team around someone’s husband’s preferences, eg “I need to change my working day in a way that inconveniences others / affects the whole team because my husband xyz” - your husband’s work doesn’t take precedence over my team! (This could also read wife, but it happens less when the other spouse is female)

No. Because typically they're accommodating when they very much need and value the person and know if they were less accommodating the person would leave, so it wouldn't be beneficial to them. Employers don't tend to accommodate personal needs due to altruism. It's either to avoid falling foul of the law or as a pragmatic step to keep staff.

AIBU to think that employees should be less accommodating of micromanagers and ungrateful employers who fail to recognise the value and hard work their staff members put in. Not to mention the profits they help them make.

I think it's unprofessional in some ways to let home stuff affect work stuff.

But it depends on the severity of the home stuff as well.

If an employees mum just died, a bit of flexibility is of course expected.
If they just lost their favourite Budgie, maybe not quite as much.

If you're dealing with customers though, you kind of should put your private stuff away. I don't know, I think it's nuanced.

I do t know how I'd react if a till worker started telling me about their divorce and such.. it's not that I don't care.. it's just that I want to go home and eat me Pot Noodle..

That's interesting, what does that look like in practice do you think? Are you someone who manages staff? If say someone was upset at work and you established that it wasn't work that was the cause do you just ask them to stop talking if they start to say my husband has left me so I am a bit fragile?

Absolutely bullshit. If the government want more people back in work, like folk with disabilities and illnesses, then employers need to be MORE accommodating.

I'd love to work, but i am a Carer to a young adult with ASD/ADHD and i need to be present at home for him, so I'd need a job that not only accommodates HIS needs regards my availability and time, but also MY disabilities and needs... that being i have to work from home and be allowed flexibility to work as/when i can around my responsibilities and needs.

How can an employer be flexible and provide adjustments and accommodations if they're not aware of your personal issues and home life?

This post sums it up perfectly!

I now have a reasonable adjustment agreed due to a long term health condition I developed and my employer is flexible. If my work was suffering my line manager would tell me, additional burden is not placed on my team as a result.

I could get paid more elsewhere but the flexible working and how good they are with letting me manage my condition means that this falls into a work benefit. A bit like a company offering free pizza on a Friday or an extra days annual leave etc.

Employees weigh up benefit packages for what is best for them as work is also a contract.

Complete flexibility with my team, which means I always get the best out of them and vice versa.

study after study shows that employees who are valued, feel they belong, and are looked after are better at their jobs, more productive and more likely to stay therefore removing costs of recruitment and additional training.

I am not keen on the "bring your whole self to work" thing. I do not need to know the ins and outs of my colleagues' personal lives.

However, if you are managing someone, and they have a problem which is going to have an adverse effect on their work, they need to be able to tell you about it. There needs to be an open enough atmosphere and no judgment. It's also good to know about the nice things which may affect their work, like winning a competition and so wanting a day off work to attend an event.

Why should I work to make my employer richer, far far richer than I’ll ever be with the wages they pay, if they won’t accept and accommodate the fact that I am human and have a life outside of earning them money?

My work has been absolutely fantastic about my son being autistic. I assume this is because they value me and want to keep me as an employee, and that they're decent human beings.

Without their support and understanding it's very likely I'd have had to leave. As it is, I'm a committed and loyal employee who will go the extra mile.

If the government want more people back in work, like folk with disabilities and illnesses, then employers need to be MORE accommodating

Definitely agree with this. Much less of the RTO nonsense, please. It's much better for people to work at home and pay taxes than have to give up work because eg they can't drive to an office due to being visually impaired.

And before anyone makes any daft comments, you can see well enough to use a computer and work, but still not be allowed to drive.

How many workplaces do you currently have to know how all workplaces operate?? I assume you are unhappy of a situation at your current workplace but you can’t really judge everyone based on that. From my perspective I have been grateful to have line managers that are supportive. Through family illnesses, miscarriages, flexi working for childcare pick ups. It makes me much more loyal to the company.

Context needed. There is a big difference between, for e.g.

• great employee who needs to come in at 10am each day because they need to visit their elderly parent before work and get them up for the day;

and

• rubbish employee who regularly comes in late because they're too disorganised to get their DC to school on time.

