Colleague not coming to meetings - raise with his manager?

[Celia24]

I'm absolutely fuming that a colleague has not showed up to a meeting he confirmed attendance to this morning for the fifth time in about 2 months.

Everyone else attends and we usually sit waiting for him to arrive and often have to reschedule as a result. His work and input is essential to my ability to put together a well rounded brief for my clients.

I raised it with my manager last Friday who agreed it wasn't on. Today it has happened again.

He frequently appears half an hour to an hour later asking to have the meeting once we're done. I feel disrespected as a colleague. Would you raise it with his manager?

Hi @LookItsMeAgain the outcome was my manager is going to talk to him as it's 'unacceptable'. He confided that last year he was doing similar to him and he had a serious conversation with him at the time. My manager is a director so he clearly has this attitude regardless of seniority.

It just so happens his end of year review is happening too and I ended up talking to his manager on Friday. Turns out multiple people have lodged complaints against him previously.

I do worry how it will affect the working relationship knowing I've made the complaint but I just wasn't willing to keep being disrespected like that.

If he's acting this way with you, probably lots of others he's treating the same way so the complaint might have come from anywhere.

The working relationship is already shit OP if he can’t be arsed to come to your meetings

He sounds infuriating, but hopefully on his way out

Well done OP, at least you've find something.

Oh my! He would not get away with this where I work!

You have done the right thing in raising it with your manager. He is a grown up who should be able to organise himself to have his lunch to work around the meeting he had already accepted. Have you got access to his calendar so you can see if he had any other meetings before that may have impacted his precious lunch? It can be frustrating when people decide to book back to back meetings over lunchtime so I used to block out half an hour in my calendar every day for lunch so people knew before scheduling a meeting (and then ignore anyway and I miss lunch ha!)

As pp said, keep logging late/non-attendance to meetings, screenshot his calendar if possible when you schedule the meeting to show he had availability and again when he does not show to demonstrate he has no clashes.

I'm glad you raised it with your manager and raised the complaint.
His boss needs to do something about this, not you.

I'm surprised that the colleague has pulled a similar stunt with your manager (who is a director if I remember correctly) and still managed to stay employed by your company.

I hope that something serious comes out of the EOY Review and he is put on notice or something similar. It's so inconsiderate and shows he is not a team player when he does stuff like this.

Best of luck with the future meetings!

If this ‘known to be difficult’, repeatedly disrespects everyone by agreeing then failing to turn up to meetings and never ever apologises colleague was not a man, then it would be a very different story.

Firstly, it probably wouldn’t happen. Women have to fight so much harder to get anywhere in a workplace and behave accordingly, but if it did happen, she’d have been heavily disciplined and probably out on her ear three meetings ago.

Speaking as a professional woman in a male-dominated industry, who’s had to fend off ludicrous sex-based mistreatment and prejudice from day one…

Yep, totally agree @Peapodburgundybouquet . I've seen female directors do the powerplay thing of arriving at a meeting and announcing they've got a hard stop after 20 mins (although usually they will notify the meeting organiser in advance). Or that they can only join for the last 20 mins (ditto) but I've never known a woman behave like this tosser in a professional environment. I've known plenty of men not behave like this either, but I've definitely known at least one who has.

You need to stop trying to accommodate him.

You simply email his manager saying that ''unfortunately X is not coming into meetings which is preventing the group from doing its work so could you let me know who else should be invited in his place to cover this particular area of expertise'' and you leave it at that.

I think you have actually allowed this to go on for much too long.

He obviously see your meetings as optional and there is no point in trying to deal with him and this needs to be escalated.

Hi @Peapodburgundybouquet I had the same thought this week. If I'd been behaving this way what position would I be in now? I think I know the answer.

And to be honest it does give me pause that multiple complaints have been lodged and hes's still there happy as Larry.

I know @Greenfairydust . I gave the feedback to his manager ahead of his yearly review which I now know has taken place. When I saw him in person today he said hello with a smile once when his boss was standing beside him and makes me wonder if the boss has even spoken to him about the issue/if it is being tackled.

Other than that we kept out of each other's way and being totally honest I now feel very awkward. Now I know why his female colleague never speaks to him. Nicest woman in the office and she tells me she 'cant stand him'. He emerged from the annual review looking happy enough so he won't be going anywhere fast. I have to work with this guy closely and it has me questioning the job in some ways.

Yet more evidence of the patriarchy alive and kicking. I bet a woman struggling with childcare issues would be shoved out the door, and there he is swanning around the place without a care in the world! Honestly is he 5 years old, not being able to attend a meeting because he needs to have his sandwiches, Jeez how pathetic.

Empathy to you, @Celia24 it's so disruptive when there's a weak link in the team. Hopefully his absences are because he's interviewing externally and he buggers off elsewhere soon!