Setting boundaries on time when you're senior and expected to work long hours...

[Wonderbug81]

Having looked back at a few posts on here about senior workload, it seems generally accepted that most people have to do at least a few additional hours, if not up to 20 or 30 beyond the contract for some types of roles.

I have a very busy senior role where it's expected that we do extra hours. I usually do about 50-55 hours a week. It could easily be closer to 65 hours to keep on top of workload but I just can't manage that so I accept some things will always be behind. My boss is really happy with my work but would love it if I could do more!

Looking for tips or advice for those of you who do work longer hours but who have managed to put some boundaries in place (with the company/boss/team etc) so it doesn't get out of control!

Thanks

Thank you, great approach.

Yes personal phone, notifications off as I prefer to check at times (usually once a night) that suit me. I'd much prefer that everyone contacted each other IF urgent via Whatsapp, as my old company did, but I was actually told by one colleague that just isn't how the company works. People are expected to be always on because urgent public facing things come up.

It's not helped by it being a global company but even so, it's an unhealthy culture.

Thank you so much. I have to say I'm just not sure that's my own manager's attitude. She says she doesn't want us working long hours but has made comments about being surprised when one of my direct reports didn't cancel holiday when we had an urgent deadline. My boss has also cancelled two sets of holiday themselves when they were busy. They know I am doing these hours and thanks me frequently but they've also stressed we will have to work faster and harder to keep their own boss happy.

The other thing to do, is to cultivate your manager's PA and their manager's PA... you would be surprised what we can drip through... and what we don't. I have told my boss who to be kinder to, because their father is going through end stage cancer or their kids are in hospital. One of the Global GMs I worked with at IBM lost five members of staff in one year and hand wrote a note to each of their families, that taught me a lot.

As to a manager who would expect someone to cancel a holiday, that immediately tells me that they do not feel secure in their role... so own yours' and if anything similar happens pre-empt it with, "I am so pleased to work for someone who values their team and does not expect them to cancel leave, it sends a subtle, yet strong message to the team about how much you value them!"

I save one of my clients several hours by getting her to restrict how often she looked at emails etc. by doing this, she was able to concentrate on getting tasks done and not getting distracted by other things that may look like a quick fix, but really delay the thing you should be working on.

I am senior level in a small organisation and I don't think it's acceptable to ask anyone to work as you are, 40% more than their standard hours on a regular basis. If it's that bad they need more staff. People need rest, downtime and a life. I just can't physically work that much anyway as I have other things to do in life.

So your manager is pushing you to do all these hours so she looks good to her manager? It sounds like she’s in the wrong job to be honest. I would not be impressed by someone who is so bad at time management and forward planning that they have to cancel their holiday to get work done - that is a massive red flag. It all sounds very chaotic. A manager is supposed to be able to manage workloads and people - she is failing and will take you down with her.

OP your manager is giving mixed signals. No one should ever be expected to cancel annual leave. I've been working for over 35 years and have never once been asked to do this.

Honestly I would respect you as a senior leader more if you held better boundaries and set a good culture for those below. Priorities need to be clear. I would think you were trying to prove something and failing if you always answered to emails in evenings and on holidays. It's not healthy for you, your family and other staff. Good luck working on those boundaries, it will be worth it.

Thank you, really good point re training. Although training budgets are also up in the air. Will look into low cost options!

I am more than a bit of a people pleaser which I must work on! Lots of good advice here which I'll definitely implement.

This sounds like a very unhealthy company culture.

I am senior in a global organisation. I have at time worked silly hours too, but the past years I have really focused on my boundaries and I feel so much better for it. I work 8-6 and that’s the hours I am available. Once I log off, I am offline and don’t think about work at all. I also never log in over weekends anymore. I just try to prioritise so what is most urgent gets done and usually I make it. I think having down time makes me more efficient when I am actually working.

I also decline any call invite I don’t think it’s important that I attend or actively ask why I am being invited etc

A big one for me is not having work on my phone. I can’t imagine having a work what’s up group. My boss occasionally calls me outside my hours and I don’t pick up.

Definitely understaffed. I probably should have said in my original post that I am looking to leave at some point soon but the market isn't great and I want to build up my CV. So partly I'm looking for survival solutions!

I know a lot of people both friends and my network who work these hours across different sectors. I've always felt you should only work your hours and my team should be the same but harder in practice.

The whole company is like this to be honest. Weekend/late hours/working on holiday etc.

My boss's boss holds the purse strings so this is partly to make sure we secure budgets. My boss's boss is also the one setting the company culture...

