to stop extra flexibility after my manager imposed office hours?

[LouuLou]

I work in a small office team of five people. I’m the only full-time member of staff, everyone else is part time. We had a new manager start last year and honestly, up until now, things have been really good. We get on well, I like his management style and he has always said he cared more about people getting the work done than clock-watching.

I work very hard. I consistently hit targets, usually go beyond what is expected, and I won an achievement award last month. I also work very flexibly. I regularly start work at 7am, answer emails early, and will often still be available after 6pm. I usually work through lunch too. That flexibility has suited both the organisation and me because it means things get done quickly and I can also fit other parts of life around work. It is one of the things I am regularly complimented on - how quick I get tasks done.

Out of nowhere, he has now announced that I have to be physically in the office 9–5 three days a week. No actual problem has been identified, no concerns raised about my performance, no suggestion that work isn’t getting done. The explanation was basically that he “wants to try something different”.

Fine. He is the manager and he is entitled to set office hours if he wants to. I’m not arguing with that part.

But my feeling is that if he now wants strict contracted hours and presenteeism, then that is exactly what he will get. I no longer see the point in starting at 7am, replying to messages before work, being available into the evening or working through lunch. I’m planning to work my contracted hours, take a proper hour lunch break and log off at the end of the day.

I know this will reduce the amount I actually get done overall. But another part of me thinks flexibility works both ways. If management removes trust and autonomy, they can’t really expect staff to continue giving unpaid goodwill on top.

What did you do with all these spare hours at home OP?

Very happy to be proved wrong on this, thanks for the info 😊

How can I be supervised in house when I sat on my own all day? Even if the manager is there, he has a different office.

I have spare time as I have done a lot of the work for reports throughout the year instead of starting from scratch now.

A lot of what I do is project based work so it ebbs and flows.

I prep stuff in advance for work where possible - sometimes upto 3 months in advance. Then I do my own stuff - life admin, exercise if there is time.

Thanks but that poster has been corrected.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I really hate having to find more work for someone as a manager. I really prefer allowing flexibility so if it’s a quiet day someone might be slacking off but when it’s busy they do over hours. So much better than everyone just clock watching.

On that basis, I’d be tempted to play dumb and not know why there’s less work if you start on at 9 and make sure you loop in your manager when you’ve run out of work. Make that his problem as well as dealing with the early international calls. Be breezy, just let him know you started at 9 after your commute in and give completed xyz. Anything else he’d like you to pick up while you wait for abc to come in? Reports for next week all in hand already. If he replies then fine, you’re being even more productive and they should give you a raise. If he doesn’t then you can get on with personal stuff with a clear conscience.

The rule for any job is 80% utilisation on average. If you were 100% you would never be able to take on any other task or have a chance to chat with your colleagues. When I am at home, rather than office chit chat I’m loading washing machine or dishwasher or doing the odd personal errand.

No, I definitely liked to manage like this. We had two busy periods of six weeks a year, but usually up to three months total quiet time too, the rest was average.

I encouraged staff to knuckle down to it in the busy periods, but practically shoved them off home to tend to their lives during the quiet times. I actually had to mandate WFH during summer holidays, because it was so quiet that sitting in an office of bored people shuffling around in the heat with nothing to do was intolerable.

We made enough as a business for everyone to make a nice living and to save for a rainy day, which was more than enough for me.

This is good management. Work is always going to go up and down. It usually evens out than trying to extract every little bit from the employee all the time.

I think you should consider being a little more reflective. The working arrangement is clearly not working for your manager - it might be wise to find out why. People do not change things that are working as wonderfully as you describe.

I asked him and he said he wanted to try something different. He wouldn't expand any further.

I just had my appraisal last month and he was happy with my working style. It is fine if something has changed in the last few weeks, but it would be helpful if he says what it is.

I am just doing what he asked me to - work between 9-5. He is now handling the international calls and queries (and annoyed at having to ask me about quite a few things as normally I do it!).

Have you thought that other people in the team might be unhappy and this is his resolution. It does sound as if you work your hours to suit yourself as well as the business. When working from home were you always available to people or because you were picking up emails at 7.00 am were you taking a break or I think you mentioned exercising. I would suggest your manager thinks bringing you back into the office for part of the week is a very visible thing to do to solve the problem and worth having to take a few international calls. Maybe consider the possibility of these things before making yourself less productive.

Yes I reply quickly even if I was doing something else at home and available. I can answer emails and do most tasks from my phone. It is only myself and the manager who are full time. The rest of the team are part time and I rarely see them or work with them much as they are working on different things.

Sure it is upto the manager and I am going along with it. it is funny to see him getting annoyed with the additional work for him with his new 'different way' of trying things!

If the previous arrangement was that OP structured her hours around the busiest times of day and this meant she wasn't always contactable during quieter periods, and this was a problem, then the manager is entitled to insist she now works 9-5. This means she will not be contactable during the busiest times.

Perhaps the manager should consider whether he would rather have her available to answer international queries at 7am or rather have her on stand-by (and twiddling her thumbs) at 2pm, but he cannot have both.

Businesses can make what ever rules they like, but as soon as a business starts imposing rules that do not benefit the business but inconvenience employees, it will find that employees will cease to be interested in going the extra mile.

That is what I am doing - I am no longer doing the extra mile which actually made my manager's life easier. I stick to my hours, have the office presence sat on my own all day as the manager wants so he can forget the extras I did and the super fast responses.

Sounds like Manager has cut off his nose here!

I imagine at some point he will come creeping back to see if you can return to your previous set up, but if I were you I’d think about it if they do! Perhaps a contract change to suit you, or pay/overtime to compensate the out of hours work.
You are giving up a lot of your free time for (apparently) and ungrateful line manager x

I think it can be hard for some PP to envisage different types of jobs, but I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to realise that almost all work has extra busy periods, quieter periods, and crucially times when you have to wait for somebody else to do a thing otherwise you can’t progress your thing.

With all the best (and most diligent) will in the world, sometimes there just isn’t extra work to be done at that particular time, or you just can’t do the next step because there’s a holdup in an earlier process. Conversely, sometimes by being pro-actively early to start or flexibly late to finish, you could do the action or answer the email that enables the next person down the line to most efficiently get on with the process.

With that reality in mind, employers/managers have to balance wanting their staff working 100% flat-out 100% of the time, with the understanding that during extra busy periods nobody will have the slack to step up and work is going to pile up. They can’t really have both.

It sounds like now you're in the office and doing the role as described, you're finished by lunchtime. But scheduling emails to send work to look like your tasks are taking the full day.
My guess is your manager 's manager thinks your manager should be picking up what is his, what you were doing. And that there is work that you could be reassigned to you, or your role could be condensed to shorter hours.

But it's very hard to tell because you flip flop back and forth throughout the thread depending on what question you're answering.

People ask different questions and also the work is not the same 52 weeks a year.

This. Management are obviously fully aware your workload is too light.
You keep saying you are fast and you reply out of hours. It isn’t relevant.

It sounds like you were doing some of your manager’s job, and now you aren’t you don’t have enough to do.

Sounds like they’d be wise to either find you different work to do, otherwise you risk them cutting your hours or even your whole role.

How is having an office presence going to create more work?

The work is not steady all the time. In my industry, there are periods where it is very light.

They won't cut my role or reduce my hours.

The work is not steady all the time. In my industry, there are periods where it is very light.

It is possible your work can be given to another part timer who will do overtime during busy periods. . It is clear, even to posters on MN, that your role is not a full time position.

How is it clear from one thread that I have posted that it is clear that my role is not a full time position?