I have an extremely flexible, accommodating employee who allows me to take my disabled child to medical appointments during work time, or to take time off when he’s unable to go to school due to his health needs etc. In return I go above and beyond at all other times. If they weren’t accommodating, I would have to quit, and they don’t want that as I’m a consistently strong employee.

I think the devil is in the details, as someone said in a pp.

Not workplace can manage people without being accommodating about some things. But also - some work is much less flexible than other work by its nature. These are both just facts that we have to deal with.

I do think it's possible for workplaces to be too accommodating. And not just with people who are being drama queens or whatever.

In my experience, the real difficulty comes because often, the more flexible they are for one employee, the more that put on the other workers. And it doesn't always balance out in the way people think. For example, on my workplace team I recently hired someone who needs a certain amount of accommodations around physical work. It's certainly possible to do that and he has other talents that he brings to the team.

It means though I couldn't necessarily hire another person with similar limitations though, or if another team member developed something like back issues, it would be tricky to accommodate. One or two team members would be responsible for all the physical labour, it would make it difficult for them to take time off, and also increase the risk they might injure themselves.

It's similar with things like accommodating WFH, or adjusted hours. Often you can do it for some, but not all, and then that can seem very unfair. If I tell Jon, sure you can work adjusted hours permanently so you can manage school pick up, and then Marie has a temporary issue where she needs to adjust hours, I am in kind of a corner as a manager and Marie gets screwed over.

The other element of this is that it is not uncommon that you end up with certain employees (Jon) who are always the ones who need these accommodations, while others (like Marie) always make a serious effort to meet the terms of her employment. You end up pissing off some of the most dedicated employees who see others making their lives easier. It's especially difficult in scenarios where there isn't really any differential pay or room to move up, so Marie isn't likely to be really rewarded for being diligent.

In the building industry, you pray your employees leave whatever crap they’ve got going on at home at home. Inevitably though, you hear about all of their problems (and then some) asked to sub them money, told multiple excuses of why they had to leave early /call in sick, take various phone calls on site, demands for pay rises to pay their child maintenance … the list is endless.

I think it depends on the circumstances. My workplace is very keen on bringing your whole self to work. Absolutely fine if it means it's ok to mention your same sex partner but I'm considerably less keen on Frank being comfortable saying he's a furry and he and husband are swingers. Kinks should stay on a need to know basis.

I remember when a close relative passed away, I needed time off to attend the funeral. At the time I was working tow part time jobs. One employer I just asked my line manager face to face, who immediately said of course, have compassionate leave, let me know if you need anything or if you need a chat or a break. The other line manager told me I’d need to submit a request online for annual leave. Nothing else.

guess which employer I’m still working for 5 years later…

@TempestTost This resonated with me. I've had some very difficult times in past years where I was the only person, or only one of two people, on the team who didn't have caring responsibilities. That did mean that the flexibility I could be offered was marginal, the workload I was taking on was increased, and we were all at top of grade so I couldn't be paid more. It's only improved because of staff changes meaning that the team is now balanced out and there are more of us who don't "need" accommodations.

Had those changes not been made, I think I would've left, which would've been a loss to the organisation as I'm very experienced and reliable.

I agree that accommodations should be made but it's often the case that employers pass that on to employees, whether because they can't be arsed to manage it or because of the reality that if you have 12 team members who need accommodations and 2 who don't, the 2 will be carrying more than the 12 (and if they go on to request accommodations, they won't be able to be accommodated themselves).

I'd say it just screams 'slow news day for a journalist with a gap to fill'

When I was running a business, I didn't especially care about profit.

A healthy margin to invest and secure the business, yeah. But mainly I wanted to run a business that:

A) made clever things that were useful and needed, and,
B) had a happy bunch of staff who were a good, productive team and who didn't take the whole thing too seriously.

Most people take business rather too seriously.

This is something else that often strikes me on these kinds of threads.

You get a lot of people commenting from what seems like a professional or maybe paraprofessional, office type of workforce.

Not all workforces are like that. Some are made up of people who are much more likely to be problematic employees.

My partner, until he got sick recently, worked in the building industry, painting, drywall, tiling, that kind of thing. He was really reliable and a hard worker, and a perfectionist, so in high demand. That was not especially common among other guys in the industry though. He was able to work with a small group of guys who got paid a fair bit more than the going rate, and never needed to look for jobs. They had a bitch of a time finding reliable people though.