Why is new boss being such a knob?

[Buggeroffboss]

Our old boss took ill suddenly in December last year and died shortly after. They been the boss for 20+ years, so appreciate we were all very used to them.

Following their illness I became interim boss. In April I was offered the role permanently but declined as it would mean returning to full time work. I'm bitterly regretting not taking it due to new boss!

We're a remote team, have been since many years before COVID. New boss clearly hates remote working. We do have an office, but it seats 10 people and us open to the whole business (approx 300 people) not just our department (40 people). New boss wants everyone in the office 2 days a week. HR have told him to go whistle - we are all on remote contracts and live across the whole of the UK, including channel Islands and 2 in France!

New boss is now insisting we schedule any "coffee breaks" (you know, where you brew up between meetings) and that under no circumstances are we to appear on screen with tea/ coffee if it isn't adjacent to our scheduled break. In addition he's put an embargo on lunch time errands, such as laundry, popping to the post office or collecting the car from the garage. All time is to be accounted for.

As you can imagine, morale has gone down the pan. We're a high performing department, there is 0 issues with productivity. Our work is largely invisible most of the time, lots of thinking time and idea generation which makes monitoring our day to day workloads difficult, but we always exceed our targets at quarter and year ends - so people are clearly working. In the 6 weeks he's been in there's been a noticeable change in how people are working, fewer people on early or late, most just working to their hours.

AIBU to think he's being a bit of a dick and just needs to chill the fuck out?

It sounds like the previous manager led with a ‘results based’ model and not an hourly model.

So the core hours are staffed, then working is flexible around meeting deadlines and goals.

You manage employees in this scenario by their output and deliverables, not a time sheet.

You have to be alert to working hours to a certain extent but that’s usually to protect an employee from working too many hours rather than too few.

This is absolutely crazy! He sounds like a nightmare. Hopefully he doesn't last long OP.

I’m not the OP, but for us, we have a written policy that states we can flex our hours day to day, provided there’s no negative impact on colleagues or clients.
I’m internal facing, so basically as long as I don’t have a meeting, and there’s not some work that will miss a deadline, I can flex my hours as I like.
When the policy was introduced, the head of HR specifically used the example of her going to the gym in her lunch break, which would take it to over an hour, as an example of something completely allowed under the policy.

Sounds like OP has similar flexibility. And her new boss hasn’t experienced that kind of culture before, and doesn’t like it. He sounds bad at managing based on output, and needs to manage based on presenteeism.

Curious that your boss can tell you what to do in your lunch break. It's YOUR lunch break.

Oh I do hope everyone puts their drink of water in a mug. New boss will waste so much time reporting everyone and be made to look like a total pillock for reporting people drinking water.

apologies - you’d answered a PP about him being an external hire. Is he on probation?

That allows for a lot of trust. Fine in a small team but a 40 odd team? Tricky. Do you have to log your hours to ensure you are actually doing a full working week? Or does the contract say “as long as you get your assigned work done”?

so the important factor now is the wording of the contract. Which boss is adhering. Former or current

New boss is under the delusion that he has to assert his authority to be feared and respected as the boss, by being a dick. He's come into an established team and thinks he won't get taken seriously as the boss unless he bosses it to the max from day one.

I can’t get past him saying you’re not allowed to make a cup of tea unless you’ve scheduled in a tea break?! Is there an acceptable length of time for this tea break? Have you been told how many you’re allowed to have?
There’s so much here that you need to take to HR about this man. The tea break stuff, so effectively telling people they can’t make a drink unless it’s been agreed, surely can’t be allowed as it’s completely unreasonable. Unless you’re in a job where being at your desk at set times is critical such as an emergency services call handler, this is just bonkers and he needs to be pulled up on it.

but if they're drinking their tea on screen then its not a tea break. putting water in a cup is not a break ffs.

Similar to others, I am contracted to work 40 hours a week. When and where I do those hours are entirely up to me as long as they fit with my projects. If I’m working with our US team,
then it’s common for me not to be online until 1pm as I’ll often have calls going into my evening.

Not quite sure why it’s so hard to understand not everyone has set contracted hours which dictate lunch break times and length.

