Emails - annual leave

[BearHuntAgain]

I’m genuinely questioning whether I’m being unreasonable or my manager is.

I work in a relatively small team for a large multinational company. We’re a very busy team and there’s never enough hours in the day. Since coming back from mat leave I’ve definitely been putting stronger boundaries in place regarding my working hours.

I’m taking annual leave the rest of this week and DH are going away just the two of us for the first time since having DC2 (she’s two). it’s been a really shit 6 months and we really need this.

At the end of our team meeting my boss mentioned about taking my work phone and just checking emails at the end of the day in case there are any emergencies. I basically said no. He then emailed me after the meeting to say that I was setting a bad example to the junior members of the team.

I responded saying that it’s important for everyone to switch off on annual leave. I’d have my personal phone for them to get hold of me if an emergency. He responded reiterating it didn’t take long to check and forward on anything urgent.

Everyone in the company knows who my colleagues are and would reach out to them if urgent. I’m not so senior that I’m paid an amazing wage so it justifies being available. And I’m going to have an out of office on saying to contact my colleagues if needed.

I’m really annoyed that it’s on me to actively log into my emails to check each day (technically only away for three days).

YABU - it’s a quick check just to make sure nothing urgent has been sent.

YANBU - it’s your annual leave. It’s encroaching on your time and your team can cope for a few days without you.

YANBU! Well done for standing up for yourself!

I used to be a very senior leader and did take my phone and tablet on holiday. But I was only contactable in an emergency. My assistant would text my personal number if she thought I needed to be contacted and then I would switch on my work phone and had my work tablet if I needed to do anything.

My team made it a matter of honour to see how many days could go by without contacting me. Because I needed the break.

On a couple of occasions I was never contacted. On my last holiday I was texted only because a former member of staff had died and they knew I would want to attend the funeral which was being held on the day I got back.

It is perfectly possible and entirely necessary to switch off while you're on annual leave.

That is not a reasonable request. Well done for standing up to your manager. Annual leave is a time when you forget all about work.

In my experience higher up people have a deputy or someone else who will monitor email whilst they're on leave.

OP you're absolutely doing the right thing. It's terrible of your manager and counter-productive as annual leave helps avoid things like absence due to stress. My out of office always directs people to contact whoever if its urgent, that should be enough. I'd also say contacting anyone on annual leave on a personal number is only acceptable in a someone has suddenly died, the building has burnt down, the whole IT network has been decimated by a virus type event.

Haha, no YANBU. You are a) entitled to a complete break, and b) setting a good example to junior members of your team. If your manager says anything to the contrary again, direct them politely to HR for advice.

Enjoy your holiday!

If he wants you on call, he needs to pay you!

You are setting an excellent example to junior members of the team.

Of course they have a team but that doesn’t mean they can delegate all responsibility.

I used to say ( truthfully in most cases) that I was going off grid and couldn’t guarantee to have mains power or mobile coverage

also if no one else can cover what happens if you get hit by a bus

Maybe that was the case in the past, but not anymore. Two members of the leadership team at my place look at emails on holiday and they're notorious workaholics who can be found pottering around the office at 4am. Everyone else has proper evenings, weekends and holidays barring an absolute company-ending, life-or-death emergency.

This can be a red flag if someone won’t leave work or delegate, what are they hiding that they don’t want others to find out about while they are away?
Excellent model behaviour OP by taking your leave and NOT checking in.
Although people call the younger generation snowflakes, they definitely have better boundaries than a lot of seasoned employees and they wouldn’t dream of staying 5 mins late ( which can cause problems), however they’d never check in on leave and rightly so.
enjoy your holiday and stick your OOO on with boss’ phone number and email for queries that can’t wait

Something that helps is, add advance notice of A/L to your email signature a few weeks in advance and mention it in meetings when discussing projects/when speaking to clients etc. So everyone is prepared and they do not email you when they know you are away, and they can try to resolve anything urgent before you go.

My out of office email response is I'm out of the office from x date to y date with no access to email. For x related matters please email y. For urgent matters please call me on my mobile 1234567
Nobody has EVER called me on my mobile, ever!

