AIBU to be annoyed my boss keeps calling my parents?

[Moaningagainn]

So since my divorce I have obviously changed my emergency contact at work. However If my boss cannot get hold of me for whatever reason (to ask if I can do a different shift) she calls my parents and I am finding it really annoying.

The thing is I don’t want my mum to know if I didn’t turn up to work etc it’s not right and non of her business.

I work in HR.
Firstly, why does your manager have your emergency contact information? This should be held by HR.
Secondly, this is an abuse of what the information is intended for. We would only call the EC if someone failed to show for work and we couldn't reach them, or if an emergency occurred while they were at work.
My suggestion would be to email your manager to ask them to stop doing this. If they don't, escalated to HR. Explain if they need you, to call or message you directly and you'll respond when able to.

Reeeeaaaaadddddddd my response to myself right directly underneath this one.
For the love of God how hard is it.

No that's a breach of privacy/GDPR.

An emergency is if you have had an accident and are on way to hospital and they need to let next of kin know.

If you don't turn up for work they ring you, they message you, after a day or two they might knock on your door. After a few days 'mossing' they might be reasonable in contacting them and asking them to pass on a message to call in. They should not be disclosing ANY information.

This.

I had to call someone's emergency contact. I had to go through HR and have a valid reason for calling.

I have when I was worried about someone. Tried calling texting emailing the person (she had mental health issues) and I was worried about her when she didn’t show up.

I would absolutely contact emergency contact if an employee who usually turns up every day was more than 3 hours late and no contact with us. Particularly if they live alone. What if they are unwell at home and no-one else raises the alarm. If it was a regular occurrence then no I wouldn’t.

For the instance you've mentioned for wanting a shift swap is crazy.

However, what is your job? Are you a carer or lone worker not clocking in and out perhaps and not showing up?

If it's a safe guarding issue, then my opinion on calling to check in would be different but it would have to be a pretty big issue to ring your emergency contact.

No, absolutely NOT, that is not what they are for. Unless of course someone has not turned up for several days, has not contacted the office and is not replying to calls or messages. In which case it would be the right thing to do.

Yes that would be a valid reason to use an emergency contact, if they hadn’t phoned in sick or let someone know they wouldn’t be there, especially if they were a usually reliable employee or someone who may be vulnerable for whatever reason. You would usually wait a reasonable amount of time to decipher that they weren’t just late or had overslept first though.

There’s many examples of cases where the first knowledge that someone was missing came from work contacting a family member to advise they haven’t shown up, so it is a good system to have in place, so long as it’s not abused.

Whilst some companies might, you definitely do not need to wait until several days after someone has failed to show for work or contact anyone to get in touch with an emergency contact.

Waiting until you’re about 80% sure the person is dead is basically the complete opposite of what the system is designed for.

You only really need to have waited a reasonable amount of time whereby it’s not feasible that they are simply late or have overslept, and after a reasonable amount of attempts to contact the employee themselves have failed.

However the examples OP has given where her mum is being contacted for shift swaps are complete overkill.

Then you need to change your emergency contact.

I have absolutely had to call emergency contacts when staff haven’t turned up for a shift. Not straight away, but if it’s been an hour, no call back, I have a duty to ensure my staff are ok. That includes calling an emergency contact.

So when there is an actual emergency (ie the OP is rushed to hospital from work) they wouldn't be able to contact her mother when it's a time she would WANT her mother contacted.
Calling emergency contact after an HOUR.
That's ridiculous.
Not what emergency contact numbers are for.

Am 99% sure that looking up your emergency contact when there is no emergency is a breach of GDPR [because it is private information] as well as a gross misconduct under employment rules. I think there was even a High Court ruling on the use of private tel nos.

I’d be reporting this to HR and explaining that it is something you are entitled to escalate to the ICO. The manager is seriously out of order.

Does your mum use a mobile or a landline? Get her to block her number. I can block numbers on my landline too.

When the boss asks why tell her you object to her harassing your parents.

LOL. Boss thinks "emergency contact number" has a similar meaning to "emergency services", doesn't she?

If her house is on fire, it's an emergency, and she will call 999. If she can't get hold of someone to cover a shift at short notice, that's also an emergency, so she calls the emergency contact number.

What if something had happened? I’ve had a staff member trying to die by suicide. If I hadn’t had called his emergency contact they wouldn’t have known he was missing. They assumed he had gone to work as normal.

But that would be a rare situation.
Some people's emergency contact could live 300 miles away (because it's their parents).
A police welfare check would make more sense in a situation like that.

YANBU it should be for emergencies only, not stuff like they could not get hold of you to talk about a shift change etc.

I had a colleague who had not turned up for work and wasn't answering calls - but it was assumed she was just unreliable, nobody called and someone else covered. She had taken her own life and was found by her daughter.

If it's a case of basically going missing like that, then the manager should seek permission to contact the emergency number as an unusual step, for a welfare check.

Of course a responsible person who could call, would call in to let people know they weren't coming.

But if it's a general query like calling you when you're off duty to see if you can work extra then absolute no no.

Tell your manager first - 'please don't call my family for anything other than a genuine emergency as it's a breach of gdpr to use a number for anything other than the purpose it was gathered for. Seeing your work number come up frightens her as she has a shock thinking something has happened. Please don't do it again.'

(Is your mum quite elderly?)

Put it in a formal email to the manager then you have an evidence trail should you need to go to HR if she persists.

I think you'll find lots of company policies do use emergency contacts when someone hasn't turned up for work and hasn't replied to direct contact. Whether you agree or not is a different question but I know in plenty of places they do say to ring an emergency contact when someone doesn't show to work on day 1.

I shouldn't need to read your follow up posts. And still haven't.
If you read it right the first time you'd not have posted the drivel in the first place and wouldn't have to follow it up or attempt to passive aggressively repost what I said in defence... 🤷‍♀️

Good day to you.

That’s a managers job and why the emergency contact exists. Using it to ask to work another shift is not appropriate use of that information.

But that’s exactly what the emergency number is for. If you can’t get hold of the emergency contact, you can contact the police. We had this happen a few times. The emergency contact is there for exactly that reason if someone doesn’t show up for work and isn’t responding to messages. We had this happen last week, and due to other information we were aware of, contacted the police.

Sincerely hope that many posters here are not managers if they’d only contact emergency services if they didn’t show for several days. WTF. If you don’t show up for work, don’t contact your manager and don’t reply to several messages, we are calling your emergency contact. I always say if no response in 30 mins i’ll contact your emergency contact, then they reply (only say that if not replied to first 1-2 messages). Leaving is several days is terrible, and you’d certainly be failing in your job as a manager.