Anyhow, we have a new manager who had previously worked for a very rigid company. He soon picked up that our team isn’t like that and he had to get used to people working random hours and joining calls where pets would often put in an appearance. All perfectly acceptable as the CEO often has his dogs on camera with him. He’s mellowed quite a lot in the few months he’s been with the company.

Project based work doesn’t need a ‘working week’ in the sense that everyone needs to do a strict 40 hours etc.

The deliverable is something like ‘produce analysis of this quarter’s new client acquisition - written document and slide deck needed by Friday’

Manager has assessed its a week’s worth of work for employee A.

As long as employee A produces the work expected by the deadline, and participates in any meetings or core staffing hours as well then it shouldn’t matter to the manger if A decides to start work at 6am - break for an hour at 8.30 to do the school run. Take four tea breaks and go to the gym at 5pm. Do two hours of work in the evening after dinner.

Then the next day she works 8-4 with a 30 minute lunch at 1pm.

Come Friday she presents the document and slide deck in the meeting.

As I said before with project based work the main danger is an employee doing too many hours to get something done and not letting line managers know their deadline and goal is not deliverable within normal working hours load.

I am a manager
this is fine with senior people
but to have this level of flexibility and trust for all 40 people in a team of varying experience and skill sets would be… difficult and unusual

One can't help wondering how much time the new manager is spending on doing his actual work, compared with the time spent continuously monitoring every move of all the team members.

@Buggeroffboss - mess with his brain. Secretly ask all the team to book their coffee breaks and lunch hours 1 minute apart from each other for a week, but all change the timings slightly every day. Monitoring all that lot for 40 people to the last second will absolutely do his nut.😂

I’d tackle this a a group if I were you. I’d gather the opinions of your colleagues and use this as evidence that your complaint isn’t personal but impacting the entire team.

I had a boss once who tried to get me to buy her lottery ticket in my lunch hour. I bought the ticket but came in late by the exact amount of time the diversion to the shop had taken. An extra 15 minutes. When queried I told her I was happy to do her shopping, but only on company time,

You have to protect time you are not paid for.

Exactly
op is the second most senior in the team, so will likely have many reports. She needs to be advocating for them if they arE unhappy

Not entirely, be cause sometimes we have to fit it in between meetings etc and sometimes I don't get a lunch break because I'm too busy. It's swings and roundabouts. And sometimes I plan a long lunch and have to cancel because something comes up.

If you've got a lunch break they can't mandate what you do during that time? How would they know even?

Understood
but presumably you do have to mention to your manager before taking an extra long lunch break?

The contract in my current job is a bit less flexible than the OP's but the general idea is similar (but I can't be arsed to unearth it to quote the actual wording). 37.5 hours, core hours 10-12 and 2-4, WFH 3 days per week, on site 2 days. We don't have to inform anyone if we flex outside the core hours, although in practice we'll usually let our immediate team know because that just makes sense for working together. It's an even bigger department than the OP's, over 100 people. I also know from interactions with other departments that they have similar arrangements.

I suppose you could say it is a huge amount of trust, but the organisation hasn't collapsed (yet) from an excess of tea consumption, toilet visits or haircuts.

That’s why it’s a full time job and presumably compensated appropriately.

It’s understandable that the new manager doesn’t know his team well enough to trust they can manage this level of flexibility but that means his monitoring should be more about the goals and deliverables.

Meet with reports and talk about deadlines and workloads - monitor output. Get to know who is always meeting deadlines and producing good work.

Start to manage the weaker team members if they are not delivering what is expected.

Keep an eye on those who are online too much as it indicates they are not keeping up to the pace of work.

We have line managers with in the team as well (I am one) so it's not a single person manage all 40 people's quality and work ethic.

We had a new starter in Feb. They royally took the piss of the flexible and relaxed approach - turning up late and unprepared for meetings, not abiding by deadlines. They didn't make it past probation.

I never have before. I do let anyone who may need me that day know - whether it's my manager or a colleague or a junior, but not a specific person.

If I need to take time outside of lunch e.g. GP appointment or school assembly then I tell my boss.

If my boss asks me to inform him moving forward, I'd have no issue with that though. I don't expect my direct reports to inform me though.