Tell him you won't be checking emails during your leave but you would be happy to set up auto-forwarding of your emails to him or a team-mate of his choosing so that someone can screen for time-sensitive matters. If he says no to that let him know who you will be designating as the "if you are in need of help with X before I return" person in your out-of-office auto-reply and then try put it out of your mind.

This!

You realise I’m writing this in the present time right? I haven’t time travelled…

I am happy to be contacted on my personal number on holiday in case of an emergency (or e.g. something pretty urgent and I have saved something somewhere where people can't find it). I don't check my work emails and I definitely don't expect my staff to.

Editing - Actually I do sometimes check my emails but it's a bad habit.

All this! Stick to your guns. You are showing junior members of the team an good example not the opposite

Absolutely this. In my industry, it is completely the norm to work on annual leave. I don’t mean just check emails. I mean like people book in meetings for when they are away on holiday or say, oh I’m off in the Cotswolds all weekend, so yes, I’ll have time to look at that then.

It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s why our occupational health staff are dropping like flies because they can’t keep up with how many people have gone off on long term sickness for mental health reasons. I make a point to always model for students and junior staff having good work life balance. Do I check emails out of hours? Yes, sometimes. Would I ever say that to a junior colleague or anyone I managed? No. I sure as hell would never demand they do it. Work culture won’t change until someone changes it. I would flag this with HR personally, in addition to being quite direct in my response to my manager.

@BearHuntAgain Of course YANBU - your manager is. What do they think OOO messages on email are for?! You can set up an OOO message so that anyone contacting you would get an immediate auto-response from your email notifying them of how long you're absent for and who to contact in your absence - and then they can contact that person. Seriously, what value does your manager think you would add by forwarding a message to one of your colleagues that the originator could simply resend themselves? I loathe so-called managers like this who have somehow achieved a supervisory role yet are so poor they (a) don't use the tools that technology has given us (for ruddy years!) to handle such tasks, and (b) don't realise the importance of "switching off" on annual leave. Honestly OP, don't engage with your idiot manager on this subject any further - just remember to set and switch on your OOO! And have a lovely break!

You are 100% in the right
When on leave, evening, weekend my brain isn't in work so would not even think of doing anything as not going to be at best and possible to slip up
I notice plenty do it but in honesty they are 'seen' but usually not getting anything right done

Your boss is being ridiculous - YANBU. The only people who ‘should’ check emails when on leave are senior staff who get recompensed

Totally right. Even in a director level post I made it clear I would not be looking at emails while on leave.

YA definitely NBU. Not the same but my one-up manager siphoned my personal mobile number off the emergency contact system and rang me at 6:30pm during my annual leave at half term to ask me to make a bar chart (not my data, three other people whose numbers he’d also nicked off the emergency system hadn’t picked up). I then got a minor bollocking for telling him in no uncertain terms that I’d be reporting him to the ICO for a potential breach of GDPR if he ever did it again, because who has time for that while they’re also wrangling a primary aged child.

Our CEO takes neither emails, texts nor phone calls during her annual leave, so it’s unfortunate that some less senior leaders still think that being ‘always on’ is something to aspire to.

On the contrary, I’d bet they would and do so every day when they are on leave which is why they think it’s OK to ask that of their team members.

OP is not BU to say no, but I doubt it will help her come pay rises and promotions.

My husbands deputy writes him an email when he returns to work as a handover and attaches any urgent emails (or important FYI ones - like staffing, budgets, comms etc.) to it. He always reads that email first, then deletes everything else.

Those emails stay in the deleted folder on the off chance they’re ever needed - but in two weeks, it’s not unusual for him to get 2,500+ emails.

He does the same for his deputy when his deputy goes on leave…because that’s what teams do. I have a similar arrangement with my deputies.

No one is important enough they need to be bothered on AL - and if they are, then the company/organisation needs to sort themselves out because if that person died tomorrow, they’d be fucked.

Your manager sounds like a twat, OP.