As someone in a senior role in the City, I pre-empt any concerns about my clear work-life balance / no emails in the evening or at weekends or on holiday boundaries by talking in SLT meetings about how important it is to role model healthy behaviours to the wider organization / leading by example.

No-one has ever complained / I keep being promoted and praised for my productivity.

Not asked to do it but my manager said if they were my direct report with so much going on, they would probably have cancelled at least some of their holiday. It wasn't even a full week!

I have been good about my own holidays, taking them in full, leaving handover notes and saying if they want me and it's urgent, they can message. They never have.

Same thing in my eyes. It's the level of expectation that work is more important and trumps everything. I couldn't work in that environment.

For sure. Working on the exit plan! This post is to help me in the meantime.😅

@Wonderbug81 good luck! 🙂

I'd think the same. At this company, it's the culture across all depts at a senior level (my level and above).

Mid term I'm getting out but short term I need to work out how to navigate this.

But if you're not bothered about progressing at the company that's easy - you just need to not be so bad they sack you.

Various questions:

How do the "public facing" things that need dealing with urgently get picked up? Could you say saying "I'll be offline this evening so you'll need to text me if there's anything urgent"

What would happen if you were in holiday/at the theatre and couldn't answer those questions?

Then suggestions:

1. Book more plans for the evening. Invite friends over for dinner. Meet someone to go swimming. Book to go and see the royal ballet in the cinema. Take up a language class. Find your child a time consuming hobby. Most workplaces are much better at accepting you're busy if it's for a "reason". But then....
2. This conditions them to the idea you're not regularly available out of hours and soon you'll be able to leave without giving the specifics of the plans.
3. Get your salary. Work out your pay per hour for different hours per week. Decide what you're prepared to be paid/what you're prepared to work. So basically for me, I'm employed 37.5 hours. Anything under about 42-43 I shrug and seem a fairly normal week. 43-50 is in the "prepared to do this maybe 10-15% of the time" and 50+ is in the "preferably not more than 3? weeks a year if I can avoid it". Then start keeping a timesheet. Writing it down will be horrifying but it is a Good Thing. Then start deciding if a week where you have worked over 50 hours is in a "top 3 weeks busy-ness/importance" category and use that to change your approach.
4. Get yourself a set of stock phrases "I don't think we can commit to that timeline." "We're obviously keen to support you but we have a lot of other commitments at the moment. I'll need to check with the team before I agree that that deadline is feasible." "If that's the priority for this week that's fine but we'll have to look at deprioritising X in that case."
5. Get your team and you to the point where you have an accurate, deadlined and prioritised to do list available at all times. (I'm a big fan of Microsoft planner.) Then you can say "okay our lowest priorities are X and Y currently, if we take that on they'll have to be paused until our capacity increases again" etc.

If you don't want to stay there is doesn't matter if they like you. You just need them not to sack you.

But she should be able to progress even if she is not available in the evenings.
I am a manager and the best performers in my team are those who really focus during work hours, typically don’t work long hours, but do so when needed.

Can you tell your boss that it’s essential she doesn’t cancel holidays otherwise she will burn out?

I worked in an always on culture in middle management and the only way I survived was booking a week off every eight weeks rather than having a long summer holiday.

To be honest though after kids I had to quit as I couldn’t sustain the role’a expectations alongside the juggle of the early years. I never made the seniority I deserved. I’m self employed now and earn ok but I do regret not proving myself at the very top. However I never earned enough to have a nanny which would have made that possible (a low pay high prestige industry)

Thank you!

When I first started, I did say 'text me if urgent, I don't check Teams late evenings or weekends' and was told by a colleague that it doesn't work like that as we're a 24 hour service and messages can come in any time through Teams!

It's not every day that things come through in fairness but the system really isn't set up to be fair on work/life balance.

But at a broader level yes I think I will just be unavailable until to the next morning every so often to start setting a different type of expectation.

I do also need to implement prioritisation lists with my team anda high level prioritisation framework with my manager. I tried to at the beginning but everything was a priority and I was so new it was hard to work out what to prioritise. I can control that better now.

I think my boss is a workaholic. She's smart, she knews she should take hols.

I have done the same as you yes - booked hols for Feb and Apr already. Does make it feel easier when you're working towards a milestone (treat)!

If you are genuinely a 24 hour service you should have resourcing in place to manage that - even if it’s just a rota of who is ‘on call’ overnight because it’s not actually a 24 hour service.

People like to feel important and they judge how important they are by how busy they are. In reality many of them are massively inefficient.

This is crazy. As a manager I would respect people who refused to comply because they had a life outside work.