Under resourced and blamed for issues

[Outofideas79]

I really need some advice/perspective on what I'm finding a stressful work situation.

For background. I'm a middle leader, who works 22.5 hours a week (trying to have this increased but finances are a barrier as it stands).

A year ago, a key member of a project delivery team left and was never replaced. By default unspoken agreement, myself and a colleague took up thr role. This was never formally discussed with us, just assumed. The project is an annual delivery, and last year we pulled it off, despite a lot of stress and putting lots of extra hours in.

At the time this team member left and many times since then I have raised concerns regarding our ability to effectively deliver this project on the staffing resources we had, both in writing in mid year and end of year reveiws and verbally. This concern because greater when my team member's husband was diagnosed with cancer. At this point I raised very strong concerns about the resilience of the team, as we had no jdea how his treatment and health would pan out, at a key delivery time. Needless to say this has fallen on deaf ears.

This week, due to my colleague having to be off work etc due to caring for her husband, balls have been dropped, and despite me putting in a huge number of extra hours, there have been issues with the delivery of the project. Which I and my colleague have been blamed for. Despite the repeated concerns raised regarding the real danger of failure, to the most senior members of the organisation, no extra resources have been given or plans put in place to mitigant my concerns. This is a project I have been involved with for 10 years, so feel I have a good idea of the potential pitfalls.

Last week alone I put in a huge amount of extra work, working when my child was playing and in bed, in order to make up for the shortfall. These are hours I will not get paid overtime for, and will only be able to claim as time off in lieu ( which is struggle to take due to the demands of the job, and my hours).

How on earth do I deal with this (other than leaving. Currently I'm trying but also not as easy as that). We still have a month of this left, and I'm really struggling at this point. What on earth can I do, and how do I response to the accusations if being responsible for the issues

I am in a similar position - new team, one one post filled, been stalled and delayed on recruitment and still under pressure to deliver. When I've said "who do you think is going to do the work?" The response was pretty much "I don't care, get it all done" because my manager doesn't want to look bad and doesn't have the confidence to explain why the work isn't getting done to more senior people.

There's a few options:

You said you're trying to leave. I am leaving shortly. Once you put your mind to it you can usually get out pretty quick. But you've said it's not that simple, is this for a particular reason? What are the barriers?

You can stop trying to get the work done - all the time you try you kind of solve the problem for them by making it look possible, then you get the blame because you can't possibly achieve it. I've found this to be quite effective. I suspect if you do this you'll start getting some movement. Make it their problem, at the moment they're making it your problem.

Posted too soon!

Another thing I've done is put it on the desk of the most senior person I can find - right at the top in act. The person I chose to tell went through the roof when they found out what was going on, basically that the slightly less senior people were willing firstly to put all that pressure on one person and secondly risk the delivery of a really key project simply by being lazy and crap "leaders".

Ultimately getting out is your best option though.

The problem here is that you are masking the problem.

You say that there are not enough people to do the job, then you work loads of extra hours and the job gets done, so as far as the more senior people are concerned the job is getting done with the number of people they have, so why would they pay for more?

The only way you'll get more resource is to stop filling the gap and let some of the work not get done.

I’m just really sorry this is happening to you. The others are right: stop masking the problem and leave.

@CyberCritical but this week, it didn't actually fail, and I still got bollocked. And I've repeatedly raised the issue and risk of failure. So what happens if it dies actually fail!?

Have you been paid for your extra hours?

All the previous times you expressed concern, did you put your concerns in writing and state what work you planned to prioritise?

It takes time to find and recruit full time staff and you need to have a business case worked out for why they are needed.

If the key issue was this once a year project, I would have flagged some weeks out it was at risk and told senior management either we needed a temp, to be sourced from X agency for Y weeks at Z cost. Alternatively, that we needed a team member seconded from Team A for B weeks.

You could actually have done both in parallel. Asked for a permanent team member but also flagged the urgent and immediate risk that the deadline would be missed/standards would slip unacceptably and made the compelling case for extra temporary resource more forcefully

@Katrinawaves I have written and submitted a business case for this post to be refilled. And have been very forceful.l both in person and in writing. I'm not sure really what else I could have done.

The only other option at this stage then is to email the decision makers internally and say with current resource, only certain aspects of the project can be delivered to standard, setting out what you have selected for delivery and what you are dropping. It is then their responsibility to either reprioritise what is to be delivered or to provide the temporary resource to deliver the whole thing.

The key is to ensure they are kept informed well in advance and there are no surprises landing at the last moment.

Thank you @Katrinawaves I will put some thought into how that can be worded.

I would honestly stop doing it. Work your hours and no more. Explain you're doing exactly that, and that not everything is going to get done. If you get bollocked anyway, what have you got to lose?

I'd also start looking for another job.

That’s not really what’s expected in a leadership role though. OP has said she is middle management not a grunt

Dear xxxxx

I am sending this email to flag the following risk regarding resource and deliverables for Project xxx

As you are aware, when xxx left a year ago her role was not backfilled and was instead absorbed by myself and xxx. Since then we have endeavoured to keep the project on track while maintaining SLAs for our BAU activity. This has required both of us to work additional hours every week, and is no longer sustainable.

