Asking colleagues not to contact me on AL

[Sooverwork]

I’ve name changed for this post. I’m a manager in which I am almost on call 24/7 with no compensation . After 4.5 years I’m exhausted as have no respite. I am going on annual leave for less than 2 weeks . I do all the usual things - delegate work to the alleged 2 “ second in charge “, have an out of office reply on etc . However even with a “ Do Not Disturb” on my phone I still have the second in charge (s) texting me . This happens all the time even if I have a scheduled day off for doctors / elderly parent appt. I can’t go on like this anymore . How do I inform them NOT to contact me on my leave and not sound like a bitch . Please note that I never do this to either of them or any other member of my staff . With these two it’s a bit of a combination of laziness , not wanting to be responsible but for reasons I don’t want to go into I can’t sack or denote either of them . I just need to make it clear that I do not want to be contacted . Sorry for rant !

They key is really not to reward their efforts to contact you with a response, and so they give up because there's no point. I've had upwards of 50 staff, in a busy volatile industry and it's really the only way to do it.

Get a seperate number, tell work you're changing your number, give them the new number. Turn phone off when you don't want to be contactable. Block all work numbers on your personal phone.

If they think there's a chance you'll respond, they will ask the question. If they don't they'll work it out for themselves.

I laughed at the burner phone post. All newer iPhones can take a physical SIM and multiple eSIMs (although you can only have about 2 active at once). I have this set up with my phone. Handy for going abroad as well, just get a cheap international eSIM

@Sooverwork I'm so sorry about your DF.

Do you have a manager yourself that you can speak to about this? You should have the right to go through this event without having to worry about work.Perhaps if they were told they had to refer questions to the level above then that might put them off.

I would just say that due to personal reasons you cannot pick up any calls over the next two weeks. If they are absolutely struggling to know what to do refer it to your boss.You don't need to give them the reason.

Unless yo are the CEO, there must be someone else you can tell them to direct urgent queries to.
Otherwise, get a burner phone, give them all the number for that, and then block them on your normal number. Then leave the burner phone at home. That will also help with out-of-hours queries when you are not on holiday.
You encourage them by answering them at all. Make your position clear by not answering calls outside your paid working hours. You need to be setting the expectations here.

@Sooverwork who is above you in the management chain?

If they're not listening to you then your superior needs to either send a blanket message about work life balance and acceptable contact with those on leave/sick or personally tell the people responsible that it has to stop.

I know you're trying to be nice about it but this needs a firm management response.

I think you are past the stage of needing to find a "polite" way to approach this. You need to be firm and direct to the point of bluntness.

The person repeatedly contacting staff on sick leave should have been put through a disciplinary for doing that and given a formal warning, not just reprimanded.

Similarly, if they contact you while you are away and ingore the chain of command and directions that you've issued them with, that suggests that they can't do their job properly and that needs to be addressed formally.

I’m sorry but it is out of your own making.
If you were stronger with them it would not go on for that long.
Tell them you won’t be contactable, block them and don’t reply. They will soon learn
( I’m not being mean here. I’ve made exactly the same mistake as you)

That doesn't sound rude, just clear. If you've fussy footed around this perhaps that's why they think contacting you us ok. Also if they do contact you just don't respond and they'll realise they need to do themselves

As your private number has been circulated to all and sundry at work (which should NEVER have happened), you need to change your private number, and not give it to anyone except possibly HR and possibly your line manager, making it clear that it is for emergencies only.
Then you have a separate work phone, or work SIM in the one handset, which you switch off when not in working hours, including evenings and weekends as well as holiday.

This is within your power to solve.

Thank you . I don’t panic and I’ve been told by many I’m a good manager and implemented positive changes in this department . These two were not of my choosing though and no matter what I say to them they choose not to get it . I’m going to sit them down with the OM this time around and re outline my expectations of them . They’ve been called up not just by me for underperformance and given strategies but it still lingers . Works for a bit and then revert to prior form.

Unless you are literally the top of the chain of command, I wouldn't even say they can contact you in an emergency. They either sort it themselves, or if it's really beyond them, they go up the chain to your boss (not you!).

