UK based HR / US based manager who’s totally ignoring me

[Donotfitin]

My manager is completely unresponsive, and it’s really starting to affect my productivity.

I get that she’s too senior to look after me (in theory), and that she’s busy.

but from an HR POV can I request a change of manager? Would that be unreasonable? What would be the normal UK process?

PS I’m still under probation if that matters

What is she not responding to? For how long has this been going on? Are you offering to make yourself available during her working day, eg to speak at 4pm our time, 11am east coast US, or later if she is west coast?

My guess, though, is that if you ask for a different manager they will just think you can’t cope with what they need - which is presumably someone who can just get on with it in the UK without needing lots of support from the US - they may decide that it’s not working and end your employment during probation

What exactly do you want/need from her?

I need her to approve things (literally click a button) not for her opinion or how to do things. I can handle that no problem

I’ve been asking her to click on things (because that’s how the system works) - like my expenses.

I’m im not asking for professional input, I’m
fully autonomous in that way. And it’s over slack so the time difference isn’t really an issue

Your manager is likely dealing with a lot of requests. I find it helpful sending a message 30-60 mins before the US person starts in the am so I’m top of inbox/IM channels. Also try different channels as she may be a slack or email person. If you ask for a different manger, it will likely reflect badly on you so i would avoid for now.

A reason to ask for a change in manager is that the professional input/oversight isn't working.

Are these personal or business expenses?

Yeah I spammed her on different platforms and she finally replied. I’m still out of pocket, as my expenses haven’t been approved.

Usually there's a fall back in things like expenses systems so that the authoriser's manager gets asked to authorise if they haven't done so within a time frame.

I find a lot of very busy people deprioritise things like this and you have to nudge them, or I have a colleague based in the same office as a couple of authorisers who will stand over them so they actually do it. It's a total pain, but it happens a lot and isn't specific to your manager or a reflection of what they think of you.

It’s a very silly system for expenses. My local HR person has to send them a slack about it, and then they approve it. my managers manager is basically CEO level so he definitely doesn’t have time for this!

I’d wait till my probation was up if I were you, and maybe mention your frustrations at that review? See if the system can be improved?

Business! I have to visit clients for work.

I would cool off until after your probation. The American manager won’t be impressed and won’t cut you any slack if you complain; that’s just not the culture there.

Goodness no. This isn’t a demand new manager situation if we are just talking being a bit slow at admin. In the last two weeks I had to prompt my US based senior boss twice to approve about £2k of expenses I’d paid for myself.

If the amounts are significant for you to front I would ask finance if you can get a company credit card.

If you have peers ask them off the record if they experience the same and how they get the boss to do it. If they are very senior they may have an assistant who can either do it for them or push them to do it.

The expenses are one matter, but I also get admin bottlenecks for things like customer contracts that get weeks to get approved (which is annoying for them and bad commercially) and it obviously affects my performance.

Sorry you have a shit manager. Manging upwards is so draining!