Acceptable? Manager contacting outside of working hours

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What are peoples thoughts on managers messaging/ calling from their personal mobile to your personal mobile outside working hours? Evenings/ weekends and non working days. Talking about a manager who you don’t consider a friend.

I’m talking friendly messages like ‘what was that place you said for lunch?’ Something social but related to work like sent some £££s for the leaving collection, and phoning/ messaging about things that you should have done at work (which it turns out you have done so no need for the message at all).

Thanks.

Is this a man texting a woman?

I'd ignore them and deal with them in working hours, I think.

Generally, I ignore until I am back in work but I did respond to an email on Sunday night from my Line Manager at the weekend recently. It is awkward if it's a Manager as opposed to a colleague.

My suggestion is turn read receipts off and make them aware you are strict as a family about having time away from phones outside of working hours so you apologise if you don't respond outside of contracted hours.

A work colleague or boss should not be using your personal contact details for personal messages, unless you have agreed to it, if you are friends outside of work for instance.

Work-related messages should either be completely ignored until you are actually during your contracted hours, or you should put in a claim for overtime.

I hate this. I once had my boss ring me on my personal mobile when I was on holiday abroad either to check when I was coming back or to ask me something. He didn’t apologise and would’ve done it again so I just didn’t answer next time he rang. Rude.

I am a big believer in switching off and disengaging outside of my working hours. I rarely work above and beyond my contracted hours, and if I do, I expect TOIL or overtime.

That said, I am usually happy for my line manager to have my personal mobile as sometimes shit happens, or they are working unsociable hours and need an urgent answer to something, or I might have had an emergency that might mean I am late in or not in at all the next day.

Occasional instances where its an emergency/important I am happy to let slide but if it became a common occurrence then I would not hesitate in having a word.

If it was a crisis message, I'd respond. Anything else, absolutely not. A proper crisis, not a crisis for them only.

It is.

Just don’t answer?

This is why it pays and makes sense to have a PAYG number for work and work colleagues.

That way you can turn it off at the end of the work day and not feel guilty, nor do you have to compromise your personal phone and worry about being contacted.

Fuck that shit.

Giving any employer your personal phone number is asking for trouble. PAYG for those fuckers all day long.

I’m a manager of a team and I only ever contact anyone outside of work hours at all if it’s is essential. Which given out work is life and death means I’ve never started such a chat! If the team need me I respond out of my work hours though.

it’s inappropriate. I’d ignore and only respond in work time.

I don't mind it tbh.

They can contact me and if I'm free/able/happy to respond at the time, I will.

If I'm busy, then I won't.

I wouldn't get the hump just cos someone from work contacted me outside of my working hours to ask about something social.

I am a manager, I don't contact employees about personal things, but I do have to call/text on occasion to see if they can cover a shift.

I've messaged my boss (who I also class as a friend though) outside of work to wish him a happy birthday or to pass on some information as he was travelling and it came through to me.

We spend 5 days a week on the other end of Teams so there is no need to speak to him outside of those times really but I wouldn't have a problem if he messaged to ask for x place or y place that I'd mentioned though.

I used to try and minimize communication, tried to keep strictly on emails and not Teams or text because she was highly irritable and a bit of a bully. I used to avoid comms even on me coming in late on the rare occasion. She wfh and people would cover for me as I was very helpful to everyone
If you are forced to reply keep it extremely vague always outside of work saying you're not sure

Is he using benign questions to strike up a text conversation?

I think it depends on your relationship.
If you are on friendly terms I see no harm in the odd personal message. Its up to you if yiu tespibd or not.
That said I'm a Manager and I keep messages very limited to a small group of staff Im close to and only vary rarely. I would never message work things outside work hours.

It does seem that way. I can go for 2 weeks without speaking/ seeing/ messaging/ having anything to do with this manager inside work so tbh it’s strange to me but I’ve never worked hybrid before. I don’t mind the slightly friendly ones so much and will be polite (but also I’d rather not tbh. I’d rather effort was made at work before hearing from
spmeone outside of work).

i do mind the latest message and missed call on my NWD though. This was a rant about how I should’ve given someone calendar access as it’s very inconvenient, unclear, unsafe, making it difficult to see what’s booked in etc then 5 minutes later a o the guy does have calendar access. No apology for. He had asked how my weekend was in the message so I joked back that I was still on my weekend and the messages have stopped since then. So I think he gets it. But I’m left thinking I’m being uptight.

i literally feel like this guys pushing boundaries, messages are all pointless (like just tell me about where you went at the weekend in work surely- we’re not friends but it would be a nice work chat 🤷‍♀️ ).