I have conducted a prioritisation exercise and the following tasks are high priority with short deadlines, they will require 2 FTE to complete within the deadlines assigned

• activity 1
• activity 2

The following activities are low priority and we do not have the resource to deliver them so these will need to be either reassigned to additional resource or they cannot be completed.

• activity 1
• activity 2

I welcome a discussion with you, if you'd like to better understand how I prioritised these actions or to identify what additional resource is needed.

Unless I hear otherwise I will continue with the plan detailed above to complete the priority activities only.

Kind regards

I'm also middle management. Work PT. Do not work (much) beyond my hours and I am clear about what I can and can't do. I don't think there's anything wrong with having boundaries at any level otherwise you will be walked all over.

To avoid a drip feed.
Since the employee left has your role expanded to include the project as an assigned task?
Was it included as a task in any personal review?
Were you paid extra or given any formal recognition as a result of taking on the project?

Anyway
You need to hand the project back to the most senior person in charge of its delivery.
The responsibility has been forced on you when you can not control or change the outcome. And your mistake is to accept the responsibility which allows tbe senior managers off the hook.

I would email the senior manager with a header project delivery is not possible

First paragraph is a one liner that the project cant be deliverd on the date and the expected overrun will be X number of days.

The next paragraph is a one liner where you ask for direction (and then NB shut up).
Do not offer any solutions or alternatives.
Your role is to force senior management to come up with a solution. Failure to produce the project can not be fully blaimed on you if you are working under direction.

next paragraphs

As pp said list what has been done to date and list out total hours you have already commited to the project.
(Do not be shy or modest. You have already put in unpaid personal time to ensure that the project and your other daily tasks have been done. And if you have sidelined any regular tasks and are going to continue to sideline tasks list these too.
^ is to demonstrate that you have been working over your capacity.)

Then list what it outstanding And what elements can be reasonably finalised with in the time frame
(Reasonable in this case is normal worktime taking your (+ other team members) other tasks into acccount. You need to point out that you are being paid to do your role not the project so X hours are regular tasks and Y are project tasks.)

Highlight what cant be achived within the limited resources.

And your closing paragaph is asking the manager to come up with a solution.

You will continue to be ignored if the senior manager has someone to blame (you) for the failure so your best option it to make the failure that managers problem now.

@AnSolas no to all of the questions. I have always been somewhat involved in the project, but more from the periphery. The previous person left just before key delivery time, and we were left to move in and take on the majority as we had most knowledge. With no extra time resources or pay, and certainly no recognition. No formal meetings were had about us taking them on. Tasking from senior leadership was just redirected.

Yeah, do as Katrinawaves states, and in writing, referencing back to your previous communications on the matter.

And don’t work unpaid overtime, other than the usual, proportionate ‘goodwill’ effort.

All of that ^ is good for you.

Senior management have taken advantage of your good nature and "given" you 1/2 a full time role you are not getting paid for.

The senior manager is getting paid the big bucks to manage the project and was doing it on the cheap by saving the cost of 1 FTE * 260 work days. And by pushing the responsibility down on to your team. The manager will now have to come up with the cost ( internal or external for a day rate ) for the next month to push the project over the line. That is not a decision you make or even be seen to make. Therefore yoi need the manager to either be prepared to provide a reason why the project failed or be prepared to fund is sucess.
If needed the manager puts their daily tasks to oneside and work with you or they find the people who can help.

If the manager start to allocate blame you point out that you have no role responsibility to carry out the tasks. You were acting under direction of manager whos duty was to get the task done.

And dont think you have to leave for a new job think that that manager has no right to punish you for not being able to do tasks which were never part of your agreed role.

DH’s job has the same problem. They need more staff but the top brass won’t invest. He keeps having to pressure staff to work harder to make up the shortfall. The result is that three more staff have resigned and got new jobs.

Well, really, no. DH should have pushed the buck back up the chain not down as this is the precise issue that OP has?!

It’s not always the top brass’s fault in these circumstances! It’s more likely to be the management level below or even a refusal at ground level to do things differently/more efficiently.

I’m at C Suite level and have directors in my function reporting in to me, who all have their own teams to manage. For the last year the company hasn’t been hitting financial targets and there have been headcount reductions and recruitment freezes as a result.

I bang my head over and over again against the brick wall of telling some of my directors that they are prioritising the wrong things and that some of their previous activities (which their team have enjoyed doing) are no longer priorities because they do not generate sufficient revenue or the risk of not devoting the same amount of time to these areas is low. So some of these directors are constantly complaining that their team’s workload is too high, that people have not been replaced and they are being treated badly when the reality is that they need to cut their cloth according to their means and only focus on the areas I have told them are the priorities. If their team does have any capacity after these priorities are completed then sure they can spend this on the more glamorous, fun, nice to do work but it drives me nuts when I see that yet another project has been done by these directors for glory at the same time they are telling me they are under resourced to do the stuff I need them to do to keep the lights on. Driving change is hard! Some of my directors do get it and it’s a work in progress educating the others but I would definitely listen if one of the directors reports came to me about a key project which was about to fail due to resources being misdirected and ensure something was done about it.

Yeah he did push it up the chain. The top guys said no we won’t be hiring more staff, you must do the work with the staff you have. So DH (as instructed) said ok guys we have a heavy workload. And they said “fuck off we are leaving”.