I think you just send something to them saying "I am not contactable for anything whilst I'm on leave. I will not be answering calls, emails or texts. Sort it yourself or ask <<next person up chain>>"

Then if you can't leave your phone for some reason, block them (you can unblock when you get back) and sign out of your work email etc. If you don't already have a separate work phone / work sim you can turn off, I'd definitely be looking at getting one sorted in future!!

Another vote for blocking them when you're on leave!

I would combine a few things: 1. do your handover in advance, go through it with them, game plan possible scenarios. 2. make sure they have someone to refer their doubts to in your absence. 3. Tell them ‘I trust you to deal with situations that arise as you think best.’

Get practicing the boundaries before you go away by not responding when they contact you outside of your working hours.

Someone further up thread said something about making it more work for them to contact you than to handle it - I absolutely agree with this.

If they call - do not answer. If they leave a vm - do not listen to it. If they text, ideally don’t read it but even if you do - do not reply.

Then when you’re back in work the next day, set up a meeting where you go through each contact they tried to have and get them to tell you how they went on to solve the problem. If they didn’t deal with it, it goes on their to do list for that day. Make sure the meeting takes up some of their time - read out the texts they sent, make them listen to the voicemails. Minute the meeting and send them the minutes with action points. It will also take some time from you in the short term, but when you go on your leave, they will know that this is exactly how you’ll handle it when you get back, and they are going to have a hell of a lot of action points if they’ve not dealt with anything themselves for two weeks.

We did have a fire while the manager was on holiday!

Agree with PPs that turning your phone off and getting a secondary pay-as-you-go for family and friends is the way forward.

You've told them not to contact you but they they continue to do so because you answer.

Stop answering and they'll stop calling.

Easiest way to achieve that is for your phone to be off.

Block their numbers. You can unblock when you go back to work.

I think I’d have a meeting with no2, handover etc and say that you are going to be somewhere with bad signal/reception so unlikely you’ll be able to pick up calls/messages, but you trust them to make the right decisions so please don’t bother trying to contact you when you’re away. Then put in writing in an email cc’ing in your boss “as discussed, I’m not going to be contactable during my leave, please contact [line manager] if there is an emergency, but I’m sure you’ll be able to manage anything that comes up.”

any calls that come in, dump to voicemail. Messages ignore. Honestly they will cope. On your last day, message to say that you’ve picked up the messages and hope all sorted.

just don't respond.
remove office communication app from your phone for the duration of you absence.
block office number.

Sorry about your DF. I’d pull them both aside, tell them your father is dying, you’re spending time with him and you need them to step up as you don’t want to be disturbed. If they do contact you, don’t reply unless it’s extremely serious

Get a work phone. Turn it off when you are not at work!!
If that’s not possible, and anyone contacts you- don’t reply.

Why? You've tried polite, it clearly didn't work. Time to give blunt a shot.

Why don’t have you a work mobile? Sounds like this is required in your circumstances?
If you can’t get a work mobile, I’d switch the PAYG advice. I’d tell everyone at work you have new number. Get an old phone with a PAYG SIM. Block their numbers on your personal phone. Do not set up an answerphone for the PAYG. When you are off work, turn that phone off. You only turn it on as and when you are working and can respond. Also turn off your answerphone on your personal number because IME people can leave answerphone messages even if they are blocked.
Be consistent and they will get the hint eventually.

I know what you mean about Do Not Disturb @Sooverwork - there are various annoyances:

• when I have just DND turned on, the notifications still appear on my watch or the car if the phone's connected to them
• when I have Downtime turned on, I can see the notification number in the corner of each app.

I must have another try with AppBlock as I think that properly blocks the apps and stores the notifications until I switch it off.

How are they contacting you, is it WhatsApp, SMS, Teams? I would block them on your phone and in all relevant apps for the duration of your holiday. I would uninstall Teams completely.

With two incompetent deputies, is there anyone below them who isn't a complete waste of space? Can you delegate anything to them?

Send an email to your manager cc’ing in your deputies, saying that they are in charge from x to x dates as you will not be contactable. Then stick on your Ou of office/ block calls/ whatever it takes